There is something about firewalls and routers that has always managed to excite me. From being a rudimentary system comprising a lone BT router, emitting wifi for the family years back, my home network has grown into a complex system of switches, ethernet cables, modems, VLANs, and sunbets that quite often, and honestly, overwhelms its creator too !! A custom router, complete with load balancers, failovers, inbound and outbound VPNs and a sophisticated firewall is the latest addition to my labyrinth. Building this cunning piece of software and coaxing it to work on a rather inexpensive Raspberry Pi has been quite an experience, which I am delighted to share. If such networking experiments thrill you as much as they thrill me…..read on….