Esp32 Nat Router

An AI-enabled NAT Router/Firewall for the ESP32

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No install snippet on purpose. A working MCP config is a command, its arguments and an environment block — the last two are where API keys live, so this catalogue never stores them and cannot publish them. Follow the link above for the authors' own instructions.

This is a firmware to use the ESP32 as WiFi NAT router. It routes between the network of the AP interface and the STA or ETH interface as uplink network. It can also work as a VPN router using WireGuard as uplink.

Other WiFi Router/Repeater Projects

Starting from this code base I started several spin-off projects with slightly differrent scope. These are all (ab)using the ESP as a minimal network device.

  • Layer 2 WiFi Repeater: Finally we have it - the WiFi Repeater, a layer 2 network bridge between STA and AP (no NAT, no DHCP, just plain frame forwarding in one broadcast domain, i.e. one IP network segment). You currently find it's sources in the esp32_wifi_repeater branch of this repo, that is still under development, but it works generally with good performance and makes it a >2$ WiFi extender.
  • WiFi Access Point: If you have a W32-ET01 board and you are looking for a plain ESP32 Ethernet AP, or correctly for an Ethernet to WiFi Layer 2 Bridge, check out esp32_eth_wifi_bridge.
  • Ethernet Router: If you are looking for an ESP32 NAT router with reverse direction, i.e. WiFi STA as uplink (Internet) and Ethernet as downlink (LAN), check out esp32_ethernet_router. Here I also experiment with support for the common WIZnet W5500 SPI Ethernet NIC.
  • PPPoE Router: If you ever consider using the ESP32 as an open-source ISP router, have a look at the esp32_PPPoE_router. It adds PPPoE as additional Ethernet uplink option. So it could be used directly on an ISP modem.
  • ESP8266 NAT Router/Repeater: The grandfather of all these projects, a feature monster once build on the NONOS-SDK for the ESP8266.

Use cases for the NAT Router:

  • Simple range extender for an existing WiFi network
  • An additional WiFi network with different SSID/password and restricted access for guests or IoT devices
  • VPN-Router using WireGuard
  • Converter from a corporate (WPA2-Enterprise) network to a regular (WPA-PSK) network for simple devices
  • Classic WiFi router with Ethernet uplink
  • MCP-server to control your network using agentic AI
  • Presence detection and network monitoring in a Home Assistant IoT network
  • Debugging and monitoring of WiFi devices

Key Features

From the project's README.