Just looking for some guidance on the setup. With a single unit as an AP, I used to set up my VLANs and then bridge the wireless SSID to the appropriate VLAN. Is it the same with the Decos? Also, for the Mesh setup, did you set the mesh on the 2.4Ghz channel or the 5 Ghz? Or both? Also, since the OpenWRT file is a snapshot, they typcially don't include Luci. Is that correct?
I tried asking for help on the general forums and the only reply I got was "it's a snapshot so I don't recommend trying it yet".
Stock firmware has everything on the same subnet but anything on the "guest" network is isolated from the other devices. I'm looking to set up the 3 Decos as an AP (one connected to an OPNSense router; the others part of a wireless mesh). I'm looking to set up 2 different SSIDs with 2 different VLANs and 2 different subnets. Firewall rules to be done in the OPNSense router. I can do the OPNSense setup - just looking for confirmation about the OpenWRT AP setup for the Decos.
Bridging SSIDs to VLANs is nothing specific to Decos. You can do that with any OpenWrt device. Just set up an unmanaged interface for the VLAN you want, create a bridge for that and add the SSID to it.
If you're using a snapshot version then connect to it via SSH and install luci yourself. Should be a simple "opkg update && opkg install luci". But snapshot are of course the latest "in development" version that's not guaranteed to be bug-free: https://openwrt.org/faq/difference_between_a_release_and_a_trunk_build
And if you're only using your Decos as APs then you should google for the "OpenWrt Dumb AP" instructions. I'm using that on all my OpenWrt devices since all of them are used as APs and the heart of it all is an Edgerouter-X with stock firmware that handles all the routing. Basically you simply disable "firewall", "dnsmasq" and "odhcpd" in System->Startup and remove any firewall zones and disable dhcp for all of your interfaces.
I have never used mesh though. For a single SSID you should be able to simply set up a 802.11s network. But if you need to route VLAN over it then look at the batman package.
And if you're going to use mesh over 5GHz wifi then look into installing the non-ct drivers for the ath10k since the ct drivers officially don't support meshing. (You can still set it up, but it won't work or isn't guaranteed to work.)
I did not add in guest wifi over VLANs yet. I only did the tftp process to install the snapshot, boot the in-memory openwrt version and then flash the snapshot to the s4 APs.
I did then get the mesh working across the three units but didn't extend to add a guest network.
Sorry I'm relatively new to all this Open-WRT stuff. I was looking to get a Deco product but the lack of user interface was putting me off. Looks like Open-WRT might be a savior. I have some concerns though:
1: There are literally like 18 quintillion different versions of even the same product line of Deco. Making sure you get that exact version for this Open-WRT firmware is basically looking for a needle in a haystack.
2: Lines like the x20, x50 and x60 series are very popular. Would these ever see support?
3: Would the actual mesh functionality of the units still work even when flashed to Open-WRT?
4: One thing severely lacking from stock firmware was SQM. Would CAKE run on this S4? Surely it lacks the processing power?
Support for a specific device depends mostly on someone owning the device and putting some work into porting it themselves. People already on the openwrt bandwagon will thus keep to new devices that are already supported.
The mesh functionality has nothing to do with the Decos. An Archer C6 v2 for instance has literally the same hardware inside (just not that much flash) as a Deco S4 or a Deco M4 v2. The only difference is that tp-link added mesh functionality to the decos in software. Openwrt supports mesh so almost all devices that have Openwrt support also support meshes.
The major difference is driver support on Openwrt. Tp-link uses drivers that give you more bandwidth than the open source drivers Openwrt offers.
So if you want to use Openwrt then don't buy a device and then find out if it even has Openwrt support. Find a device that already supports Openwrt and fits your needs and then buy that.
One thing I'm curous about and well not exactly related to Openwrt, it's hard to ask technical questions from people that have the Deco products. I'm hoping if someone is reading this they have some form of a Deco or know how TP-Link operates.
Basically, how is bufferbloat on the Decos? I know the QoS inside the Deco units can't be good (nowhere near SQM anyway) but I'm also not looking for CAKE like performance either. Just something that when download or upload is close to maxxed out, my ping under load only shoots up by say 3-4 ms. Not the ~40ms it currently does. Is there any documentation in what the modes in the Deco app actually do for QoS?
I used this to flash my Deco S4R. Works great, however, it seems to have the same issue/bug? the stock firmware has. Wifi speeds are capped at 250-260mbps.
Using stock firmware with the S4 set as router mode, I sometimes can get 550mbps (my max connection), but it'll eventually go back to capped at 260ish. Setting it to AP mode as suggested in that tp forum link, immediately removes that software cap and I get full 550 speed again. However, with openwrt, even AP mode is capped at 260ish. Anyone else have openwrt running on these getting over 260?
Hello,
I am new in OpenWRT world but i would like to get some digin on it. I'm just wondering will this snaphost work on S4R v4? Also may someone you help me with the exact steps how to deploy the current OpenWRT images on the S4 devices?
Thank you in advance!
Most people subscribed to this topic don't have a clue or simply no time.
naf posted a how-to on August 22th. Just scroll back a bit to find it.
But: You've got a v4. That likely means that the hardware is the same as the M4R v4. What ID does your device have on its label?
Because the M4R v4 has a completely different architecture than the M4R v2.
And while in theory the firmware for the M4R v4 should work on the S4 v4, the flash layout of the two devices is likely not the same.
Means you have to set up a virtual machine to build your own firmware, use the M4R v4 firmware sources as a base and change the flash layout in the dts file.
On top of that you need to solder a few cables to get access via a USB-to-TTL dongle to even test your custom firmware.
But that's nothing I personally have time to help you with.
"mesh" is only software. You can create meshes with almost every device that supports OpenWrt and has a driver that supports mesh. You don't need devices that can create a mesh with their oem firmware.
Hello everyone! Awesome thread here!! I've been trying to get openwrt on what im assuming is my new S4, I'm able to tftp the initramfs-kernel.bin and the device blinks green into a solid green. The trouble starts here, I switch my PC's ethernet back to DHCP and go to 192.168.1.1 and....nothing! The page gives me an error.
I've attached a photo of the underside of the device to this post. If I can supply anymore info, please let me know.
I'm away from my computer currently, but I believe I tried the latest snapshot initramfs-kerenel.bin so that makes sense why it wouldn't work.
When I return home tonight, I'll try SSH. If that fails I'll try a release candidate. I notice on the https://firmware-selector.openwrt.org/ page it offers 2 versions of the RC release, forgive my noob question but which one would be better? I'm not against trying both and seeing which works, but I'll admit, this is all very new to me!
Thank you for your work on these devices, even if I can't get it I'm still having so much fun experimenting with it all!
EDIT: I got to tinkering with it late last night! As you predicted, the release candidate got me up and running perfectly! Thank you again
I've got the US/3.6 hardware revision, and am not able to flash the -RC2 firmware. Via the reset-on-boot mechanism, I get to the stage where I can hit the admin panel, but the upgrade fails at around the 40% mark.
Seems like you can't just see the partition table in the stock firmware like with the other versions. Because since you say it's ARM based, this sounds very much like the M4R V3. And someone over in the M4R post has already successfully booted a modified version of the M5 firmware on their M4R V3.
But the partition layout will likely be different just like between the M4R V3 and the M5 or even the M4R V2 and the S4 V2.
@chalk are you willing to make a photo of the mainboard inside? Maybe even solder a few cables or headers to the serial console interface? Because at the end of the day someone who owns the device needs to do this to get the device supported.
