[PLUG] How best to connect a subnet of Pi Zeros?

[Eric House]

I'm playing with Raspberry Pi Zeros, trying to integrate a handful of
them into my home network. I'm thinking they could replace the VM that
currently handles http[s] traffic to my home domain.

Zeros, for those who don't know, are $5 512M/single-core ARM devices
with only a micro-USB OTG port for connectivity. If you configure them
correctly, you can provide power and networking over the same cable so
there's not too much cable clutter added.

pi at pz1:~ $ cat /proc/cpuinfo
processor : 0
model name : ARMv6-compatible processor rev 7 (v6l)
BogoMIPS : 997.08
Features : half thumb fastmult vfp edsp java tls
CPU implementer : 0x41
CPU architecture: 7
CPU variant : 0x0
CPU part : 0xb76
CPU revision : 7

Hardware : BCM2835
Revision : 900093
Model : Raspberry Pi Zero Rev 1.3

So far I've succeeded in building a version of OpenWRT that runs on a
Pi 4, which has standard USB ports. I've plugged a four-port USB hub
into one of them. As Zeros connected to the hub come up, usb<n>
entries are created in the output of 'ip addr'. I added an interface
that bridges them together, gets them networked via DHCP, and
generally convinces me that what I'm doing will work.

The question is: what's the best way to integrate them into my
network? I'm not sure I need another OpenWRT box, as most of what it
does -- firewalling, dhcp, etc. -- can already be done by my gateway
router. Really the only requirement of the box they connect through is
that it have a USB port (which my Ubiquity X doesn't). If there were a
package like OpenWRT but focussed on load-balancing rather than
routing perhaps it'd be a better choice.

Thanks!

--Eric

-- 
My g-bike can trounce your e-bike!