Openwrt One only has 1 LAN port

Hardware Questions and Recommendations
21

I don't think so, because it's not related to OpenWrt.
And it's a pity that only a few Realtek-based switches are supported, but that's the ugly reality.
So if you really need OpenWrt on your switch to make this work,
you're restricted to the few (expensive) models.
To be harsh:
Let's assume you're lucky and can get a really good switch for little money, but it has got a different concept and UI (Zyxel, HPE, Cisco...).
Would you either have this one and learn how to use it or would you dump it instead because it doesn't run OpenWrt?

But once again, not everybody wants to use VLAN's on external switches, so that's not so common. I don't know if the majority of all forum members wants to use them or not, not to mention the (probably) vast amount of OpenWrt users who don't write in this forum.

Well, that's a valid point of view.
But maybe you should open a new thread for this, as this doesn't regard only owners of the One but maybe also user of other 1-2 port router (like several RasPi's and other small devices).

22

VLAN is a standard, so all switches with self respect do the setup in the exact same setting menu, the L2 settings.
If you know what you are doing you don’t even need to look in the manual.

It is actually OpenWrt that is the anomaly in this business. OpenWrt L2 setup is found under something called devices!?
And the L3 settings are handled under interfaces, where you also find devices.

23

But it's the title of this thread...

Honestly this is more of a 'let me grab the popcorn' issue that I'm curious to see how is handled.

Because while the OP may not want vlans; the 2-3 @psherman cleans up a day means eventually this is going to come up and 'go buy a different router' won't cut it.

lol, yeah; you are not wrong.

I guess I'll just watch it play out.

24

I've been tagged into this discussion a few times, so I guess people are curious about my thoughts.

OpenWrt One and other single (lan) port routers
There are many very capable OpenWrt routers that have just a single lan port (some that may in fact have only one ethernet port, period). This spans the range from OpenWrt One to SBCs like the Raspberry Pi devices to x86 systems. These devices have their place, but are not the right devices for everyone and/or every situation.

While it's not clear to me if the OP was frustrated by the lack of an internal switch on the OpenWrt One, or just curious about the intended audience for such a unit, they did make clear that they "rely on the router" which suggests that they might be better served by a device with a built-in ethernet switch. There are many really good all-in-one routers that can satisfy the OP's needs. So let's not forget that the answer could have been as simple as:

  • Yes, the OpenWrt One has just a single lan port. You can expand the number of ports with an inexpensive unmanaged switch if you don't plan to use VLANs, or a slightly more expensive model that is managed and can accommodate VLANs.
  • If you do not want to rely on an external switch, the OpenWrt may not be the right option for you. The forum has lots of recommendations and discussions about other routers that have built-in-switches.

External Switches -- Managed vs Unmanaged
Beyond the one port + external switch vs AIO with internal switch, nobody actually asked the OP if they were planning on using VLANs or if they might want to in the future. All of the ensuing discussion about managed switches in general and then the idea of OpenWrt supported managed switches may have been entirely irrelevant to the OP if they don't have interest in VLANs and/or they would be better served by an AIO device.

Supporting managed switches (non-OpenWrt)
What I'll be saying here will be coming from both my personal opinion and the approach I have taken as an admin of the forum.

  1. The OpenWrt forum exists for the most part to help people learn to use OpenWrt and to resolve issues that arise along the way.
  2. We are not a general-purpose networking/support forum. We focus on OpenWrt.
  3. However, with the above two points, we should always realize that part of using OpenWrt successfully means being able to integrate it into a network with hardware/firmware from other vendors/sources. As such, it makes sense for the OpenWrt community to provide reasonable/best effort guidance to assist with that integration.

So let's talk about my 3rd point...

What does reasonable/best effort guidance mean? It will be different based on the knowledge and willingness of each contributor, but IMO, it should at least include the broad strokes approach ("configure your switch so that the uplink port is a trunk with all of the VLANs tagged; make the downstream ports access ports except for the one that connects to your AP which should also be a trunk"). The concepts of VLANs will carry over for all 802.1q standards based managed switch, even when the UI and sometimes the terminology might be quite different.

For me, I don't have first hand experience with every managed switch UI, but I'm totally willing to help where I can. For example, if that means reviewing some screenshots from a ZyXel switch (knowing that I've never touched one personally) and making suggestions based on what I see, that seems reasonable to me. On the other hand, I don't know anything about configuring Cisco enterprise switches on their CLI, so no, I'm not going to be willing or able to provide anything more than high level guidance.

I remember a thread (I wish I could find it, though) where I helped a user integrate their OpenWrt device into a complex Unifi environment. I was able to help because of my extensive knowledge of both OpenWrt and Unifi, and it was one that I felt particularly proud to have helped/solved.

I view the support of 'other' network equipment in these cases as a matter of "supporting them in service (or for the benefit) of OpenWrt. These are on-topic provided that:

  • OpenWrt is a central part of the equation.
  • The support of 'other' equipment is not a primary focus or a heavy burden to the forum (if/when the burden is high, support should be handled by the vendor/maintainer of the 'other' systems).
  • Vendor/maintainer support may not be able to adequately assist due to the nuances of (and possible lack of knowledge about) OpenWrt.

What we won't do
As noted earlier, we are not a general networking/support forum. We do not offer support (that is unrelated to OpenWrt integration) for vendor or other 3rd party hardware/firmware, including OpenWrt forks [1].

Bottom line
We want our users to succeed with their OpenWrt setups. If we can offer sufficient support of 'other' devices as to help achieve the users' goals, we should do so, as long as the contributors are able and willing, and it is sufficiently on-topic[2].

  1. Exceptions are made the forks that are found in the "community builds" part of the forum. These are typically supported within their dedicated threads/maintainers/users, and are typically not that far removed from the standard official OpenWrt builds). ↩︎

  2. What counts as on-topic is often a personal judgement call; ask yourself: would any reasonable person read the thread and understand that the 'other' support is being provided to help the user reach their goals with OpenWrt? ↩︎

1 Like
25

External switch will do a better job with most Openwrt hardware. Mediatek switch is an exception, and possibly if you are comfortable with custom NSS builds on Qualcomm hardware, otherwise you're offloading what could be a lot of work from a DSA driver device without acceleration. The multiple ports on mini pcs will probably get you the bandwidth but maybe not quite the latency etc. It's why you might even prefer just one fast port on a device rather than bunch of ones using an unaccelerated driver.

26

There are, seriously, too many threads where you did that.
But you did say you had fun with this one.