Archer C7 V2, Raspberry Pi4 and OpenMPTCProuter

Installing and Using OpenWrt
#1

Hi all, I am in need of some advices.

I have used OpenWrt for a few week on a second hand Archer C7. Before that, my first use of the OS was on a Fonera (years ago), that I bricked.

Anyway, I would like to aggregate multiple wan connections using the OpenMPTCProuter project (based on OpenWrt). The first wan connection is delivered by an Ethernet cable (WAN1), the second one is from an LTE USB modem (WAN2). I was able to set up both connections on the Archer C7 with mwan3 for load balancing/failover, but for aggregation I am looking at MPTCP.

The software required for the aggregation is too heavy (storage and cpu wise) for the C7, hence I was thinking of using a Raspberry Pi4 (RPi4) to run the software needed for the aggregation and to provide services on my lan.

But the RPi4 has only one Ethernet port and I would prefer not use a USB-Ethernet adaptor.
Is it possible using VLANs to have WAN1 connected on a port on the C7 and only have one cable from the C7 to the RPi4 ? All WAN1 traffic would be manage by the RPi4, as well as the lan's services (DHCP, NAT, DNS). The C7 would still be used as a switch and a 2.4G and 5G AP.

Please correct me if my reasoning is faulty.

Once the VLANs are set up and OpenMPTCProuter installed on the RPi4. I would have to modify the C7 configuration. The DHCP server would be switch off as well as mwan3. I would need to define a static IP for management on the C7. The APs interface would need to put on the VLAN connected to the RPi4 lan's, for the clients to be able to get an IP + gateway.

I am sure I am forgetting something.
Any ideas, advices or comments ?

#2

i've not used mwan3 ... i'd expect it to handle the vlans without issue...

the rest of the logic / setup makes sense, if your WAN1 exceeds 300Mb/s then a usb3 nic is a smarter option.

1 Like
#3

Why? Surely it'd be the easier solution?

#4

I had bad experience (terrible performances) with USB-Ethernet nic on previous Pi. Now that the Ethernet and USB bus are not shared on the RPi4, it's true that it should not matter.

#5

Fwiw, I'm using a USB-Ethernet adaptor on my rpi4 and it works just fine. I also use one on a intel NUC with no issues. Just make sure it's got a RTL8153 chipset.