r/openwrt

Hi All,

Please consider the following standard arrangement:

Laptop -> USB-to-Ethernet converter -> RJ45 cable -> OpenWRT router -> RJ45 cable -> ISP hardware (Modem, ONT, etc)

I am looking to create a device that combines the converter and the router, like so:

Laptop -> USB cable -> NewAwesomeOpenWRTRouter -> RJ45 -> ISP hardware.

I want the USB cable to provide power to the router AND also to appear as a network interface.

I have looked at travel routers. As far as I can determine, all are designed with their USB ports as Host. This makes sense, as they are intended to be used with external drives or for USB tethering.

So now I'm looking at assorted SBCs (e.g. Raspberry Pi), hoping that a USB-OTG port could be configured to serve the role of the USB-to-Ethernet converter. But I don't know if OpenWRT can be used that way. I'm comfortable with Linux but not a networking guru by any means...

Thanks for reading! Any ideas or guidance for me?

why is the X86/PC installation process still so overly complicated on this day and age?

I get its not their main target but i think it should be possible to create a more friendly process or perhaps a proper installer.

I know its done by volunteers and I appreciate their work and no, i am not a programmer so no, i cant create it so please keep your snarky comments to yourself.

I am tech savvy enough to install and run OPNSense which I’m currently using, but I really dislike how convoluted their whole design is and miss using OpenWRT, which i did back in the day with the original NightHawk 7000 router.

I tried over and over to do it following their official install guide and trying to find friendlier guides ended being even worse.

So I ask again, why can this process be done more friendly?

Just wondering if there's a limit to the number of connections/tunnels I can run simultaneously? I'm hoping to set up PBR and then set up different devices and PCs connecting to different VPNs.

Device: QNAP QHora-301W OpenWRT version: 24.10.5

My configuration: Configured 4 VLANs using a custom bridge device named vlan with VLAN filtering enabled, following the approach of creating an 802.1q bridge rather than modifying br-lan directly. used this post as a guide: https://www.reddit.com/r/openwrt/comments/1dhkij9/need_vlan_help/

anyways the VLANS i have are:

• VLAN 10 -- Personal (lan1, lan2 untagged; 10g-1, 10g-2 tagged)
• VLAN 20 -- Servers (10g-1 tagged)
• VLAN 30 -- LANonly (10g-1 tagged)
• VLAN 40 -- IoT (lan3 untagged; 10g-1 tagged)

The Problem im having: Devices plugged into lan1, lan2, and lan3 do not receive DHCP leases. 10g-2 works perfectly and assigns an ip within seconds. The ports physically come up (link detected, forwarding state reached per logs) but no DHCPDISCOVER is ever seen from devices on the gigabit ports. 10g-2 consistently works. All ports worked without issues yesterday. the only changes made after that were some firewall rules but even then it worked afterwards.

Log behavior: When plugging into lan1 the logs show the port and all VLANs entering forwarding state correctly, but no DHCPDISCOVER occurs. When plugging into 10g-2 the DHCP handshake completes immediately.

kern.info kernel: nss-dp 3a001600.dp4 lan1: PHY Link up speed: 1000
vlan: port 3(lan1) entered blocking state
vlan: port 3(lan1) entered forwarding state
netifd: Network device 'lan1' link is up
netifd: bridge 'vlan' link is up
personal: port 1(vlan.10) entered blocking state
personal: port 1(vlan.10) entered forwarding state |
netifd: VLAN 'vlan.10' link is up
# No DHCPDISCOVER follows

kern.info kernel: nss-dp 3a007000.dp6-syn 10g-2: PHY Link up speed: 1000
# DHCPDISCOVER(personal) immediately follows

What I've tried:

• I verified the VLAN config is identical from what i can tell between the working 10g-2 port and the non-working lan1/2/3 ports. both set as untagged on VLAN 10 (or 40 in the case of port 3)
• Made sure all ports are members of the vlan bridge device
• Confirmed VLAN filtering is active on the bridge
• Saw that default_pvid = 1 on the bridge. I suspect this could be a cause since I renamed Personal from VLAN 1 to VLAN 10 and deleted VLAN 1, however when it rebooted both devices yesterday they still worked.
• I could not find a default PVID setting in LuCI but could be missing it
• Power cycling router and client devices did not help
• Tested with multiple client devices (USB ethernet adapter on Arch Linux, Android phone) and got the same behavior on all.

Let me know if any screenshots are needed and I will provide what i can

UPDATE: As another thing to try, i backed up my config, then factory reset the device. After doing so, it looks like the lan1-4 ports STILL do not want to allocate a DHCP address even with the default stock config. Again, very bizarre since when i first set it up, and after i made all my changes yesterday, all the ports were functional. I also tried a different device just to rule out any issues with the laptop i was using. Same issue. DHCP works just fine on port 10g-2 but not on gigabit lan ports 1-4

UPDATE 2: I thought it would be worth a try doing a hardware factory reset via the button on the back instead of the software factory reset that is within LuCI. Not sure if this part matters or not but i had my laptop plugged into lan1 when doing the reset. after doing a reset that way, the ports started working again. However I do not know if they will *stay* working, but as long as i back up my configs whenever i make changes, if it ever occurs again i can attempt the same reset process and hope it fixes it.

Hello everyone. A while ago, I installed OpenWrt on my router. However, I noticed that Hardware Offloading introduces massive latency during uploads, forcing me to rely solely on Software Offloading. Keeping Software Offloading 'On' and Packet Steering 'Enabled' (default) yielded the best results on the Waveform bufferbloat test.

Disabling Software Offloading causes a major drop in download speeds, preventing the router from hitting its 1000 Mbps potential on PPPoE and capping it around 650 Mbps.

I tried installing SQM, but the router’s CPU struggles to handle 'Cake / Piece of Cake' alongside PPPoE encapsulation, leading to poor results. FQ_Codel with the 'Simple' script works slightly better, but it's still suboptimal. Furthermore, bandwidth limits don't work when Software Offloading and SQM are active simultaneously. Disabling offloading and setting Packet Steering to 'All CPUs' helps a bit, but it's still not ideal.

Fortunately, since I flashed OpenWrt via the stock bootloader, reverting to the stock firmware was easy. After going back to the official Mercusys MR90X firmware, enabling QoS with an 875 Mbps symmetric limit, and prioritizing my desktop PC, here are the Waveform test results:

https://preview.redd.it/jezekn22c82h1.jpg?width=1492&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=8978d0cee4920b41a190fc93b34f62097d14735f

I just can't achieve these kinds of results with OpenWrt—I cannot get the bufferbloat latency down to zero for either download or upload. Even with Software Offloading, the maximum observed latency during active downloads constantly spikes to 50–70ms.

Is the CPU simply not powerful enough to handle OpenWrt, or could I have messed something up during the installation process? I am not an experienced user when it comes to OpenWrt or Linux.

Hi,

I set up jellyfin to be able to watch movies stored on my server from anywhere but I have to type something like this: 192.168.0.x:**** whenever I want to access it. I have a router by which all my internet traffic passes by so what I'd like to do is redirect, for example, "www.custom.com" to 192.168.0.x:****

But I can't seem to make it work by adding Hostnames and CNAME aliases in my DHCP and DNS options. Has anyone ever done that and could help me figure out how I can do it myself?

Hi,

I want to upgrade my LTE router to use OPENWRT. The wiki for this router says, that I need the official upgrade firmware for the device, but I could not find it anywhere on the manufacturers website (only for the Lt400, but that's something different).

Could someone provide me with some info on where I can find this official, signed upgrade firmware?

Thanks.

I live rural and I only get 180mbs internet speeds, I want to use openwrt and use wireguard to run a vpn on my gaming pc.

In the gl mt3000 a good choice considering my internet speeds?

I have a Flint2 router running OpenWRT 24.10.5. I’m considering getting a vseebox for media streaming. If I do, I’d connect the box to my router via Ethernet.

How do I isolate the vseebox from the rest of my network, and also make it so my isp doesn’t know what the traffic is?

Hi, can anyone suggest a YouTube guide that I can follow to set up several VLANs (Management, IP Cameras, Guest Wi-Fi, IoT & NAS)?

I would like LuCI and SSH to be accessible only via wired connectivity or through a VPN.

So I have an ASUS RT-AC67P that I want to port OpenWRT to, but the router is essentially a plastic shell with no externally accessible serial/UART port. I can't find a non-destructive way to open this router and access the serial/UART console.

I only have 1 of these on hand, and I am not really willing to basically crack/dremel the case open or buy another one of these cheapo routers in the case it dies in the process of me cracking it open.

I understand that having access to a serial/UART console is important for this type of development/porting as a wrongly made firmware would probably break network connectivity and force me to use serial or UART in order to do recovery or flash a known good firmware.

Are there any particular good practices or tips and tricks I can follow in order to reduce my chances of having to use the serial connection?

Hi, I'm currently running openwrt on a Nanopi R4S which has been pretty good, but support has occasionally been lacking. I need a new device for a different network, and I'm trying to figure out what would be best. My connection will be 1Gb fiber, and I'd like SQM because I've found it's been excellent for cases of heavy uploading (which I often do), but I don't need or want any wifi (I specifically want without wifi, because that can complicate importing, due to certification requirements etc). What's the current recommendation for the best device for a situation like this?

I'm a European player, on a 1Gb fiber connection connected to my PC via Ethernet. 10 ms ping, 0.5 jitter unloaded. I've tried changing ISPs, using GPNs, VPNs, Warp, and fully optimizing Windows 10/11 through regedit and gpedit, but nothing seems to change how my matches feel.

In some matches, I get absolutely melted. In others, everyone feels like a brand-new account. Then there are games that start out normal, but suddenly everyone plays like trash and I can easily end up with a 5 KD in Battlefield, for example.

I'd like to know if switching to OpenWrt would fix this for me...

TL;DR: Check your CPU governor setting. It could be set to a mode with no scaling or at a reduced frequency, which can reduce performance, reduce energy efficiency, and/or increase heat unnecessarily.

I've been working on tuning my Banana Pi R4 SQM performance and today noticed that the CPU governor in the vanilla mainline OpenWRT build is set to "userspace" at a static 1.5GHz frequency. The range of the Filogic 880 in this device is at least 800MHz to 1.8GHz, meaning theoretically, at defaults, I'm using more electricity than needed and am also not able to tap the full potential of the CPU.

Note: in my testing with a Kill-A-Watt, there is no measurable difference in electricity usage between 1.5Ghz and 800Mhz, but on whatever device you're using, this could be a totally different story. However, dropping it down to allow scaling to 800MHz dropped core temps by 1 degree Celsius, so why not.

Easy check and fix for your device

1. SSH in to your device
2. Check the current governor. In my case, it was "userspace" at a static 1.5GHz
   1. cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpufreq/policy0/scaling_governor
3. List the available governors
   1. cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpufreq/policy0/scaling_available_governors
4. Set to your desired setting (I switched to "schedutil" which will scale as needed, up to the full 1.8Ghz)
   1. echo "schedutil" | tee /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpufreq/policy*/scaling_governor
5. Make it persistent
   1. Add the command from Step 4 to your /etc/rc.local

UPDATE: I used nmrpflash to recover/reinstall the original Netgear Firmware, and then I successfully installed FreshTomato.

Noob here - this is my first time attempting to install non-oem firmware onto a router. My goal was to load firmware that would have more up-to-date security.

I downloaded the file "openwrt-25.12.4-bcm53xx-generic-netgear_r7900-squashfs.chk" from here, connected my laptop via ethernet to the lan port, and used the factory firmware's web interface to install the downloaded file. The Netgear GUI told me to wait 2 minutes, and that the router would reboot. Unfortunately, after rebooting, the router isn't responsive - it has a solid orange power light, and nothing else (though "LAN 1" does light up when ethernet is plugged in). Attempting to go to 192.168.1.1 when connected via ethernet does not do anything.

It's not a big deal if the router is bricked - I got it from e-waste anyway - but I would like to understand if there's something I did wrong so I can avoid making the same mistake in the future. The laptop I was using was not connected to WiFi, and the router was only plugged into power and the laptop. TIA!

First of all I should say I am a new user and my knowledge on OpenWRT is very limited and have basic knowledge on network side of things.

With this router's original firmware I should enable QoS for especially online gaming purposes to prevent packet losses, latency issues etc.

These are the tests I conduct with different settings:

SQM Enabled on eth1.35 device, I have to use VLAN ID 35 for connect to my service provider, so under the "Interfaces" menu there is a WAN port which is using PPPoE protocol and the device name I see for this WAN port when I click "Edit" button is "eth1.35" so I select this same device for SQM device setting.

And I am using Software Offloading all the time, if I am not using it download speed is low and when I am using Hardware Offloading(I know it is incompatible with SQM so I am not enabling it with SQM turned ON) upload active test's added latency rate sky rocketed, like 30ms added latency. So I am not using Hardware Offloading at all.

Also I use SQM QoS with default settings, I only changed que discipline and que setup script also selected ethernet for Link Layer Adaptation, overhead was set to 44. I am using Packet Steering setting as "Enabled"(not Enabled-All CPUs) all the time. All below tests conducted with an active zoom session and watching a Netflix 4K Dolby Vision stream at the same time. SQM download and upload speeds set to 834000 Kb/s(without SQM Speedtest result is 927000 Kb/s so I set these speeds according to that result).

The below screenshot belongs to SQM QoS set to Cake - Piece of Cake setting,

https://preview.redd.it/8xz3wxw2og1h1.jpg?width=722&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=97cb9aaa48dcbd2daf0f8026ee565f26875fe131

The below screenshot belongs to FQ-Codel - Simple QoS setting,

https://preview.redd.it/96jtxe54og1h1.jpg?width=725&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=47428e518b7e532dab1956d9e0fd7cfe290b7ffe

​The below screenshot belongs to SQM turned off setting,

https://preview.redd.it/vnjyjcb5og1h1.jpg?width=717&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=63a5db4b7cf80fc8b4c7fe4b7fcc0cdc64419087

As far as I understand after these tests using SQM QoS bringing not so much to the table, I don't know the CPU usage when turned ON SQM but I think I am better off with SQM turned off setting.

Does anybody else know how to fix this? Only one person has been able to join and has continued to be able to join for days now, but everyone else seems to be incapable of joined as they "cannot reach the server". We've turned off, deleted, uninstalled antivirus software like Norton 360, and the person who was able to connect has Norton 360. So does anyone know how to fix this?

Hello everybody! I bought Linksys MX55EC with Openwrt 25.12.2. It works, but I can't start AX WiFi. In Luci I saw only 2.4 GHz, and it works good. Gan you help me? Thanks.

When I don't turn on Software or Hardware Offload(Hardware Offload is problematic with upload added latency value in bufferbloat tests so I don't use it, so much added latency like 30-35ms when active) download speed is max 600-650 Mb/s(I have symmetrical FTTH line speeds are 1000/1000).

But if I turn on Software Offload this time SQM's set download and upload speed limits exceeded in speedtest all the time. When I test it with turning off Software Offload and setting limits to 300000 Kb/s, set limits work as expected. But this time download speed can't reach high values.
I have very limited knowledge on Linux and OpenWRT and don't know the reason what causes it. And I saw a test again with MR90X belongs to 2025 and as I saw this person can use SQM as expected.

I have to setup and use VLAN ID to connect my service provider and using Packet Steering as Enabled(not Enabled-All CPUs) all the time.
And ifstatus wan | grep -e l3_device command returned as “l3_device”: “PPOE-WAN” for me. As far as I understand I have to select this as an interface under SQM settings to work, not "eth1.35" device.

Recently performed another tests. First I installed htop from LuCI after that when I do a speed test I saw CPU 0 is saturated other CPUs not helping and download speed result is in the range of 600-650 Mb/s like that when Offloading disabled at all.
When packet steering set to Enabled-All CPUs this time other cores start helping. This time download speed is in the range 800-850 Mb/s(CPU 0 again most used core, load not spread across to cores in a balanced way)If I enabled SQM with FQ-Codel and Simple QoS settings CPU can’t handle the load again and download speed downed to 650-700 Mb/s range like that. I think there is not a solution for me to use Sofware Offload and SQM at the same time.
Tried irqbalance but recently I uninstalled it. Installed it again but it won’t appear under LuCI’s menu this time. Uninstalling and installing again, rebooting router not working.
Also Enabled-All CPUs packet steering setting causes bad added latency when using Sofware Offload, Enabled setting fixes it.