How to Turn Anything into a Router

Re:How to Turn Anything into a Router by namibj on Tuesday March 31, 2026 @02:34AM (#47583507)

Iirc classic WRT-841 and similar "300Mbit WiFi" generation 4-100Mbit-ports Wi-Fi routers had the CPU attached via an on-SoC gigabit link to a vlan capable switch that has the 4 100BASE-TX ports exposed.

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Re:How to Turn Anything into a Router by jack1243star on Tuesday March 31, 2026 @03:13AM (#47583798)

Are there links I can read up on this? Ethernet as on-chip bus blows my mind.

I guess it's cheaper than having to redesign an entire SoC, but still...

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Re:How to Turn Anything into a Router by doubled112 on Tuesday March 31, 2026 @08:21AM (#47586272)

These SoCs are often purpose built for networking. The CPU just connects to an internal switch chip instead of an external jack.

Mikrotik makes block diagrams of some of their Routerboards available. This is a hAP AC3, for example

https://i.mt.lv/cdn/product_files/RBD53iG-5HacD2HnD_201031.p...

It runs on a Qualcom IPQ4019 single-chip Wi-Fi system-on-chip (SoC)

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