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OpenWrt 23.05

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Re: OpenWrt 23.05

#41

Post by Sunspark »

mixmastamyk wrote: post #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 c…

The web-gui is installed by default on most devices that are officially supported.

Re: OpenWrt 23.05

#42

Post by scheme271 »

Mister_Snuggles wrote: post #35
bdavbdav wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 Uni…

Just pick up the nanopi r4s or r6s. Fairly small, but with nice specs and support in openwrt. The r6s isn't supported by openwrt 23.05 but you can get the friendly elec fork or get a community rebuild of openwrt with a later kernel that supports it. You'll get a router that can work at line speed (1Gb or 2.5Gb) even if you use features like SQM or wireguard.

Re: OpenWrt 23.05

#43

Post by Sunspark »

CrLf wrote: post #21

I wish OpenWRT had LTS releases... I'm still on 21.02.7 because they switched to nftables syntax for custom rules ("firewall.user") in 22.03 and I have a pile of them and haven't had the time to rewrite it all. This release means 21.02 will have no more security updates.

I'm still on 18. I'll probably switch to 23 sometime.

The device is stable and I'm the only one using it so I didn't feel any pressing rush to deal with the hassle since a lot of "security" issues are often from the inside not the outside.

So I would say don't stress overmuch about it.

Re: OpenWrt 23.05

#44

Post by jdjdjdhhd »

Ecco wrote: post #15
cjdell wrote: 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”?

RaspberryPi can host Wireguard VPN... Not sure if they are available again though

Re: OpenWrt 23.05

#45

Post by fn-mote »

mixmastamyk wrote: post #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 c…

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

I think most people upgrade via reflashing through the admin interface (GUI). Read [1], "Can you keep settings?"

My experience is old, so I won't comment on the rest of the points.

[1]: https://openwrt.org/docs/guide-user/installation/generic.sys...

Re: OpenWrt 23.05

#46

Post by specialist »

jvolkman wrote: post #19

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…

Noob question, sorry.

> also run it on any x86 machine

With the stock wifi chip and antenna? Or would I need to upgrade?

Asked another way: my old PC can be the "server"? Just like any wifi base station?

Re: OpenWrt 23.05

#47

Post by patrakov »

specialist wrote: post #46
jvolkman wrote: post #19

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…

Noob question, sorry. > also run it on any x86 machine With the stock wifi chip and antenna? Or would I need to upgrade? Asked another way: my old PC can be the "server"? Just like any wifi base station?

Intel WiFi chips work as acess points only in the 2.4 GHz band. You can add an "Alfa Network AWUS036ACM" USB WiFi adapter as something that works in the 5 GHz band, but please don't expect more than 400 Mbps from it.

Re: OpenWrt 23.05

#48

Post by alibert »

diggan wrote: post #13
alibert wrote: post #11

Caution advised for people jumping early, the Release Candidate 4 was released only ~10 days ago and didn't have the usual long testing period (usually month). More, the devs introduced major refactors late in the release cycle. RC4 changelog includes bump to major components, most notably: hostapd, ucode, ubus, netifd. https://forum.openwrt.org/t/openwrt-23-05-0-rc4-fourth-relea...

Is that common in OpenWrt to introduce more changes between RC versions? Usually you want to stabilize everything as much as possible until the final version been released, but seems they continue to push out RCs as standard updates...

Unfortunately, yes. On top of that, they keep adding new devices in RC, keep bumping the kernel version (minor), introducing new code base (such as the new refactor on hostapd/ucode/netifd) and sometime cherry picking commits from master which I would have not chosen (not just bug fixes but features).

Don't get me wrong though, I very happy that such project exists but OpenWrt could be more stable and reliable with a better workflow. Anytime you flash a new version, you have this small fear of bricking your device (especially the exotic ones as Openwrt mainly relies on external testers).

Re: OpenWrt 23.05

#49

Post by jvolkman »

specialist wrote: post #46
jvolkman wrote: post #19

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…

Noob question, sorry. > also run it on any x86 machine With the stock wifi chip and antenna? Or would I need to upgrade? Asked another way: my old PC can be the "server"? Just like any wifi base station?

It's a confusing photo; those antennae are for that machine as a client, not an access point. I use it only as a router (i.e., it routes my LAN to the internet over gigabit fiber), and I use a separate access point for wifi.

The antennae are useless for my use case, but they came with it and if I removed them I'd just have to find somewhere else to store them...

Re: OpenWrt 23.05

#50

Post by mixmastamyk »

Sunspark wrote: post #41
mixmastamyk wrote: post #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 c…

The web-gui is installed by default on most devices that are officially supported.

Nice to hear, thanks.
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