NanoPi R4S-RK3399 is a great new OpenWrt device

TheLinuxGuy · 2021-06-27T08:50:12.708Z

jebuenga:

Have you tried translating to English using Chrome first? Then go to System - Language and Style and look for an English language option. If it's not available, go to Software section and download luci-i18n-base-en or luci-i18n-base-uk.

I don't use Chrome Browser (privacy reasons) but I just downloaded it to do this and it worked, thanks for the tip.

Bobcat:

The specs say there is a serial UART on board, why don't you use this to debug ?

Yeah I tried it with one cable I had but was only getting 1 single character on the serial console. I think my cable is crap so I ordered a new one and will try again once it arrives in a few days.

The curious issue about this "system crash" is that I am doing very simple configuration of openwrt via uci (all done via ansible - network as code). I have found that for some reason out of the 5 builds that do boot successfully 3 of them are bricked once my ansible playbook completes.

In somewhat of a 'good news' I seem to have found a R4S build that has the IPv6 NAT package that I need and does not get bricked after a reboot once ansible completes configuration (https://github.com/WikiHacker/WikiHacker-R2S-R4S-2021).

The only odd issue about this build seems to be that network interfaces are swapped (eth0 is WAN - usually it is LAN in other builds). A quick edit to my ansible playbook and tried this twice and have been successful - I haven't stress tested it.... I wish it was vanilla OpenWRT but I will take what I can get.

I had tried @anaelorlinski builds and unfortunately that is one that crashes gets bricked after reboot... maybe I will find out more once I get the RS232 to USB cable or maybe I'll thrown in the towel if this "WikiHacker" build is somewhat reliable.

jebuenga · 2021-06-27T10:44:15.612Z

TheLinuxGuy:

I wish it was vanilla OpenWRT but I will take what I can get

Have you tried the latest snapshot of OpenWRT? It supports R4S although you can't install some packages because they require a different version of the kernel.

nouknouk · 2021-06-27T11:48:20.465Z

Hi, first thank you all for your hard work.

@anaelorlinski could you detail what is the added value of the 'immortalwrt patch for rockchip' ?

Also, i heard about failing soft reboot, does it fix it (or it is already fixed now with mainline openwrt version) ?

Last but not least, are the additions you mentionned (rockchip patch + RTL driver) planned to be integrated at some point in time in openwrt project, or there a reasons it won't happen ?

mercygroundabyss · 2021-06-27T21:16:39.240Z

TheLinuxGuy:

PL2303HX

Some of these are "fake" chinese ripoffs. Unfortuatly MS ended up pushing an update that killed some of those chips as it reset the chip id to 0 and thus it will never load drivers again. Try using 1500000 baud speed to connect and see if it gives you an output otherwise look into if u can reprogram it (i gave up trying to fix mine and I bought a CH340 and use it with the 1500000 baud speed.

You only need the GRD TX and RX leads for it.
What is slightly annoying is the cables are about 1mm too high for me to keep the case on the board while i'm fiddling with it. (they stick up just proud of the network ports (which are flush to the case roof).

You get a serial output console with your serial adaptor (and you can login with it.)

Right now OpenWRT supports the R4S via snapshots but anaelorlinski builds have some nice tweaks and more default packages.

mercygroundabyss · 2021-06-27T21:19:09.448Z

CH340 CH340G DTR USB TTL Serial Download Programming Adapter Arduino Pro Mini UK 8377583775468 | eBay

Thats what i bought and i've used it to reflash a BT home hub 5 and also for the R4S.

anaelorlinski · 2021-06-28T10:01:46.382Z

Yes here are some details :

ImmortalWrt gives support through patches for more features of R2S/R4S boards than the basic OpenWRT support. ImmortalWRT devs are also retrofitting their patches back to OpenWrt, so that's why support gets better along time. My builds take most of the ImmortalWRT patches to support those nanopi boards, but stay on vanilla OpenWRT side for everything else.
Soft reboot problem can come from 2 different things from my experience : 1. need a patch to fix sdcard voltage, 2. uboot loader fails in some situration to reboot (I saw it on r2s). My builds include uboot from master openwrt with added patches from immortalwrt as well, and it seems to do the job properly, I can run 'reboot' and it does not hang.
Network drivers : for r2s, I integrated a backport of 5.10 kernel of usb driver (v.1.11.11) as requested by someone to fix some issues. So this one is de facto integrated in OpenWRT master branch. For r4s, I added proprietary r8168 driver from realtek. This one has no chance to be integrated in mainline OpenWRT I think, but the linux driver for the chip will get better over time. This is my choice to integrate this one (as in ImmortalWRT) to get best network perf as I use my R4S as main router.

Hope you get all your answers!

anaelorlinski · 2021-06-28T10:08:44.781Z

I only used quintus-lab build scripts and github actions, so no problem from this side.
The IPv6 configuration is based on OpenWRT vanilla, so there are no extra patches for IPv6, this is on purpose. I could add some missing packages from vanilla Openwrt if needed for better IPv6 support, but not more.

mj82 · 2021-06-28T18:05:24.153Z

If anyone wants to try the latest Linux kernel 5.13 on the r4s here are the patches, it works fine for the basics.

GitHub

mj22226/openwrt

This repository is a mirror of https://git.openwrt.org/openwrt/openwrt.git It is for reference only and is not active for check-ins or for reporting issues. We will continue to accept Pull Request...

Prebuilts images:

Dropbox

r17071-e8b5429609

Shared with Dropbox

facboy · 2021-07-04T22:57:26.698Z

so does any available firmware actually have any of this enabled (AES-NI, DDR)?

mercygroundabyss · 2021-07-10T02:54:55.367Z

OpenWRT-Rockchip/0008-mbedtls-Implements-AES-and-GCM-with-ARMv8-Crypto-Ext.patch at master · quintus-lab/OpenWRT-Rockchip (github.com)

1715173329 · 2021-07-10T18:03:30.189Z

We've backported the DDR related patches, and they're available on our source tree: https://github.com/immortalwrt/immortalwrt/tree/master

vhugobr · 2021-07-11T17:32:40.784Z

Hi, I've been watching this topic since the first messages and I'm so glad with all the progress you've made so far! Thank you so much!

I have a NanoPi R4S 4G and I must confess that modifying, compiling and testing the FriendlyWRT is so frustrating! The kernel is bloated with options related to the other boards. Some are a little bit obvious like HDMI output, since the R4S doesn't have it, and some others I strongly suspect like SATA. A few important and common features aren't included by default like RNDIS, 3G and 4G USB modems (as this is a generic, all purpose OS). Sadly it's not a matter of simply opkg-ing these packages as the kernel is a custom one. And some features when enabled in custom builds are unstable like Cake qdisc (actually SQM in general) and RNDIS.

So thats my questions:

Do you think that the current snapshot is already useable and fairly stable for basic functions as a main router?
And anyone have already tested SQM and/or RNDIS (Android's USB Tethering) and wwan usb modems?

Thanks in advance!

jebuenga · 2021-07-12T10:30:31.938Z

Did anyone manage to get snort running on R4S? When I try to start it, it says it can't find symbol on /usr/lib/snort_dynamicpreprocessor/libsf_appid_preproc.so

mj82 · 2021-07-14T14:11:43.819Z

xiaobo:

kmod-keys-trusted kmod-tpm kmod-asn1-decoder building error

I added those missed modules in kernel 5.14, you can use my build .cong if you can't build an image.

GitHub

Commits · mj22226/openwrt

This repository is a mirror of https://git.openwrt.org/openwrt/openwrt.git It is for reference only and is not active for check-ins or for reporting issues. We will continue to accept Pull Request...

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/tf03qnjbs4tzsf9/AADbAhqAD1frzoa8APHv_Qiea?dl=0

felang · 2021-07-15T15:02:13.583Z

Sorry for going off topic but what monitoring plugin is that in the screenshot in first post?

1715173329 · 2021-07-16T06:49:12.121Z

Do you think that the current snapshot is already useable and fairly stable for basic functions as a main router?

And anyone have already tested SQM and/or RNDIS (Android's USB Tethering) and wwan usb modems?

Yes actually, it works fine.

jebuenga · 2021-07-16T08:00:32.471Z

It's netdata

vhugobr · 2021-07-16T12:13:55.712Z

Thanks a lot! I'm going to test this weekend then.

vhugobr · 2021-07-21T15:01:42.486Z

I've been using the snapshot for 4 days and in my use case it's so much more stable. I'm using USB Tethering (RNDIS) to get the internet from an android phone. I still have some weird DNS issues but way too less (I think it's a network issue from my 4G provider's network or an Android USB tethering issue, idk...). It's faster and more reliable. I don't wanna use FriendlyWRT anymore not even coated in gold, hahahaha...

ka2107 · 2021-07-21T15:06:16.579Z

I am thinking of recommending a NanoPi R4S to a friend of mine with Fiber Gigabit Connection. He is new to OpenWRT but I can guide him. He's interested in running OpenVPN and SQM QoS (if required). He also wants to split Home, Guest (and maybe separate IoT as well) networks on the LAN side using VLANs. But I was reading that VLAN is not working with the Realtek NICs.

Can anybody confirm if VLANs (both WAN and LAN) are working or not? Can you please let me know the OpenVPN performance and SQM QoS performance? Thanks in advance.