Can ClearOS box replace my router?

I want to get rid of my router and use a UTM distro. I was looking at ClearOS, and am very impressed by its features.

I have FIOS right now; I want to build the ClearOS box, and connect it straight to the outside ONT without using any router/modem. Of course, I'll still probably put the Verizon router either on the DMZ or assign it an IP to allow the STBs unfettered access to the internet for my TVs.

I know I can do this with Untangle. Is it possible with ClearOS? Thanks!

You sure can use ClearOS to replace your router. I have used clearOS for many years back when it was 'clarkconnect' as well as since it changed to ClearOS.

Its a nice router distro which has a nice interface. For many years before clarkconnect I was just using an iptables script on a general *nix box. I went to ClearOS because it had a pretty good multiwan implementation in it. I pretty much used it all the way until I moved almost 2 years ago into a FIOS area.

From the begging I planned on getting two 35/35 FIOS connections and bonding them as that was the fastest connection at the time (upload) and I wanted more bandwidth. The reason I switched away from clearOS was the only distro that could do bonding (via VPN) which is what I wanted to do with a nice GUI/fail-over system was zeroshell. Zeroshell is extremely advanced and has a GUI for almost any iptables combination. I really like zeroshell but it is definitely overwhelming for someone who is not already very familiar with iptables so I would not recommend it for the feint of heart. Also zeroshell its meant to only act as a router/vpn/etc and pretty much nothing else and its hard-drive installation is kind of a joke leaving most of the OS files in read-only mode. I really customized my zeroshell setup so I have a full read/write OS partition, custom kenel and use it for torrenting, web hosting and lots of other stuff (that it couldn't do out of the box).


Edit: Just to add if you are not already you will need to have VZ switch your ONT from coax to ethernet before you can use clearOS unless you want to say create another bridge on the actiontec between the WAN ethernet/WAN moca and use the actiontec as a bridge for LAN and WAN traffic. I personally prefer ethernet though as there is less jitter, lower latency, and its more reliable.
ClearOS on the other hand is much more user friendly for using it for a lot more than just a router. It can be a NAS, FTP/HTTP server and pretty much any other type of server linux can be used for and pretty easily. I generally have nothing but good things to say about ClearOS except that I outgrew it.

I eventually went away from my bonded 70/70 fios and now am on a 150/75 FIOS connection instead so I didn't need to continue using zeroshell but decided I liked it especially after all the work I did to get it setup for my uses and still use it today.

If its just gonna be a router/web/etc type of server then really any old CPU will do. The only time the router functions are really CPU intensive would be with a PPPoE connection or a VPN. I had a 100/100 FTTP connection when I lived in Japan which was PPoE based. The 1.7 Ghz celeron box I used with clearOS was not *quite* fast enough to completely saturate the pipe as pppd started using near 100% cpu usage around 90 megabits or so. Unless you are on some really old grandfathered FIOS account you should not be using PPoE and thus any old box that is 800 Mhz or better will likely handle things no problem. My zeroshell box runs on a 1.6 Ghz atom and it can do regular NAT at around 900 megabits (outbound and inbound at the same time). I would suggest getting a machine with good NICs though (like intel-based ones eg: e100/e1000/e1000e/igb/etc).

I never really watched the TV service I had (which was required to get 35/35 on one of my connections but I did happen to use it when the earthquakes hit japan as it got tv-japan for free. During that time I had no problems getting everything on the STB working. I just disabled the DHCP server on the actiontec and left the WAN cable unplugged and just gave it an IP on the subnet that wasn't one my DHCP server gave (so I could still access it) and just used it as a bridge/wireless gateway. The LAN moca COAX (which the STB's use) are bridged to the LAN ethernet ports on the actiontec so I just hooked up one of the LAN ports of the actiontec to the LAN ports of my main switch my zeroshell box and other computers are hooked up to and the STB worked no problem and all their communication was going through my zeroshell box and at this point the actiontec is just acting like a switch and not doing any routing at all. This means I could ping/access the STB from computer on my LAN as well.

Thanks for the reply. I already had foresight of this, and before Verizon came and installed, I wired up my house with brand new CAT5e shielded ethernet, and then when Verizon came, I told them to separate it and make the internet on the ethernet connection and the TV on the coax connection. So I'm all set there.

What I've decided to do is this.

ONT > IBM T40 laptop running Pfsense > ClearOS server (in the future)

Right now I'm just going to install Pfsense to get the router side of things working, then I will switch over the entire network in my house to run on ClearOS, as I like the enterprise environment (for free!) that I can use at home. I'm already familiar with SBS 2003, so this will just be a free substitute for that.