this post was submitted on 31 Jan 2026
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Finally ditched my ISP’s router and installed my own opnsense firewall with my own Access Point. I have crowdsec running on opnsense to block attacks + adguard to block ads and malicious domains. My network is segmented between my homelab that is exposed and my AP.

Finally feels quite safe in my network πŸ˜…

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[–] whimsy@lemmy.zip 37 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Networking isn't my strong suit, so this might be a stupid question. But what exactly is a hardware firewall? Is it the same thing as my Internet facing router blocking incoming packets which haven't been requested from "inside the home" network?

[–] irmadlad@lemmy.world 27 points 6 months ago

A hardware firewall generally indicates a standalone appliance that is dedicated to being a firewall. Not to be confused with a software firewall as you would see with UFW, or Windows Defender. Modern routers do possess some of the same tenets of a hardware firewall, but a dedicated hardware firewall usually gives a broader range of defenses such as IDS/IPS, filtering, etc.

I have a dedicated hardware firewall in the form of pFsense. The 'black box' in OP's picture is the hardware firewall.