Building My Home Network with OPNsense and AdGuard

Personal home lab

Repurposing a desktop PC as a router and firewall, developing my home network, and configuring DNS filtering and local hostname resolution.

Published on 10/25/2026

Overview

I developed my home network to gain practical experience with networking hardware, routing, firewalling and DNS. The setup includes a repurposed Dell desktop running OPNsense, a managed switch and TP-Link Omada wireless networking.

I subsequently added AdGuard Home to explore network-level DNS filtering while maintaining local hostname resolution.

Equipment

• Dell OptiPlex 3020 SFF.
• Dual-port Intel network card.
• Managed network switch.
• TP-Link Omada wireless access point.
• OPNsense, AdGuard Home and Unbound.

Practical work

• Repurposing the Dell desktop as an OPNsense router/firewall.
• Installing a dual-port Intel network card.
• Working with the physical network and wireless access point.
• Installing and configuring AdGuard Home on OPNsense.
• Configuring DNS filtering with the default AdGuard filter.
• Working with Unbound and home.arpa for local hostname resolution.
• Investigating DNS behaviour and checking the results of configuration changes.

Checks and results

I confirmed that a blocked advertising domain, doubleclick.net, resolved to 0.0.0.0. I also checked that local hostnames resolved correctly.

What I learned

The project helped me understand how physical network components, routing, firewalling and DNS services fit together. It also reinforced the importance of checking connectivity, name resolution and filtering separately when investigating a problem.