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OpenWrt 23.05

openwrt.org

31–40 of 84 posts

Re: OpenWrt 23.05

#31
Also note, that there is DD-WRT, which is a similar, but different project. Some routers might be supported by one, but not the other. I have a Netgear Nighthawk, for example, which is not supported by OpenWRT, but by DD-WRT.

Re: OpenWrt 23.05

#32
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By default, yes. But if you read the next paragraph: "While mbedtls is now the default, users who have specific needs or preferences can still manually switch back to wolfssl or choose openssl."

I did read the next paragraph - I just didn't quote it because it wasn't relevant to my question. :-D

To be clear, this is for the router admin interface. Your day-to-day TLS3 browsing is unaffected.

Re: OpenWrt 23.05

#33

I really want a 6E router that can run this. Only options right now are one that’s expensive and not readily available, and the other is a rebranded Zyxel one only available via a Norwegian ISP.

Router name plz :-D

https://forum.openwrt.org/t/6-ghz-router-openwrt/160061

Re: OpenWrt 23.05

#34

Just updated all my devices, the stable support to the Wifi 6E is a great thing. OpenWrt is the best firware with the best community and support for home network devices!

What devices do you currently run OpenWRT on? I’d like to have a good and secure home network, currently running a pair of Ubiquity UDRs, and sometimes I wish I could have more control.

Re: OpenWrt 23.05

#35

OpenWrt is incredible. My USG-3P died a few months ago, so I dusted off my old Asus router and made an unplanned switch to OpenWrt. This was meant to be a temporary solution until I could get a new UniFi device, but after setting it up and getting it working the way I want I'm more than happy to make this temporary solution into a permanent one.

If you do want the USG back, most of their failure modes (flash storage, PSU) are fairly easy to resurrect

My Asus router, when using OpenWrt, can't keep up with my internet connection, so I'm putting (admittedly minimal) effort into finding a suitable upgrade with the intent to keep the Asus as a backup.

I've also looked at installing OpenWRT on my USG, but only the snapshot version is available and the process is fairly involved[0] so I haven't really explored this.

At this point though, I'm not likely to go back to Unifi for routing. I needed to use the config.gateway.json (I think) workaround to add some DNS config[1] to my USG, whereas with OpenWrt I can do this entirely in the UI.

[0] https://openwrt.org/toh/ubiquiti/unifi_security_gateway_3p

[1] Just wildcard resolution so that *.internal.domain points to a reverse proxy server, nothing too extraordinary.

Re: OpenWrt 23.05

#36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use an old Asus RT-N56U for great (Gigabit) switching performance. Wifi is only N, and you have to be careful, there are two HW revisions, that are indistinguishable from the outside. An alternative could be different TP Link devices, but I never tested these. For more modern purposes I use a Linksys WRT32X with divested[1] image, but you could also go for the 1900 or even 1200, depending on your needs... Maybe als…

I can't recommend the WRT3200 devices, the wifi stability is horrible

I have the WRT3200ACM and it works great.

Re: OpenWrt 23.05

#37
I recently became an openwrt user (new Dynalink $79 woot) and am happy, but it isn’t all sunshine and roses as folks tend to rave about it here.

First, the distribution is bare bones to the extreme by default. Like Linux in the 90s bones. Understood, some old routers are tiny, but it makes a RasbPi feel positively ergonomic. Lucky you can install packages pretty easily, like htop etc. Have to install the web gui of course.

Could be wrong but don’t think you can upgrade with a command like Debian. Have to save config and reflash again. Hope not.

Speaking of which, there’s all these config files like nothing you’ve ever seen before. Learning curve steep. Have to bond physical interfaces with APs manually. Odd defaults like wifi clients not allowed to talk to each other. Better get used to hunting online for settings. Fixing that required changing an obscure multicast setting, buried in the gui, not isolation. This is a home not a cafe. :-D

The wiki for my device was hard to follow, basically cut and paste from multiple forum posts with a few critical tidbits missing for a new user. I hunted them down.

I kept very good notes and intended to improve the wiki, but guess what? not editable. Oh and folks who ask questions told to read the wiki fully. I did read it twice at least and have a lot of other experience so trudged through. Had to make an account on one server and ask for account on wiki. Was ignored, got no notifications at least. Post expired.

Now it’s been two weeks… have forgotten a lot and wiki page still shiti. Not how FLOSS is supposed to work. So yeah, happy with it in general but lots of room for improvement.

Re: OpenWrt 23.05

#38
post #15
post #14

OpenWRT is great for taking bargain routers on eBay (which can be had for as little as £5 and yet have fast CPUs and support modern WiFi radios) and making them into proper homelab gateways with VPN, VLANs, DNS proxies etc. I would often do this for friends who wanted VPN access to their home network but didn't want to fork out for a router that would offer this out of the box. I would find it amusing when an ISP's s…

Would you recommend any specific model for such “bargain routers”?

I build my own with a Raspberry Pi CM4 I had lying around plus a dfrobot router carrier board [1] (though I suppose the reRouter [2] by Seeed Studio could also suffice). Not sure why I picked that one. Maybe I read a review on how it could saturate 1 gbit but don't pin me on it please. The reRouter could even have a better case.

I'd prefer to run OPNsense on it if I could, but it isn't available for ARM64 as of now.

[1] https://www.dfrobot.com/product-2705.html

[2] https://wiki.seeedstudio.com/reRouter_Intro/

Re: OpenWrt 23.05

#39

OpenWrt is commonly used to breathe new (or better) life into consumer routers, but you can also run it on any x86 machine. I run it on a small, passively-cooled i5 machine* virtualized in Proxmox alongside Home Assistant. I originally ran OPNSense, then VyOS, but eventually went back to OpenWRT since it does everything I want/need with a simple interface. * https://www.reddit.com/r/homelab/comments/hzvfih/new_router…

I've run virtualized network applications before, and have always had trouble with the container mapping addresses into a new private IP subnet. Is this able to be worked around?

Re: OpenWrt 23.05

#40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use an old Asus RT-N56U for great (Gigabit) switching performance. Wifi is only N, and you have to be careful, there are two HW revisions, that are indistinguishable from the outside. An alternative could be different TP Link devices, but I never tested these. For more modern purposes I use a Linksys WRT32X with divested[1] image, but you could also go for the 1900 or even 1200, depending on your needs... Maybe als…

I can't recommend the WRT3200 devices, the wifi stability is horrible

32X is a real device name (the gaming router)... 3200ACM is another device. But did you try divested? It has patches for wifi...
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