Generally speaking I would avoid combining critical networking infrastructure with other services. Just from a reliability standpoint.
Let your router be just a router. Simple = reliable.
this post was submitted on 24 May 2025
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You can run a router VM but I run my opnsense on a thin client directly.
The R3 isn't really powerful enough for that.
On small x86 routers you can install Opnsense or IPfire which come with some non-router software to run a reverse-proxy or so. IP fire also allows to run full VMs, but the more advanced features are pretty limited.
Some people also do the reverse and run a full OS on them and then virtualize Opnsense and directly pass through a NIC to that VM.
@poVoq Yeah I was thinking that the overhead of a Hypervisor was a bit much hence something that is a bit more lightweight.
Why not OpenWrt?
@bizdelnick Oh I love Openwrt andnfor router functionality its great. But I am trying to have my cake and eat it by seeing what applications I could also selfhost on the box as well. e.g. anything such as email, file sharing, activitypub server or homeassistant
I'd run the lightest full OS that you can, and run containers for services.
If you really want to get fancy you could use something like the frrrouting package to make any Linux based operating system your router, but that's almost entirely configured through a cisco-like command interface
I'll be honest, I was writing while pooping and didn't really think it all the way through. A router in a container probably doesn't make sense. Maybe run the router on the OS, and then services in containers alongside. I'm not sure how janky the networking will be, if docker and the router will both be creating rules. Maybe one VM, so that it's just a plain bridge adapter, and containers in there.