Newbie questions about WR3000E as dumb AP

Installing and Using OpenWrt
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Hi All, I'm quite new to OpenWRT. I've got one install under my belt and (with some help due to my mistakes) my main router is running 24.10.4 on OpenWRT One hardware. Signal is a bit weak on different floors so I've ordered a Cudy WR3000E to act as a dumb AP and will probably gab another if it works. It seems like a great value and to be the same board as WR3000S but only more recently fully supported by the vendor. I've seen plenty of reports of success on it (although light on details) so I pulled the trigger on a reconditioned one.

From the WR3000E page:

Supported Current Rel: 24.10.2

Is that the minimum supported version where support began and I'm free to go immediately to 24.10.4 and further (until stop of support)? Or is it the maximum tested version where I shouldn't upgrade beyond until fully supported?

The simplest installation option from this page looks like:

1. Open Cudy GUI at http://192.168.10.1/ Go to Advanced Settings, Firmware. Flash the Cudy-signed OpenWrt image. Wait for the device to reboot.

2. Open the custom OpenWrt LuCI at http://192.168.1.1/ Go to System/Backup flash firmware and flash the official OpenWrt sysupgrade image (or a custom image). **DO NOT** keep settings. Wait for the device to reboot.

From lessons learned on my first install wouldn't it be better in step 2 to use owut from the CLI? If so what are the specific arguments needed to satisfy the requirement to not keep settings? I realize this will require internet access which leads to...

In terms of network connections, would I want to have this new device WAN port on the existing local LAN so that it can talk to the internet during any of these steps? I know it would potentially have some double NAT for connected devices but wondering if that's helpful/possible? Rather I could leave it as a network island with only my laptop connected to LAN1 until...

Once I have a basic working firmware and proceed with following the dumb AP install instructions it seems I will want to reconfigure LAN1 to be a static IP and put this interface on the local LAN, no longer using the WAN port at all unless specifically configured. Will LAN2-4 automatically act as local LAN ports for other devices at this point?

I intend to add a guest network on the main router. If I want to also extend that with the AP that will involve a more detailed plan to get guests who use the AP properly isolated and is probably beyond scope of this initial email right? Might be easiest with VLANs or something? I'm happy to burn that bridge when I come to it and just get guests using the main router and the AP extending the current private wireless network on 2.4 and 5g for now.

Any dependencies on whether I do guest wireless first or dumb AP first or any gotchas knowing that is my plan?

Thanks in advance for such a cool product and any help tweaking it. I don't foresee going back to the dark side of closed source router hardware for a lifetime at this point.

2

wiki pages are upgraded manually.
yes, lanX are in same br-lan and all ports are bridged together. You can even assign them to different vlans or trunk multiple vlans.

3

Only think about owut after you have a full/ vanilla (and configured to your liking) OpenWrt image in place.

4

If you setup the device as an AP, than the WAN and WAN6 interface are useless. The WAN port will be unused and so can be added to the bridge, and used just as any other eth port.

In order for the device to have internet access, you need to configure the gateway to the main router IP.

5

Thank you all 3 for filling in the pieces I was missing. Install went fine, howtos are perfect as written and no deviation from the recommended procedure was required. I was over-thinking it.

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