Initial setup failing for over a week - what am i missing

Installing and Using OpenWrt Network and Wireless Configuration
1

INTRO & HOW I'VE TRIED do I deserve help? (skip to next section if you want to get to the setup and questions): I've been working for about 10 days off and on to get an openwrt router running for a home network with several users and a server. I've read through many parts of the documentation, looked for and tried to follow tutorials on youtube, looked for written tutorials on the web, and tried using AI (claude 4.x thinking) to guide me. I've exported my config files and had ai help analyze them to see where things are going wrong. It's all failed.

Help? I hope I can find a working tutorial or guide that covers at least some of what I am trying to do, or maybe some tip sheet that covers common failure points to check when you fail to get X working (can I install a better system logger?), or once I get to a broken point again, help analyzing what broke and why? that last one seems too complicated to ask for...

WHAT I'm WORKING WITH: [UPDATE with correct info] Netgear 6220 running specifically "openwrt-24.10.1-ramips-mt7621-netgear_r6220-squashfs-factory.img" and am still running 24.10.1 r28597 - I also installed wireguard & wireguard tools packages. Wifi is from a couple Ubiquiti Unifi radios, running control software on a laptop (no ubiquiti controller hardware just the Unifi UFOs) running 6.7.x, and a fiber modem in 'fake bridge' passthrough mode (BGW 320).

WHAT I AM TRYING TO ACCOMPLISH: Here are my most basic tasks, if I can do these, I can do the rest of what I want to do.
(1) Create 2 separate VLAN (vlan 10 and 20) with separate DHCP servers (10.10.10.1/32 and 10.10.20.1/32) mapped to 2 of the 4 ethernet ports eth1 and eth2, so a device on ethernet1 gets dhcp 10.10.10.x and on ethernet 2 gets 10.10.20.x. This has failed every time, the 2nd dhcp server never starts, no logs (i can find) are generated. I can kind of get it to work if I assign internal IP static IPs to all devices but the 2nd dhcp fails every time.

(2) create a trunk (?) on eth3 carrying vlan 10 and 20 that connects to the Unifi radio. The radio has 2 virtual interfaces each with it's own SSID - wifi10 and wifi20. A device connecting to wifi 10 gets dhcp 10.10.10.x assigned. I have this set up but it has never worked because step 1 fails

(3) set up eth4 as a management port for the switch. It gets vlan 10,20, (and maybe 99?). This kind of works, again, I haven't been locked out of LuCi yet at least.

(4) split wan. I want 1 wan assigned to the external IP of the router (42.1.2.3) and routing traffic from vlan 10 to the internet. wan2 should be a wireguard vpn tunnel and vlan 20 goes out through the vpn. I can get one or the other to work but not both at the same time.

I'm sorry, I can usually figure technical things out by reading docs, trying things, tutorials, ai, etc. this is breaking my brain and I've become obsessed. I can't focus on other work, I just keep banging my head against this wall trying to figure this out. Help?

I'm about to start on the 4th attempt, again from a fresh openwrt install. wish me luck, I already feel defeat leering at me from the near future. ANY help is DEEPLY appreciated

2

You may want revise this statement, as I don't think this device exists - nor would be supported by OpenWrt. After all it would be kind of important for this topic to know what device you're talking about.

3

Not withstanding the important comment from @slh, I'd start by getting the 2 local networks functioning first, then you can setup the VPN and such. Don't boil the ocean.

Let's get some additional information:

  1. How are the APs connected to your router? Are they directly connected (via a PoE injector), or are they going through a switch? If a switch, is it managed or unmanaged?

  2. What is the current configuration on your OpenWrt router?

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:
grafik
Remember to redact passwords, VPN keys, 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
1 Like
4

Thanks, sorry for the sloppiness in my question - I updated the post - router is a r6220 (v1) using the mt7621 chipset (cpu?) I just tripple checked the hardware revision and that I'm up to date on openWRT (I am, builds for 24.10.2 and .10.3 are not available for this router yet so far as I can tell from firmware-selector.openwrt)

5

Yes, they're available:

6

That's indeed the important part.

7

This question was too all over the place. Thank you for your responses, I'm going to post a new question with the problem much better defined, and with the attached files that will be needed.