With the release of MacOS 27, Apple announced that they dropped support for Intel Macs and so I decided to repurpose my 2019 Intel Mac Mini that I had spec’d out with 10G Ethernet and 16G RAM. I was able to unlock the boot loader and load up Linux on it to turn it into a 10G SFP+ connected router.
Hardware-Defined Networking: I was previous running a Lenovo Mini PC with a 4 port 2.5G card where I could connect the WAN, LAN, VPN In, VPN Out to the router directly. The previous setup was technically more efficient as the bulk of the traffic was flowing in and out of the router.
Software-Defined Networking: In the new setup, the bulk of the traffic is also now flowing in and out of the switch as well as the router which is technically less efficient. The M4 Pro Mac Mini is still running the VPN In / Out solution that I had previously worked on and posted about before (including the proxy backup solution as well).
Now I have the Intel Mac Mini connected with a 10G SFP+ trunk port which has the 4 separate VLANs on the switch to connect and separate those 4 different networks working along side the ARM Mac Mini!
The 4 main functions and routing paths of the VLAN network are:
- Client -> WiFi
- WiFi -> VPN
- VPN -> WAN
- WAN -> Server
The USW PRO MAX switch is now fully connected with the following ports from the right:
- Port 1: Router [VLAN Trunk] (10G)
- Port 2: WAN [VLAN Access] (2.5G)
- Port 3: WiFi Clients [VLAN Access] (2.5G)
- Port 4: WiFi Bridge [VLAN Access] (2.5G)
- Port 5: VPN In [VLAN Trunk] (2.5G)
- Port 6: VPN Out [VLAN Access] (2.5G)
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