Hi All,
I just wanted to thank the LEDE/OpenWrt folks for, and put on record another happy experience.
There's a bit of background...
Some time ago, when I needed to set-up VLANs so I could run a segment on public IP addresses, I arrived at OpenWrt. Until then, I'd been running DD-WRT on a Linksys E4200v1 quite happily; but while VLANs (and mapping to switch ports) was theoretically possible with the hardware and DD-WRT, documentation (read: clues) were patchy, and after trying countless different things [I've seen one of my threads on the DD-WRT forum linked here!] I began looking for another way to get the setup working.
After a bit of reading, it became apparent that OpenWrt was probably the next thing to try, but at the time there was very little information about running it on an E4200v1. Not wanting to risk bricking an in-service router, I found a chain-store had a decent offer on Netgear WNDR3700v4. Within minutes of getting it home, it was running Barrier Breaker 14.07; and thanks to the lovely admin interface and good information in the wiki about the quirks of the WNDR3700v4's switch, I had my VLANs set-up a few minutes after that. I needed a secondary AP in my attic, so I hacked some external antenna connectors on the E4200, and it took up those duties. Still curious about what could & couldn't be achieved on the E4200v1, I decided I'd get another (Linksys were practically giving away like-new factory refubished units); however as my network was working, other things became more urgent, and further testing never really progressed.
Fast forward several years, and I'm feeling like the router could do with a freshen-up, and updating for security (and hopefully to clear the occassional WiFi blip experienced on my phone - though I suspect it just has a bit of a wobbly stack). Again, not wanting to upset an in-service (with fancy VLANs working!) router without having a back-up plan, and having found a 17.01.4 binary for E4200v1, I thought I'd have a go at putting LEDE on it.
Thinking it was still running stock firmware, I powered it up and found the same DD-WRT mega build which my AP is running. I decided I'd try to flash back to stock, and then to LEDE. First, I flashed the 'trailed' mini DD-WRT build I'd used for flashing all those years ago (keep your files, folks :)), and did the 30/30/30 reset thing. Next I gave it the stock Linksys firmware, and up it came. I did another 30/30/30 for good measure, and offered it the LEDE 17.01.4 binary; hello LuCI! For belt-and-braces, another 30/30/30 reset (I'm conditioned), and I began to fiddle with the config.
The E4200v1's switch was represented more simply in the admin panel (without the pseudo-port #5 and back-to-front numbering the WNDR3700v4 has (in 14.07, anyway)), so I jumped-in. I set port 4 to off in the LAN VLAN (#1) and added a new VLAN (#3), in which I tagged the CPU and added port 4 untagged. I added an interface and firewall zone for my public/dmz VLAN, and set them up (forwarding/masquerading) as I had on the WNDR3700v4. I added my PPPoE credentials on the WAN interface, a couple of NAT forwards to the LAN zone so I could check it was working, and configured one of the radios - they're both reported as generic bg radios - but this doesn't worry me; everything important is on GigE, I only need one 2.4GHz radio to be an AP on the same SSID as the one in my attic for my phone/laptop/etc. All done, I backed-up the config and decided to wait until this evening when the network would be quieter.
I switched-over the routers a little while ago. For a few moments it looked like the public VLAN wasn't quite working, but before I found anything in LuCI I wanted to change, it all settled down and is working flawlessly. NAT forwarding to the LAN segment, inter-zone forwarding works, and my public-IP machines are fine & dandy.
Apologies for the long post; I just thought it might be nice to read a double success story.
Thanks again to all contributors.
Rob.
