On 29/01/2019 16:55, Tim wrote:
On 27/01/2019 19:13, Tim wrote:
On 27/01/2019 12:57, Patrick Wigmore wrote:
On Mon, 14 Jan 2019 17:59:30 +0000, Tim wrote:
If anybody has any stories regarding OpenWRT I would interested to
hear them
On Sat, 26 Jan 2019 13:13:02 +0000, Ralph Corderoy wrote:
Every time I'm in the market for a new broadband modem, like now,
I consider buying one supported by OpenWRT, but never manage it.
The last I checked, the only available ADSL or VDSL modem that
OpenWRT appeared to actually have a driver for was the one inside
the BT Home Hub 5 type A (a.k.a. Plusnet Hub One or BT Business Hub
5). It is not a badly specified device given how cheaply available
they are. 802.11ac, 128MB RAM, 128MB flash, 500MHz CPU. I bought one
and put OpenWRT on it. The main downsides I see are: * Though it has
gigabit network interfaces, it is not capable of actually routing
traffic at gigabit speeds. (I don't care about that: it's fast
enough for me.) * It is too easy to press the prominently-located
restart button while handling the device, causing an unwanted
reboot. Presumably the stock firmware requires regular rebooting so
they decided to make a feature out of it. * It makes a quiet ticking
noise like a laptop hard drive when it is transceiving WiFi traffic.
(This seems to be the power supply circuitry responding to the
varying load, because connecting a USB- powered device that uses PWM
to fade some LEDs up and down causes the Home Hub to provide an
audible rendition of the PWM signal, providing many minutes of
entertainment.) * Unlike the radio in my previous, lower-spec
Buffalo device (also running OpenWRT), the WiFi radios don't seem to
support operating simultaneously as both a client and an access
point. Though, since it's dual band and has two radios, the unit as
a whole can do this, provided you don't mind dedicating a whole
frequency band (2.4GHz or 5GHz) to each of these functions. * It
doesn't have many indicator LEDs (but all three are RGB, so you can
squeeze quite a bit of information out through them). * No option
for external WiFi antennae (it works well without them, but some
people might have a specific reason why they need or want them). Its
been very stable for me. The only unplanned downtime has been due to
power failures. I've only tried the xDSL modem itself for an hour or
two, to test it. Therefore, I can't vouch for the xDSL modem's
long-term stability, but I was satisfied that it would probably do
the job if I wanted it to. The modem took a loooooong time to make a
connection on the first attempt: about half an hour. I put that down
to the DSLAM on the other end of the line being surprised to see a
different modem, but not before I went on a wild goose chase
tweaking the configuration to see if anything would make it work.
After the initial connection, it appeared capable of reconnecting
much more quickly. On Sat, 26 Jan 2019 13:13:02 +0000, Ralph
Corderoy wrote:
I realise their specialised devices, but I'm surprised that projects
like OpenWRT don't settle on a collection of chips that they
support very well, e.g. good quality Linux kernel drivers, and then
see if they can crowdfund a device built around them.
If you are acquiring new hardware, it seems to me that the only
product category where there really seems to be a lack of OpenWRT
compatibility is modems. If you just want a router or a WiFi access
point, there are plenty of options. I speculate that it would be
difficult to compete with the existing choice in those categories, but
the xDSL modem-router category would be more fertile ground for a
crowd-funded product.
Patrick Wigmore
It is a strange position that had I spent more time researching the
router I purchased (Linksys WRT1900ACS) I may never have purchased
it. To start with I can not block ports and this afternoon I found
that snmp is not available and I can find no where to enable snmp
within its current config (it does not reply to snmpwalk command).
Googling seem to return plenty of replies regarding requests for new
features (like SNMP). I guess this is the downside that a router is
now seen as a consumer product and the average bod on the street is
just interested in plug and play and not worried about blocking ports
or checking your bandwidth usage. Had the funds been available I
would have gone for a Draytec (I have used them at work in the past
and quite happy with them) but I thought I was doing alright buying a
Linksys, I had used Linksys routers many years ago just after getting
cable Internet. I thought they were still owned by Cisco but found
out after the purchase that they were sold on and bought by Belkin
who's network products I have used in the past and found them to be
rubbish.
I blame nobody else but myself, I should of done my homework before
the purchase. I will have to start planning the firmware upgrade to
OpenWRT and pray that it gives me what I want as the alternative is
asking the wife for an increase in the IT budget (for a new router)
will not go down very well.
Tim H
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Well finding myself with an afternoon off and nobody else at home I
decided now was a good time to put OpenWRT onto my router. I spent
some time checking out what I needed and making note off the bits and
setting of what was my current setup. I eventually got the the point
where it was time to upload the new Openwrt firmware, took all of
about 30 seconds and that was it. Tool me longer to go and check what
the router was doing then the actual install.
It was at this point of writing this email that I remembered something
in the openwrt config I wanted to check so I jumped back onto the
router and.......................screwed up the configuration and lost
the internet!! Well after faffing around and trying to get the wan
port to accept incoming traffic, I erased the config and started
again. This is a good point to note that there is very good
documentation on how to set up various setting in Openwrt, the
downside being it is only available online, not a lot of use when you
can not get online. If I can not find a downloadable version I will,
look at downloading all the documentation web pages
The new firmware is certainly more comprehensive than the standard
Linksys version with many more options to tweak and play with (just be
careful). I have not yet decided if the OpenWRT makes me want to keep
this router or not but it is looking promising. Well I have a bit of a
steep learning curve in front of me so I am off to see what else I can
break.
Tim H
Well I though I would just pass on a couple of observation I have made
since installing OpenWRT and to be honest I don't view either as best
practice. First, I found the passphrase for my wifi stored on the router
in plain text format (not in the web GUI but in the file system).
Secondly, when you login into the router via ssh you do so as root, to
be fair when you login into the router via the web interface you also do
so as root. There is no option to setup a new user as there is no option
for it, you have to download new modules and install them and then you
can setup new users, not tried that yet.
I have to say that I am a little surprised by these 2 issues, with
OpenWRT being a derivative of a Linux operating system, one of the first
thing new users to Linux are taught when they start with Linux is not to
store passwords in plain text and never login into SSH as root, you
would expect (at least I do) yjr provider of the OS (or in this case
firmware) to set a good example.
Anyway bored you enough for now, happy Sunday to you all
Tim H
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