I am new here and would like to thank everyone in advice for your help. I have a mini pc that currently has pfsense, but I have a spare SSD drive and wanted to install Openwrt on a Intel Celeron J6412 that have intel i226 drivers is it possible? Would I have a fully functional firewall along with wireguard vpn client connectivity? I have an access point on my pfsense, but looking for a replacement as pfsense last update for the free community was over a year ago. I tried Opensense its good, but had issues with updates with having to restore a couple of times while pfsense as been stable. Besides wireguard and possibly dns over https or tls I looking for great wireguard throughout speed similar to pfsense using a premium vpn I get close to the gig I paid for. How do I compile a build for such system?
No need, we've gotcha covered! You can browse around on https://downloads.openwrt.org/ for images, the current stable release is 23.05, the current RC release is 24.10 and "snapshot" refers to the cutting edge builds on the main branch (usually builds a couple times a day). I'd suggest going with the 24.10 release, for x86 it usually doesn't much matter which of the above you choose though, as x86 being Linux's main kernel development platform it's always very solid. (Be aware that snapshot is a bit tricky right now as we're in the middle of changing package managers, so it has a few side issues that you need to occasionally work around, hence my suggestion of 24.10; plus snapshots don't include the LuCI web interface by default - you need to install it from the CLI once your running.)
Here's a deep link, if you grab either of the "combined-efi" images (squashfs or ext4 root file system choice is up to you), then you can wget, gunzip, dd it to your spare drive and you're off to the races. https://downloads.openwrt.org/releases/24.10.0-rc5/targets/x86/64/
There are a bunch of us who have similar miniPCs running OpenWrt (@darksky above, me and others), so there's a good support network for it.
Thanks everyone!! I l've will downloaded the one you recommended and selected generic-ext4-rootfs.img.gz. Can I load the image to my spare SSD by using Etcher on my windows 10? Is the intel .266 drivers supported by default?
Nope, you don't want the rootfs, you want one of the "combined" ones with full user space and boot partitions. I'm pretty sure your J6412 will also be EFI boot, hence the "combined-efi".
(Note on terminology: "Combined" means the image is good for "factory" and "sysupgrade" use. With all-in-one devices, say your odd Linksys or TP-Link, the factory image would be the one to use to reflash from factory firmware to OpenWrt, sysupgrade is always OpenWrt to OpenWrt. x86 and Arm and RISC-V SBCs are sort of the odd ones here in OpenWrt land.)
Yeah, that should work fine. Also, what's that other imager for Windows called, Rufus? I've heard it works well, too.
Yes, the image will contain kmod-igc, which works with the Intel I-225 and I-226 NIC chipsets. I've got the I-226V ones in my N5105 and they have never had any issues.
EDIT: Our posts crossed in the ether. Here's a bit more:
$ opkg list kmod-igc
kmod-igc - 6.6.67-r1 - Kernel modules for Intel(R) Ethernet Controller I225 Series
I believe I got the right one now thanks to you.
openwrt-24.10.0-rc5-x86-64-generic-squashfs-combined-efi.img.gz
I might try this out tomorrow, but most likely Wednesday early as I will be home alone. I will install this on the spare drive tomorrow with my SATA to usb cable to have it ready. I used Untangle, Pfsense and Opnsense. I believe I had wireless G D link or Linksys router that had DDRT a long time ago.
On a separate note is it true that with Luci and wireguard installed if I have a wireguard config file from a third party like Mullvad there is a drop file option that basically takes the config and inputs without any more manual input needed?
Lastly, I am sure that my mini pc would be more efficient then the popular Gl inet Flint 2 router seems to have a modified flavor of Openwrt.
Forgot to ask as I noticed your N5105 has similar bench marks do you use wireguard client on your Openwrt? Do you have a 1 gig connection? What's the max throughout you exp on your box?
I'm a hermit and never leave home, so no I don't use wireguard.
That said, my N5105 box is a subnet router, used for experiments and testing, so it sees its "WAN" as a 2.5 Gbps connection to my main switch. I see a full 2.5 through it from a subnet workstation at 2.5, and the NAS at 10G up on the main network, which is how I do my (rare) speed tests.
Take @frollic's lead, read that link he pointed to and also search around on the forum, vpn-like tool speed is pretty a common topic.
So there is not a installer for OpenWRT. The image is intended to be written directly to the boot medium.
Here what I would do. First, download a Linux ISO like Linux Mint or Fedora. (It can be most anything really) Flash your USB drive and then boot your router from the USB.
Once downloaded you need to extract it and then write it to the disk. I personally prefer the command line for this. You can decompress it with gzip and then write it with dd. Assuming your disk is sda you can do something like cat /openwrt-23.05.5-x86-64-generic-squashfs-combined-efi.img.gz | gzip -d | sudo dd of=/dev/sda status=progress
Once that completes you still need to resize the partition so that you can use the space on the boot disk. If you don't you will be limited to the default size. To resize open up something like Gnome disks and use the UI to expand the partition.
You can remove the SATA drive and use a SATA-USB adapter to flash it directly. That is the complete installation. OpenWrt will boot when you swap that SATA into the minipc. It's easier to enlarge the root partition with the ext4 build. You can even mount the drive on a Linux PC then use standard tools like gparted. Generally though instead of resizing root I create a third partition on the large empty space of the drive for data storage.
I got a mullvad connection running a peak shy from my gig speed. I am impressed that I got 950 on lan! Much more then what I used to get on pfsense. The funny thing that i am running off a 3.0 usb. I got an msata on the way would my restore work on the new msata from the usb? I just read that i would not take full advantage of the full size, but I do not think I even need it, but should I see a speed increase when changing to msata?
The other thing that I working on is using the firewall that is different than pfsense. How could assign devices that I added a static IP for to be part of my mullvad firewall zone so I can dictate three zones.
Mullvad
VPS Vpn Server
Wan
It looks like can assign a route by device and assign it to an interface am I going crazy is that possible?
Not a question you asked, but just in case you didn't know: OpenWrt has a lot of packages you can install on your router to extend its functionality. For example, you may want a network-wide adblocker (adblock/adblock-fast/adblock-lean) or a security tool like banip or geoip-shell. (full disclosure: I'm involved in 2 of the projects mentioned above)
