Onhub TP-LINK TGR1900 future support?

For Developers
908

I mean all other than stock packages. For example dnscrypt2. And all the setting, like name of wireless network…

909

In versions with NSS, resetting the settings is the best option when upgrading.

910

Yes. You have to start from scratch and setup everything from scratch. If you flash custom NSS firmware do not save the configuration. And you can’t restore your configuration from a backup either. That won’t work. Anything in the overlay or installed packages in the backup archive will overwrite the packages in the new firmware and screw things up. EVERYTHING, every setting and configuration has to be done over from the beginning.

1 Like
911

I’ve created a version of my NSS firmware for the OnHubs that I have simplified for using the devices as Bridged Access Points (Dumb AP) only.

TP-Link OnHub sysupgrade firmware (NSS)

Asus OnHub sysupgrade firmware (NSS)

As always, use at your own risk.

The OnHubs work great as Access Points.

Here’s the wiki showing you how to create a “Dumb AP.”

Wi-Fi Extender/Repeater with Bridged AP over Ethernet

NSS primarily accelerates routing, NAT, and firewall processing by offloading these tasks to specialized hardware. In a pure bridged AP mode, where layer 3 routing/NAT is mostly bypassed, NSS offloading has less direct impact.

Despite this, NSS can still aid in packet forwarding performance and interrupt handling for WiFi frames, indirectly improving throughput and reducing CPU load.

Enabling NSS on your OnHub OpenWrt setups used purely as APs does not degrade performance; it usually helps with packet processing efficiency and can lead to better WiFi responsiveness and system resource utilization.

Here’s another build of the NSS enabled firmware that does not use the Caldera Technologies (CT) drivers, just the standard Qualcomm drivers from the OpenWrt repository that some might prefer over the third-party drivers. MESH will work with these.

Asus OnHub sysupgrade firmware (NSS) (No CT drivers)

TP-Link OnHub sysupgrade firmware (NSS) (No CT drivers)

3 Likes
912

I sold both devices I had. I can develop software from now on, but I don't have the chance to test it. Good luck to everyone.

913

Sure I did it. No sense to keep when changing builds from different mainainers.

914

No way to use one of the WiFi network instead of Ethernet?

915

Look at this page first: Extenders/Repeaters - an Overview I’ve made lots of travel router setups and that’s easy enough, but it’s not the same thing.

I tried relentlessly to do this with MESH but it was not good enough and not reliable no matter what. (My NSS/Caldera drivers do not support MESH)

There’s a Proto-Relay setup too you could look at. This works surprisingly well.

This video explains how to setup the proto-relay:

Transform a Cheap Used Router into Wireless Extender (No Cables)

Maybe this WDS setups like this is what you want? You lose half the speed with WDS:

https://openwrt.org/docs/guide-user/network/wifi/wifiextenders/wds

The idea with the wired access points is to have a mini-computer as a main router (ipfire, OPNSense, PFSense) and salvage the OnHubs as access points with fast roaming and I’ve fixed all that stuff. No need to buy a Ubiquiti AP and POE injectors, etc.

916

Hello,

I wanted to improve security on my OnHub and tried installing Snort3.
However, when I run it, even with a simple command like:

snort -V

it immediately crashes with a segmentation fault.

My device:

  • TP-Link TGR1900 (Google OnHub)

  • OpenWrt 24.10.4 (r28959-29397011cc)

  • Packages: snort3 (3.9.5.0-r5), gperftools-runtime, libunwind8, libopenssl3 (3.0.18-r1)

I’m not very experienced with debugging, but I checked it with gdb and saw:

  • Several SIGILL signals inside libcrypto.so.3 (OpenSSL’s CPU feature detection)

  • After that, Snort crashes inside libunwind with a NULL pointer dereference

  • It looks like something gets corrupted before Snort actually starts

I'm not sure if this is caused by the Snort3 package, its dependencies, OpenSSL, or something special about the OnHub hardware.

Could anyone with the same device try this and see if it also crashes?

opkg install snort3
snort -V

If you could check whether it runs or crashes on your OnHub, that would help a lot.
Thanks!

917

I have never been able to get it to work on OnHub. Takes a lot of resources and will slow down everything.

Check out this thread: https://forum.openwrt.org/t/i-d-like-to-snort-should-i/194367

918

Thanks for the reply.
I understand OnHub isn’t really suited for running Snort.
Since it crashes even on simple commands like snort -V, I'll stop trying on this device.

Thanks for the link to the thread as well.