NanoPi R4S-RK3399 is a great new OpenWrt device

v2zEPhNxdm · 2022-08-11T10:02:38.214Z

giuliomagnifico:

Firmware OpenWrt snapshot Install

But even that is sysupgrade? Don't you need a "factory" first, for sysupgrade to work?

giuliomagnifico · 2022-08-11T10:21:11.882Z

No because there’s no “factory OS” on the R4S you have only an empty microSD card. For that it needs an “install” and not “factory to OpenWrt”.

You need to flash the sd with the “install” (ext4) and then upgrade to ‘what you want’ (I suggest to use the squashFS)

v2zEPhNxdm · 2022-08-11T10:27:47.853Z

giuliomagnifico:

You need to flash the sd with the “install” (ext4) and then upgrade to ‘what you want’ (I suggest to use the squashFS)

Ok thanks, I tried it anyway and just got it work

Another question if you can help. The internet is working fine now through R4S router but when I try to run opkg update I get this:

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Anything wrong with my config files?

giuliomagnifico · 2022-08-11T10:48:13.305Z

You set the R4S IP to .2.1, are you sure of it? It can ping 1.1.1.1 (from it, not from the clients)?

If the address is correct, then try to set in the R4S the gateway of your “main” router or modem… you need to explain your network

v2zEPhNxdm · 2022-08-11T11:57:58.554Z

giuliomagnifico:

You set the R4S IP to .2.1, are you sure of it?

Yes sure it is .2.1 - that's the only way I can correctly ssh to it.

giuliomagnifico:

It can ping 1.1.1.1 (from it, not from the clients)?

These screenshots is via ssh on a client. Ping looks fine ?

giuliomagnifico:

If the address is correct, then try to set in the R4S the gateway of your “main” router or modem…

Ok I will try but internet is working fine . Only thing not working is opkg update

giuliomagnifico:

you need to explain your network

It's a simple network here. R4S plugs into modem on WAN. R4S plugs to unmanaged network switch on LAN.

Errors via Luci:

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giuliomagnifico · 2022-08-11T12:03:47.415Z

I'm building a dashboard for Grafana using Prometheus for the R4S but the nice features is that I have both the R4S as a router stats + the R7800 as AP wifi stats.

And I've also recreated the local dashboard to Grafana Cloud free account, so I can browse my home stats without using VPN but I use the local dashboard to save long term stats and receive the alerts (features not free for the Cloud Grafana)

I use this setup also to retrieve sme push alerts to the iPhone when xyz trigger is active, useful for know when the R4S is "working" for SQM or the temps rise a bit too much, an ayz Mac address join the WLAN, etc..

Here's a video link (also for the cloud dashboard, that's identical to local): https://streamable.com/gu2lya

Preview

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Alerts panel

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I'm writing an article with the details for the dashboard and setup, the R4S is a very nice device. I'm also trying a wifi 6ax AP attached to it with OpenWrt (the Netgear WAX202) but I'm not happy with the speed, near the AP I get 7/800mbps, but just few meters far and I have worse speed than the R7800 wifi 5ac. Maybe is too soon to use wifi ax on OpenWrt.

I'm only waiting for the Gigabit home connection. Now to me seems incredible to have 0 bufferbloat under load. And I don't have any issue but I think my device is one of the latest because it's different from the review I saw online, for example it doesn't have the hole on the rear (what's this? for a wall mount? but it's horrible ), and the "rubber/plastic feet" (but maybe he added them) and it doesn't suffer from the microSD power with safe reboot. I can reboot it via SSH without need to manually remove the power cable.

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giuliomagnifico · 2022-08-11T12:11:44.755Z

v2zEPhNxdm:

Yes sure it is .2.1 - that's the only way I can correctly ssh to it.

And what's the modem IP? .1.1?

v2zEPhNxdm:

These screenshots is via ssh on a client. Ping looks fine ?

You have not posted screenshots of the ping from the R4s to internet, just to understand if it's a DNS issue or not, because opkg needs to resolve the addresses to avoid the failures you are getting.

v2zEPhNxdm:

Ok I will try but internet is working fine . Only thing not working is opkg update

Yes but I suspect you can browse internet because you have the right DNS on your clients and not on the R4S, from your config there's only WAN DNS, try to set the DNS also on the LAN interface:

Example, my config, use your/cloudflare DNS in your setup 1.1.1.1

config interface 'LAN'
	option device 'br-LAN'
	option proto 'static'
	option netmask '255.255.255.0'
	list dns '192.168.1.4'
	option ipaddr '192.168.1.2'

PS: sometimes, in my case (during the first setup)by just using service network reload after I changed the network settings, didn't work correctly, I had to restart the device. I have no idea of why.

v2zEPhNxdm · 2022-08-11T12:16:55.515Z

giuliomagnifico:

Yes but I suspect you can browse internet because you have the right DNS on your clients and not on the R4S, from your config there's only WAN DNS, try to set the DNS also on the LAN interface:

Example, my config, use your/cloudflare DNS in your setup 1.1.1.1

You are right. I traced the issue to DNS.

I am having issues with stubby for cloudflare DoT

When I disable stubby opkg update works fine.

But now the issue is why is stubby causing issues. Here are my settings (which work fine with my RPi3 OpenWrt router - instructions here):

Per those instructions, there's only 2 steps after installing stubby:

"DNS forwardings"
"Ignore resolv file"

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giuliomagnifico · 2022-08-11T12:27:55.363Z

v2zEPhNxdm:

You are right. I traced the issue to DNS

Ok, found the issue, unfortunately I have never used stubby (I'm using Unbound as recursive DNS) but, since your R4S doesn't have any DNS, this could be the trouble? The clients connected to it are working because of Stubby is working but you have to write some DNS to the LAN interface of you R4S. Give a try, restart the interface (or reboot) and see if you can ping an address from it (obviously ping coudflare.com, not 1.1.1.1 )

v2zEPhNxdm · 2022-08-11T12:32:03.183Z

Ok I have zoomed in further to the issue. After I read this guide, I see he did not have "0::1#5453 " under 'DNS forwardings'

And that is some ipV6 thing. So I just remove only that and keep the other 127.0.0... and it works fine.

I will go to the stubby thread to resolve this issue, since it doesn't appear to be a R4S issue

v2zEPhNxdm · 2022-08-11T13:16:39.473Z

Is this a normal looking firewall screen for R4S?

I don't do port forwarding

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giuliomagnifico · 2022-08-11T13:23:59.850Z

Well depends on what you mean for “normal”

Anyway yes this is the default OpenWrt firewall behavior.

v2zEPhNxdm · 2022-08-11T15:06:46.094Z

Thanks again !

So when I did the sysupgrade, I noticed I had to do microSD card partition resizing again.

Is this normal after every sysupgrade release?

ext4

giuliomagnifico · 2022-08-11T15:46:07.180Z

Yes if you’re using a generic build or the online builder (100MB). If you compile it yourself you can specify the size.

But anyway I would leave the root as it is and make another partition, or (better) use an external drive.

mercygroundabyss · 2022-08-11T17:37:29.377Z

the hole is a camera mount screw. not sure why they included it but does make wallmounting easier to a point?

Entropy512 · 2022-08-11T19:24:16.055Z

xShARkx:

it would also leak new devices a long time before they are actually released which would be bad for such company

Works fine for Intel... Prerelease hardware support is submitted to mainline Linux on a regular basis, so almost always winds up merged and released by launch.

xShARkx · 2022-08-11T21:17:12.586Z

Completely different situation in my opinion tbh.

Cause intel is a big company which holds a monopoly with AMD while friendlyelec is small company disputing a market with many others.

Also intel creates their own hardware from scratch and they depend a 100% on third party OS support, in other words, they have no choice!

While friendlyelec pieces together other companies hardware to create a device to sell, which they can provide with their own custom OS based on linux which will have already support for the hardware itself since(again) they are using other companies hardware(CPU, Ethernet NIC's and etc) and those companies or other people already added support for them in linux.

v2zEPhNxdm · 2022-08-12T01:59:07.334Z

giuliomagnifico:

or (better) use an external drive.

Thanks can you expand how to do this?

Is that using a USB stick with R4S ?

I guess the extra storage is only for additional packages you install?

The default root partition size (100mb) should be enough , for example if no one ever installed any packages?

giuliomagnifico · 2022-08-12T07:09:24.928Z

Extra storage is for what you want, I'm using it to collect collectd data, to avoid useless wear of the microSD.

100mb is enough, I'm using less than 15% of it but as always depends on your usage, opkg packets are "scripts with other scripts", they weight few kb...

Follow the official tutorial to use an external drive: https://openwrt.org/docs/guide-user/storage/usb-drives

giuliomagnifico · 2022-08-12T08:41:32.695Z

I have no idea but I would never mount it from “the rear”, instead from the bottom.

Anyway the point is that my unit doesn’t have it:

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