Build for Netgear R7800

[hnyman]

@wired

build the mainline driver even for the -ct builds and have the pkg available in the image in some directory but not installed?

I can consider that, but it would require some changes to my workflow.

[hnyman]

@wired

Is it possible to always build the mainline driver even for the -ct builds
... Or have it available as a separate download from your dropbox?

I modified the build scripts to build also the mainline ath10k as a .ipk package that gets stored to the download directory.

owrt2102-r15845-8cb50639c7-20210220

I did not touch the wifi firmware side, as that firmware blob should be installable via opkg. (Right now it isn't, yet, as the 21.02 buildbot did not sign the packages until a few hours ago.)

[wired]

Very nice, I will check it out. THANK YOU!!
The firmware is not a big deal, I replace the file with the latest from the kvalo repo anyway.

[wired]

How are signatures for the 21.02 packages supposed to work? Do we need a new image build?

[hnyman]

You need to wait.
Buildbot firmware images have already been properly re-compiled, but packages not yet.

ok: http://buildbot.openwrt.org/openwrt-21.02/images/builders/ipq806x%2Fgeneric

Packages build Feb 20 05:27 was too early, so still need to wait for the next build: http://buildbot.openwrt.org/openwrt-21.02/packages/builders/arm_cortex-a15_neon-vfpv4
(if you look at the other package targets' completed build summaries, the properly signed ones have 40 build steps, shile the old wrong builds have only 31 steps.)

[wired]

I noticed that your latest master -ct build uploads only the ath10k-mainline*.ipk file. For the 21.02 build you made yesterday it uploaded both the ct and mainline ipk files which is very nice. I think it's valuable to also have the ct ipk file so that one could switch between the two. It is true that the ct files are available in the image and could be copied from /rom/lib/modules/... but it feels more error prone.

[rcannizzaro]

@hnyman Just following the last bit of discussion. Would you mind providing the terminal commands to install the ath10k ipk package + firmware you mentioned earlier?

Does this include the stable branch as well? I'd really like to stick with stable but need to use ath10 as I still have one wireless device that exhibits poor performance on the -ct variant.

[hnyman]

@rcannizzaro

Does this include the stable branch as well?

Yes. Both 19.07 and 21.02 builds have the ath10k mainlike .ipk available.

@rcannizzaro

Would you mind providing the terminal commands to install the ath10k ipk package + firmware

You need to *

• download/transfer the packages to your router, preferably to /tmp
  I use scp or winscp to transfer the file from my PC.
• use opkg to install the wifi driver, after removing the other variant as both want to set the file kmod-ath10h something
  opkg remove ath10k-ct
  opkg install /tmp/ath10k-mainline*.ipk

(I am not at the router right now, so that was from memory)

Note that both mainline and -ct havealso corresponding wifi "firmware" blobs that can be downloaded via opkg (after opkg update). They can / need to be installed separately from the driver itself. The blobs should be compatible, so it should be possible to also use the blob from the other variant. I haven't much played with them.

[kesagatame]

It almost sounds like the most stable build would be the one with older ath10k driver, and the only reason it's not provided baked-in, is because it's "deprecated"?

[wired]

I believe the issue to be the firmware, not the driver. ct driver + mainline firmware seems to work as well as mainline driver + mainline firmware.

[dpvb]

Am I able to flash from master branch to 21.02 stable branch? I’ve done master to stable 19.07 and vice versa before but not sure for 21.02

[hnyman]

With R7800, the settings are compatible with all three branches, 19.07, 21.02 and master. I constantly jump between them, when testing these builds.

(Ps. The only thing is that if you downgrade back to 19.07, the WAN LED stays dark, as the LED name has been changed in 21.02 and master, and there is no downgrade transition script)

[theAeon]

do watch out, b/c i just upgraded from a master snapshot from october and spent a solid hour and a half figuring out that the rpcd ubus location changed.

(/var/run//ubus.sock to /var/run/ubus/ubus.sock)

[hnyman]

@theAeon

do watch out, ... the rpcd ubus location changed

Yeah, there is that difference. But there is a built-in settings transition script in master and 21.02, and I have included a personal script into my 19.07 build:

--- a/package/system/rpcd/Makefile
+++ b/package/system/rpcd/Makefile
@@ -8,7 +8,7 @@
 include $(TOPDIR)/rules.mk
 
 PKG_NAME:=rpcd
-PKG_RELEASE:=1
+PKG_RELEASE:=2
 
 PKG_SOURCE_PROTO:=git
 PKG_SOURCE_URL=$(PROJECT_GIT)/project/rpcd.git
@@ -62,6 +62,8 @@ define Package/rpcd/install
 	$(INSTALL_DATA) $(PKG_BUILD_DIR)/unauthenticated.json $(1)/usr/share/rpcd/acl.d/unauthenticated.json
 	$(INSTALL_DIR) $(1)/etc/config
 	$(INSTALL_CONF) ./files/rpcd.config $(1)/etc/config/rpcd
+	$(INSTALL_DIR) $(1)/etc/uci-defaults
+	$(INSTALL_BIN) ./files/50-migrate-rpcd-ubus-sock.sh $(1)/etc/uci-defaults
 endef
 
 
diff --git a/package/system/rpcd/files/50-migrate-rpcd-ubus-sock.sh b/package/system/rpcd/files/50-migrate-rpcd-ubus-sock.sh
new file mode 100755
index 0000000000..eb2c8c85fa
--- /dev/null
+++ b/package/system/rpcd/files/50-migrate-rpcd-ubus-sock.sh
@@ -0,0 +1,6 @@
+#!/bin/sh
+
+[ "$(uci get rpcd.@rpcd[0].socket)" = "/var/run/ubus/ubus.sock" ] && {
+	uci set rpcd.@rpcd[0].socket='/var/run/ubus.sock'
+	uci commit rpcd
+}

[theAeon]

an aside, is anyone else having trouble getting 5ghz to come up on the recent 21.02 build

[wired]

From the first post, easy to miss ...

All builds are with the default ath10k-ct wifi driver. The mainline ath10k wifi driver is being offered as a downloadable .ipk in the download directory of each build.

This is awesome! Thank you @hnyman !!

PS: For wifi there are two things: wifi driver and wifi firmware. This may not be clear to some and I see the two terms used interchangeably.

[zabzab]

I am stuck and have no idea what to do right now.

1. I've successfully installed the 19.07 openwrt firmware on my R7800 router via TFTP method.
2. After that I successfully used the same method to install hnyman's latest firmware (tftp -i 192.168.1.1 PUT R7800-owrt2102-r15854-75abdc4b46-20210224-1732-factory.img)
   I was able to access LUCI via browser 192.168.1.1
3. created a 755 "Openwrt"-folder in "/" with WinSCP, copy&pasted all files (R7800-owrt2102-r15854-75abdc4b46-20210224-1732-*) besides the .img and .bin into /Openwrt.
4. sshd into Openwrt via PowerShell: ssh root@192.168.1.1
5. chmod +x *-newBuildroot.sh, run it, get errors:

What am I doing wrong here?

Pls help!

[hnyman]

@zabzab

What am I doing wrong here?

You only need the firmware for flashing when you install it to the router.

All other files like patches are meant for building OpenWrt in your PC. No need to download anything to the router.

[zabzab]

oh my...

thanks for the quick response and for the great work.
I'll just reinstall your factory.img firmware. Didn't think it will be that easy tbh

[akorn]

For some reason, the current master and 21.02 builds cause my 5ghz network to be so slow that I cannot load pages in a browser even with my laptop right next to the router. 2.4ghz and ethernet connections are stable and fast. Changing channel/width hasn't helped. I'm able to ping websites with low latency and do DNS lookups but I can't reach the router via SSH. This is a fresh upgrade without keeping any old settings or making any tweaks besides configuring the wifi networks. With 19.07, it works as expected out of the box.

My setup is very simple, a Zoom cable modem and the R7800. Is there anything I can do to fix this? It seems very strange and I'm not sure what to try.