Mesh system behind a capable router

[SandLake]

I have recently got 1Gib FTTP installed and I have a TP-Link WiFi 6 router which is fine.

I would like to get some thing with more configuration options:-

I would like to run a VPN, I do have a VPN sub and I run it as an app on 1 PC but I would like to cover my whole network or at least some of it, PC's and media sticks

I have decent wired coverage but I would like to supplement it with wireless coverage for phones, tablets and IOT devices.

I'm thinking of an old PC with PfSense/OPNsense/OpenWRT to run as the main router and then with a Mesh system added to it. Can a Mesh system be added to another router - all on the one subnet (I'm not a networking expert, I think that is what it is called) so that I don't get into port forwarding and double NAT issues.

 

[SandLake]

I used to run an OpenVPN vpn on an Asus (Merlin) router and it had the ability to use Policy Based Routing, so, as opposed to running everything through the VPN, I would like to choose the clients that do - is what I should have said - but potentially covering my whole network.
I currently have a (drum-roll) Taotronics mesh wifi system. It works really well, rock solid - but - it is a pig to configure, if it can be configured at all and it cannot sit behind another router, it can and is sitting behind a bridge mode router but that is all.

I have seen that other link but I am more specifically interested in a mesh system that can sit behind another full blown router, I have built a PC with PfSense and am running it now to see how I get on with it, I just need something to give me some WiFi behind it.

I watched an interesting video this morning - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kMgs2XFClaM - about setting up OpenWRT wireless access points that happily co-existed and I have a couple of old Asus routers that are OpenWRT compatible so that might be an option.

Thanks for all the replies

 

[SandLake]

I'll definitely look into OPNSense but I am open to OpenWRT as well.

My new FTTP went down today, I thought it was my PFSense router but it was a national outage - it has been a streessful day!