docker-omada-controller VS firewalla

I use pfSense on top of KVM, with TP-Link Omada for wifi. Rock-solid.

You can install pfSense using the serial image[1] for a real text-only console you can access via SSH to the host machine. The Omada controller runs well in docker[2].

1: https://gist.github.com/RulerOf/2608c8455b3dcf6088be206f86c6...

2: https://github.com/mbentley/docker-omada-controller

If you are Linux-savvy, you could do this even more cheaply by replacing the ER7212PC with a garden-variety PoE switch plus a Raspberry Pi 4 running Omada Controller in a Docker container, plus DHCP and DNS servers.

I have the Omada controller 4.x running on a PC. I want to move to Firewalla Purple using mbentley's Omada container, https://github.com/mbentley/docker-omada-controller

My setup: I'm using my server (HP EliteDesk 800 G2 Mini) to manage my two TP-Link Omada compatible devices (one managed switch and one Wi-Fi 6 AP) with the help of Docker - an Omada SDN wrapper image (by mbentley/docker-omada-controller). The server is running behind the managed switch (just for information), the Docker container running on this server, from docker-compose and there is no other problems just the issue below.

So if I look at his documentation, he includes a sample docker compose file here. Fantastic, I don't even have to guess or anything. I can just copy and paste his file and then tweak as necessary! Mine looks different than his because I copied his example a long time ago, and he's modified his code since then. Anyway, my service definition still works, so I'm not sweating the differences.

firewalla is open source https://github.com/firewalla/firewalla

Just to follow up because I think I misread OP—they’re looking at Firewalla who publishes their source on github, and it looks a lot like your classic FOSS firewall running suricata and probably doing DNS-based filtering. I bet if you dig into their source you’ll find dnscryptproxy, unbound, or dnsmasq with filter sets.

Using the Firewalla VPN Client for a 3rd party connection is one way. What this means is that devices on your network can initiate connections through the VPN to external addresses, and those external addresses can respond and make use of the established connection (ex: your machine uses a browser to request the webpage https://help.firewalla.com through the vpn connection, and the server hosting the webpage receives the request and is able to respond, by sending the requested webpage)

search https://help.firewalla.com you will find more articles on this topic. And if not, the communitly likely have more https://help.firewalla.com/hc/en-us/community/topics/360001948014-Expanding-Firewalla-Docker-Third-Party-Apps-Scripts-

there are a few threads https://help.firewalla.com like this https://help.firewalla.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/4411622449811-Omada-Controller-Docker

From my understanding zeek does the inspection (probably not https / tls ) and generates alerts (internally) which Firewallas software (https://github.com/firewalla/firewalla) picks up and analyses then throws out alerts / blocks as they see fit.

Technically yes, but also maybe no. Firewalla's software is open source. You can download and modify it on GitHub. If you really wanted to, you could fork it and strip out all of the firewalla-specific code (ie licensing, app integration, etc.) and replace it with your own code.