In my experience the best one to use as an example of how to do it mostly right is Peplink Pepwave Surf Soho MK3 Router. I would be seriously considering it if it had SQM support. It is limited to 120Mbts and that is the router I would recommend to any non-technical person.
How about the idea of having a "wizard" that will take user requirements, download the packages and build the image?
I understand it's a big job, and could be a bit more complicated for Windows users, but that could make it a lot easier to new users, at least for the most popular features for a basic user (USB support, miniDLNA, SMB, repeater mode etc) so the out-of-the-box functionality isn't missing anything that's included in mid-range routers stock.
Talking form personal experience, when I first flashed OpenWrt few mnoths ago, I found out that I need to download a package for DLNA, another for SMB, struggle with USB and NTFS support (and some wiki page suggest that I need to re-format the disk), so I thought that's not for me. That happened although I have some background in programming and basic knowledge of Linux.
@richb-hanover-priv and @fantom-x and @drbrains following on here from the conversation around Maintaining an OpenWrt Router
Instead of asking questions and "auto-configuring" could we maybe have more "discovery" in LuCI? ie. we could ask very informal questions, like "Do you want a separate wifi network for guests and friends?" and "Do you want to share files with other computers from the router?" and blablabla, and then make a list of recommended packages with some descriptions of them and links to howtos?
I think this would not require that much development work as it doesn't try to do all that much except ask questions and identify packages to educate the user about their existence or usefulness or function.
Also, I think SQM should be pre-installed on all images, it's basically an essential feature of a router in my biased opinion, and it's not that big, 20-25kB?
@dlakelan You're right. I'm cloning my note from the other thread to continue the "initial setup" question here. Thanks.
@thompdre841 I love stories like this. It shows the value that OpenWrt can bring to thoughtful people even when they are new to the project.
The challenge lies in the balance between simplifying everything as much as possible (but no further) to produce a basic router that is secure, robust, and does "the things people need". Let's take @anon50098793's suggestion about a wizard to the extreme:
How few questions can we require for a "good-enough secure router" setup? I think the minimum is Login Password and Router name . Let's call it the Essential Secure Router:
- Could the router auto-fill the SSID's based on the router name?
- Could the device automatically determine up/download speeds to set SQM?
- Could the router automatically configure a Guest Wi-Fi network?
- What other settings could be automatically set in a 'basic secure router' to minimize the expertise required?
- (Of course, the additional OpenWrt GUI or settings in
/etc/...allow experts to extend the router.)But if we could design a system where people could get a good-enough secure router running with a minimum of hassles, we would have accomplished something really important.
And to address some of the questions asked in the other topic:
Who decides which packages...? - We can decide and make a recommendation for essential packages for Recommended devices. We act as mentors in the forum every day: we answer people's questions on the forum, we know the essentials that everyone should have.
What's essential? My list includes routing, enabling both radios with sensible SSIDs and credentials, SQM for low latency, tight firewall rules for V4 & V6 (remember these are "Recommended" devices.) It would be "just a router" - but a secure one, that really worked.
What about ...? Adblock, VPN, guest network, printers, external storage, etc. We're not taking anything away from OpenWrt. If someone wants more from their router after it's up and running, they can always add those packages and configure as they do today.
Let's hash out the full list of "essential packages" here on this thread.
Finally, as @dlakelan points out above, most of the essential features are already in place/easily installed, and only require some form of "discovery" to enable/configure them to good settings.
2 Likes
To nobodies surprise, I am all for this, since it is small and potentially useful. I need to point out though, that due to the need to set the shaper rates for ip- and downlink manually, we will not be able to activate sqm by default, but it is debatable whether this policy decision is not better left to the local admin.
@moeller0, could the script/package here be used to automatically insert the required numbers (lets say with 80% of the measured speed). It's about easy config, not fine-tuning, which could be done after the initial setup if the user requires.
We can certainly activate fq_codel by default but that may already be the default... Not sure.
I'm working on a little Lua script to do monitoring of connection performance, I can imagine a push button on Luci that runs the monitor continuously for say 10 minutes while the user surfs and runs speed tests etc and then auto configs the SQM. At least here the user wouldn't need much knowledge.
The Luci script could offer a link to dslreports speed test, monitoring that for even a minute would be enough to infer a lot about the connection settings.
I'm using some MT7621 targets which have hardware NAT. Unfortunately that still isn't compatible with SQM. I am hoping that we will see hardware NAT soon on some atheros targets as well. This conflicts with SQM (unfortunately). I guess, for the "easy-setup-wizards", priority will (should) be SQM.
@dlakelan also mentioned swarms... somewhere anyway....
re-iterating....
let's say, a small selection of the community uploaded config backups.....
anonymously..... a spider can go through those...... and determine
-what settings are most commonly set
-what services are most commonly enabled
etc. etc. conversly it can see what is rarely set, so in "basic" UI mode those options aren't even shown to a user......
this then becomes an "xml" template... or whatever.... depending on the level of UI chosen.... ( basic, advanced, expert ), clicking the preset button in basic, just;
-populates the settings and show what is necessary only
-or settings that commonly vary
with that and a few of those deterministic scripts you mention....
the job is almost done....
Hi All,
drbrains Richard
March 7
@moeller0, could the script/package here be used to automatically insert the required numbers (lets say with 80% of the measured speed).
IMHO not robustly, running netperf on an underpowered router will cost noticeable amounts of CPU cycles resulting in a rather noticeable drop in measured bandwidth. Given how sensitive users are to the bandwidth sacrifice required by sqm I would advise against trying to automate this. This is a policy decision a user needs to make consciously IMHO.
It's about easy config, not fine-tuning, which could be done after the initial setup if the user requires.
This is more than just fine-tuning though...
I love your enthusiasm. But yes the idea of allowing people to voluntarily contribute some kind of summary of their configs, like metadata: how many SSIDs are they using, what modes, how many networks, what kind of WAN connection (pppoe, vlan tags, etc), what speeds, SQM, etc would be useful for understanding what people really like to use.
I agree, but I also think about the idea of iterative refinement, and making it easy for a user to start from a good starting point so fewer iterations are required. For some users a single automated iteration at a push of a button, if done well, might be ok.
My current idea is to write my little lua script, it wakes up every so often, it sends a few pings, and collects the bandwidth and cpu usage, and logs it to a sqlite database. Through time it builds up a picture of what the max speeds are, and what the cpu usage is at various speeds.
If you click a button and tell this script to run now for a while, and then run a dslreports speed test, it should collect enough information that it can estimate your real bandwidth capacity, and your CPU capacity, and provide reasonable suggested defaults for a piece_of_cake config I think.
1 Like
dlakelan Daniel Lakeland
March 7
moeller0:
that due to the need to set the shaper rates for ip- and downlink manually, we will not be able to activate sqm by defaultWe can certainly activate fq_codel by default but that may already be the default... Not sure.
I believe OpenWrt already defaults to fq_codel, but unless BQL is in effect and the internet link runs at the wan NICs rate this is not going to help much.
I'm working on a little Lua script to do monitoring of connection performance, I can imagine a push button on Luci that runs the monitor continuously for say 10 minutes while the user surfs and runs speed tests etc and then auto configs the SQM. At least here the user wouldn't need much knowledge.
Creating the load with another machine will help by retaining cycles for the actual shaper, so certainly a step in the right direction. Even though, it might be easier to run the speedtest manually and also manually plug in the resulting numbers into the sqm GUI, after all I strongly believe that this is a policy decision that at least should be opt-in (I assume that nobody here disagrees).
The Luci script could offer a link to dslreports speed test, monitoring that for even a minute would be enough to infer a lot about the connection settings.
There is some judgement required before accepting the test results as "sufficiently truthful" so I am not sure how well that can be automated.
P.S.: Using a leading tab for anything else than to indent a paragraph is a rather peculiar default...
I don't disagree with anything you say about the policy and opt-in, I'm optimistic that monitoring the connection on the router (which should cost at most 1% of cpu I think) would help a lot in configuring SQM. The proof will be in the pudding I think. Let's see what I can put together in the next couple days. Perhaps someone here will volunteer to test it 
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It sounds like the direction where this is moving towards would be some sort of "Run Setup Wizard" button in LuCI, which will initiate something akin to those "First Run" OOBE wizards commonly found on systems e.g. Windows and macOS. Go through a guided series of screens which ask users for certain pieces of information, and then install/configure additional packages/services based on the user inputs.
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As per forum guidelines https://forum.openwrt.org/guidelines#keep-tidy:
Rather than posting “+1” or “Agreed”, use the Like button.
By the way, your triple +1 reminded me of those who were raising both hands when they get to vote 
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Wait, you mean you don't raise both your hands when you vote? 
The biggest issue I see is those who accidentally use (old) routers already severely underpowered for simple NAT/firewalling duties and expect sqm to do wonders for them will complain about their router not being able to keep up with the internet link's bandwidth. That is more of a communication issue though, and I am sure can be easily combined with your intended LUA approach, so I am all for it.
I've been putting in several hours trying to get a monitor loop going in lua today. I just got it to insert its first fake values into a DB so it's only a few string processing lines away from something someone could actually run and collect data with...
Ok, it's collecting cpu usage data and ping times no problem. I need to parse out the bandwidth / packet transfer on each device but that should be pretty easy ...
Ok it's collecting interface stats as well... I'll post some code for people to try out tomorrow.