Hi,
I have a 2.5Gbps fiber from my ISP and I am in the search for an openwrt compatible device that would handle the speed while sourcing my 2.5Gbps switch with two APs connected to it.
Router would be in the basement so wifi doesn't really matter. Sorry if that's been asked a million times but I didn't see a lot of topic with muliti-gig ethernet.
I'd go x86, intel N100 or similar.
there's the filogic target, but I'm not sure it's capable of routing at 2.5gbit.
it is: GL.iNET Flint 2 (GL-MT6000) discussions - #2136 by hansd
other devices using the same target: https://downloads.openwrt.org/snapshots/targets/mediatek/filogic/
if you're in EU, consider the Zyxel T-56 (EX5601-T1), it's 30€, new, same SoC as the GL-MT6000.
keep in mind, the MT6000 and T-56/EX5601 only have two 2.5GbE ports, WAN + one LAN, if you need more, you'd have to get a multi gig switch.
The described use case -especially without wireless requirements- is a prime example for n100/ n97
Thanks for the reply. I had a look to the flashing procedure for the Zyxel and it is quite involved compared to nmrpflash that took one minute on my Netgear RBR50. I'd rather buy something that's a bit more openwrt friendly.
far from having knowledge about all filogic devices, AFAIK the easiest to flash is the GL-MT6000, then the TUF-AX6000 (using remittor's "unofficial" interim image).
Plenty of choices from AliExpress where 4*2.5G N100 little bare bone boxes cost $130 or so each. Put Proxmox on it and OpenWrt runs great in LXC or QEMU.
OpenWrt does not run under LXC.
Running OpenWrt under full system virtualization (qemu/ kvm) is possible, but considerably more complex than running it on the bare iron (and used as dedicated router and nothing else. I would not recommend doing that for your primary router - and you'd really know what you're doing. It's fine for a lab network (which doesn't always need to work) or for testing purposes and if you are well accustomed to your preferred hypervisor, but it's not plug&play.
Running OpenWrt is pretty much as easy as on any other supported hardware, with the added benefit of being able to connect keyboard/ monitor if needed and being able to boot from removable media (making issues easy to spot/ fix and the hardware 'unbrickable').
Are you looking for a dedicated Router or a Wifi AP (configured as a router)?
AP:
Think I saw that glinet mt6000 ? or something like that had 2.5 gig port(s), mediatek chipset (pretty well supported) and 4T4R, so that's probably where I'd be looking.
Router:
I'm using fanless x86 for this, but saw various people use ARM boards as well in the forums.. NanoPi R5C, the beefier (and hotter running) R6 models, Radxa has E52C that looks real neat, there's NanoPC-T6, etc.
In any case fanless x86 with some higher-quality NICs in has worked quite well for me.
Switch:
I'm using RTL83xx-based switches, works pretty well too. Forum reports seem to indicate that RTL93xx switches also work with OpenWRT and those have 2.5gig ports and 10g for backbone links.
Check BPi-R4. It has 2 sfp ports (wan/lan) where you can connect even 10G SFP module.
It works very well here on an old laptop.
I went with Radxa E52C. Now gathering info to install OpenWrt proper on it as I am not keen on using their version.
Thanks!
It could get interesting, I don't see it in the supported list..
Sounds like (the very similar) Nanopi R5C would have been a better choice.
Its supported, cheaper and has a M.2 key (wifi) port.
Mine is running qualcomm wifi7 on OpenWRT
Good advice, didn't realize it wasn't in the supported list.
Definitely choose a device that's in the list for the least amount of trouble.
Sorry for including it in the post!
Interestingly, it says right on their product page that OpenWrt is supported, not sure what to make of that.
There might be an image for a different product, that's compatible with the E52C.
Or they're simply lying, it's not uncommon.
Apparently they've spun their own image of openwrt already (search for e52c).
The vendor pushed a patch upstream for kernel support on August 7. As far as I can tell it contains only a DTS file "rk3588s-radxa-e52c.dts" for the device. And some minimal documentation.
Not sure if that is enough to get OpenWrt offical running on it or not..
Random find but looks like Radxa is working on a new model E54C, apparently it can run in a configuration with Incus for running containers + openwrt at the same time.
Looks like they have 2 spins of openwrt, the basic one linked above and their own derivative distro --- that can probably run containers too if I had to guess
Bit more research on the E52C...
It's being sold as a low-cost SoC with 2x A76 cores and 4x A55 cores.
But actually the ASIC tapes out with 4x A76 cores and a Mali GPU in addition to the 4x A55 cores.
What I think the soon-to-be-upstreamed uboot patch does is read some e-fuses and disable 2 cores and 1 GPU core based on what the efuses say. There's some talk about this over on the CNX forums.
So it's low-cost because it's from a bin where the GPU might not work or one of the A76 cores might not work. If you happen to get one where its just the GPU that doesn't work, I guess in theory you could enable 2x additional A76 cores by running a non-patched uboot.
Don't know if this is neat or scary 
Running under LXC has it's issue, you should try to run VPN server, or use PPPoE as WAN connection, then you'll see the problem.
It's still possible to have workaround but a bit complicated.
