Never mind.
There will be problem with your proposed setup.
First is the USB bus, Pi4 has ONLY 1 USB3 bus which means all your devices sharing same controller, and you probably also need to have a hub to get extra USB NIC for it to become a router (router on a stick with just 1 NIC will work but you need managed switch with VLAN), so all devices are competing for resources, in case of heavy SSD loading your network speed might have impact.
Well if you set the time then the next thing I would look at is the firewall settings.
And the the eth0 needs to be on the wan side.
Correct me if I'm wrong but once the router boots, the storage is no longer touched, so while I think anything other than a cheap 8GB sd card is a waste, he will will not have the usb bus with SSD competing for bandwidth after boot.
edit
And funny thing about USB hubs and USB NICs: once you use it for boot, the NIC must stay on that port of that hub. If you move it, it will recognize the NIC but it will leave virtual ghost nics that are impossible to remove in Luci.
I'm sure they can be edited out with /etc/config/wireless or /etc/config/network but that's a lot for beginners.
@nik1 already mentioned he/she would like to use 1 SSD as storage, while the other one as OS I can ignore it after boot, but the storage one definitely will consume bandwidth, right?
Yes, but usually no one would do this unless you are moving the setup, or the setup is getting problem?
All I can think of storing is logs and I thought they were in the ram. At least that is what I've read as a reply to storing logs.
Not in his case but I wanted to know if a Pi zero w could really run OpenWrt and that takes a hub.
Then when I went to just use the USB on the board is when I realized it had that behavior. So I left the hub because I will, assuredly, need to plug in a keyboard and mouse in sometime down the road.
And, in case you were curious, yes you can run it on a Zero w, I'm using it right now.
Hi all
The reason I would like to use the saving space is for downloading. My current modem/router does not have usb port. Routers with usb3 port are expensive. Since I already have an RPi4 I thougth of using it, and with the setup of docker I could add anything in it.
RPi5 is preferred since its usb3 ports do not share speed as in RPi4.
Reference material here:
Hello everyone,
I installed bcm2711 firmware OpenWrt 22.03.5 r20134-5f15225c1e / LuCI openwrt-22.03 branch git-23.292.78392-9f66674. It works fine. However, there is a new version of it, which I am prompted to install:
release [newer-major] 3.0.6-25(2.1.17-2
https://raw.github.com/wulfy23/rpi4/master/builds/rpi-4_23.05.2_3.0.6-25_r23630_extra/rpi4.64-23.05.2-29373-3.0.6-25-r23630-ext4-sys.img.gz
Did anyone try an upgrade with rpi4? Does it upgrade well? What about all the extra packages that I have installed? Will it restore/upgrade them?
Thanks for this excellent tutorial! It helped me straighten out my OpenWRT configuration and get it running smoothly.
My use case is a little different, and I'm a newbie to OpenWRT. But my experience might be helpful for others with similar needs.
I need a temporary WiFi AP that I can install and test in our current home (interfacing with an ASUS router), then carry to a new home (in a different state) and plug into a cable modem there. I wanted to run OpenWRT on some spare equipment to minimize cost. I have a bunch of Pi's around as spares, but the one that seemed most suitable is a Pi-3B+. So I want to use the Pi's Ethernet port to connect to the WAN (the ASUS router or the cable modem) and use the Pi's WiFi system for LAN support. This is for temporary casual home use -- phones, iPads, Macs, and a Google TV. High performance isn't a requirement for this.
Your tutorial was instrumental in helping me stabilize the configuration. Your section on Maximizing Performance/Configuration Tweaks really made a difference. I made the additional decision to use the 2.4GHz radio rather than the 5GHz radio, and that seems to have further stabilize the service. You're right about Pi's WiFi system not being very good or performing well, but with dialed-back expectations, it performs acceptably for my use.
I get the following using Comcast's speedtest site through web browsers:
Download timing from speedtest.xfinity.com from Macbook Air over 2.4GHz WiFi through
OpenWRT on Pi-3B+ --> ASUS RT-AX86U --> Netgear CM1200 --> Comcast
38.6Mb/sec, 49.4Mb/sec, 51.6Mb/sec (three successive tests)
Download timing from speedtest.xfinity.com from Macbook Air over 5GHz WiFi through
ASUS RT-AX86U --> Netgear CM1200 --> Comcast
194.4Mb/sec, 299.5Mb/sec, 345.5Mb/sec
Download timing from speedtest.xfinity.com from Mac Mini M3 over Ethernet through
Gb Ethernet --> ASUS RT-AX86U --> Netgear CM1300 --> Comcast
475.6Mb/sec, 476.6Mb/sec, 475.7Mb/sec
So, you're right that the Pi's WiFi doesn't perform very well as a WiFi AP! But I've tested the OpenWRT/Pi-3B+ configuration for a couple of days now and it seems stable for the limited routine uses I have for it.
David
-Those speeds are..-
Something is not working or the CPU is choking out far more than I have ever seen.
I have installed OpenWrt on 3 different routers in addition to a Pi Zero W and a Pi4.
The Zero W did top out at around 36Mbs down but that was using it as a travel router with an AP that was 30-40' away through apartment walls using an Alfa AWUS036NH (arguably one of the best clients ever made). I never saw it pull a full 100% load.
My Pi4 gets exactly what I pay for internet: 106.94Mbs down and 11.81Mbs up. In the same room using an ASUS ROG Strix G17 using either 2.4Ghz or 5Ghz and its CPU utilization is, practically, unmeasurable: 0.15 but that is across 4 cores so divided by 4 you get 0.0375%.
All tests were just done using speedtest.net
TL:DR my Pi Zero W is keeping up with your 4 core Pi 3.
That Zero is without a dedicated ethernet wan and using a separate radio for both client and AP.
Did you install it? What happened?
one thing i noticed is there are no onboard usb3.0 drivers, i had to install them
You use SQUASHFLS, right?
I'm not sure but my understanding is the EXT4 (which I use with the customize files plus what I already know I want) are more difficult to just upgrade because EXT4 (which their link points to) it burns the packages in.
So, EXT4 has more room in system/software but is not a simple save, update, and restore.
I dunno: I do get confused in here sometimes.
Well, yeah: have to add drivers for the USB but they are, usually, a part of the customized packages, a driver package for a wifi adapter or a part of file sharing.
e.g. NFS, Samba or the SSH file system.
Oh, I'm pretty sure something is wrong with my configuration. But note that I have the RPi radio0 set as a "Legacy" device and it seems set for a 72Mb/sec rate. So 40-50Mb/sec net is not too bad.
I should have noted that the load on my quad-core Pi-3B+ was 0.00 while I was pinging it or the EN-connected ASUS router over WiFi. And about 0.26 while testing bandwidth at speedtest.net. Streaming a netflix video, the 5-min load on the OpenWRT Pi-3B+ stabilized at 0.07.
So there's plenty of CPU capacity. And I'd think that the buss structure could easily keep up with the throughput demands, even from the video.
While streaming video, the inbound from WAN was only 8.64Mb/sec, so there's still capacity for other network activity.
I had trouble with the 5MHz band before, but experimenting with it just now, to gather info for this reply, I found that while "AC" mode doesn't work for that interface (makes a connection but doesn't give out a DHCP address), "N" mode does work (contrary to others' experiences, I think). Running speedtest.net over the 5GHz band still gives me only 45.56Mb/sec download, and LuCI reports radio0 running at 86.6Mb/sec.
I think your early conclusion that the Pi WiFi hardware isn't very good was probably the critical observation. Particularly the 5GHz service.
Not sure what other parameters would be affecting the speed like this. But at least it's stable and usable for my purposes.
David
Again I steal this from psherman:
Please connect to your OpenWrt device using ssh and copy the output of the following commands and post it here using the "Preformatted text </> " button:
Remember to redact passwords, MAC addresses and any public IP addresses you may have:
ubus call system board
cat /etc/config/network
cat /etc/config/wireless
cat /etc/config/dhcp
cat /etc/config/firewall
Why legacy mode? You only use 802.11 b/g?? Don't even need 802.11n for 2.4GHz?
This is his first attempt with OpenWrt; on a Pi no less.
Cut him a little slack.
This should be a sticky.
Why it has not been pinned escapes me.
Great work.
The advice not to use the USB ethernet is spot on and includes not even attaching USB Wi-Fi devices until after the first boot; despite loading the drivers.