Searching for router to buy

(Ukraine)Plugging the Mikrotik hap ac2. Bought it for about 1800 UAH last month. I like it a lot. It feels well made, has 5 gigabit ports and wireless speed is close to what I pay for(studio appartment). It uses a snapshot, but I have not had any problems, I've only configured VLAN's LuCi tho.

It’s an AP, are you using this with raspberry pi?

With openwrt, nothing is strictly "ap", it's all software-defined. You can even run a device branded as a "repeater" as a router.

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It's a router. It has a 5 port switch, a quad-core network appliance SoC, 128 megs of RAM and runs RouterOS. See also their own table of test results.

I'm surprised, they're so ubiquitous in so many places. One huge advantage of the RPi4 is usually the supply.

A post was split to a new topic: GL.iNet devices and OpenWrt support

and @Cheddoleum oh right, once you have the hardware and openwrt is flashed you do whatever want, my bad

@dlakelan I asked and it was incorrectly displayed no stock so I can get the parts.
Which leads to the questions
Only one part I couldn’t figure out by search. What should I look for as WAP? Should I just get basic router like archer C7 to connect the tp-link ue300?

I’m new to this raspberry pi as router thing but it seems doable even with my no Linux knowledge. Mostly it’s because I’m curious, if I fail I just grab a router :sweat_smile:

Bonus dumb question: this method being x86 means that I need a display connected to the pi every time I want to configure something or network access is enough?

I like the tp-link eap225 as wireless access point. Also any older OpenWrt device would work well. Archer C7 is a good candidate for example.

The UE300 is a very good choice for USB Ethernet, I recommend to use it as WAN rather than LAN, then the onboard device is the one connected to LAN and it's slightly less error prone that way.

Yes you can just connect via the network to admin the device no keyboard or monitor needed (but they're a nice option)

the raspberry pi400 even comes with a keyboard build-in and apparently a slightly more refined CPU, that runs a bit colder than the first batch of rpi4b's.... got one at home and wanted to play with as openwrt router, but instead it grew into one of the kids desktop... :wink:

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Network access to the pi is enough.

Yes the plan is to use it for the WAN, no driver is needed right?

For now I keep using my old 1043nd router for access point till I figure out if I can manage with my little Linux knowledge the Pi but it doesn’t sound hard.

@moeller0 I think that I’ll pick that one too even though it’s a bit harder to hide since it’s bigger, the kit also comes with basically everything. Can I use the Pi as SD CARD reader on different machine for creating the installer or do I need to pick a card reader separately? Sorry to ask, I didn’t search for it yet but I’m sure that the answer is out there

@amq thank you too, good that I only really need display for the install

As far as I know, not realistically. The pi typically boots from its SD card and then it would require a specific OS that allows to remove the card to use the slot for other uses...
I think one can install the OS on a USB3 connected drive or use trickery like an OS purely running from a memory loaded ramdisk, but compared to getting another SD-card reader/writer that seems preety involved for little gain, no?

there are definitely some USB ethernet related packages you need to install, unless you use the @anon50098793 community build which contains them already and a lot more, or build your own. There's even an online build service that someone has set up to build it for you. https://chef.libremesh.org/?version=21.02.0-rc3&target=bcm27xx%2Fbcm2709&id=rpi-2 you can just add the names of the packages you want. I don't remember off hand which ones they are but something about usb ethernet and realtek.

Definitely get a separate USB card reader to read/write the card. A lot of RPi4 "kits" come with them.

Ok guys I think I have enough information to start and I’ll get the parts. Thank you all for the help! If something goes wrong and won’t find the answer then I’ll be back with a separate thread, thanks again :slightly_smiling_face:

You might want to look at RPi4 threads before going this route...

I know that you are quite critical* on PIs as routers, but honestly, at least add a link to a thread that shows (one or more of the) issues, instead of a completely vague reference to threads, no?

*) And do not think your critique is without merit, it is certainly a trade-off to "press" a SoC into router duty that clearly was not designed for that purpose... On the other hand the PIs do have a relative large and vibrant ecosystem, unlike some of the more niche SoC/SBCs (which does not change the fact that a single Gbps-ethernet adapter is not ideal for routing).

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The "dance on roses" approach which is somewhat misleading (just look at the community build thread) and the constant push of that everyone needs SQM because they don't know any better is getting old.

I have zero idea what you are refering to here, care to elaborate?

Not my claim, and I am involved in SQM development. I do think that SQM can offer quite a lot to many, but I explicitly rejected the claim that SQM is strictly needed by all/anybody.
But I also do not buy the argument heard occasionally that above X Mbps linkspeed AQM/traffic shaping becomes superfluous, for ever increasing values of X.
The point is that there are only two reliable options to keep latency under load in acceptable bounds (largely independent of the actual acceptance threshold), either make sure load never exceeds capacity (traditionally done in back bones, where only short saturation epochs are tolerated before either ingress traffic is throttled or the capacity is expanded), or use methods to keep latency in bounds even under saturating loads, aka AQM. SQM just happens to be one beginner friendly AQM package that tries to come up with decent/acceptable defaults...

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AFAIK the key issue with this device is bundling of out-of-the-box ethernet drivers...

this is indeed not-so beginner friendly when it comes to beginners with openwrt...

other than that... the empirical feedback is that this device does indeed perform above and beyond what 'traditional-theology' would dictate...

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I’ve read many but I mostly see success stories, which threads are you referring to?

Guys, is this also viable option or only the UE300? It has AX88179 https://www.tp-link.com/us/home-networking/usb-converter/ue305/#specifications