I'm a total beginner to networking. I have 6 Google Wifi AC-1304 pucks. I got tired of Google's terrible software so I decided to install OpenWRT on them and create a mesh network. I installed OpenWRT perfectly on two of them. It was surprisingly easy with these directions: https://openwrt.org/toh/google/wifi.
The video links to a script, which I ran to create the dumb AP. It seemed to work, and deleted some unneeded functionality (below). However, after that nothing works.
I connected my ethernet cord but couldn't access the interface at 192.168.1.1 on either puck. I reset them and ran through the installation instructions again, but after booting OpenWRT, I can't ping 192.168.1.1 to program the image to the main flash. I've tried everything I can think of. I reset all my PC network settings. I recreated the USB drives. I tried a second PC. I even tried to install it on a third puck. No matter what I do, I can't ping 192.168.1.1.
What am I doing wrong? It worked perfectly the first two times before I ran that script!
[SOLVED]: I was able to get one puck up and running. I think one of the flash drives got corrupted somehow, so I recreated them and it worked. I will take the advice that the video is outdated and try a more modern way to create the mesh network! Thanks all!
Just resetting the devices should do to recover access. Why install OpenWrt again?
Have you tried pinging 192.168.1.1 after reset?
Maybe try setting your PC to a fixed IP address, e.g. 192.168.1.2 or 192.168.1.10.
Make sure to connect your PC to the LAN port, not the WAN port.
You do understand that you are not to run the script on the mesh master, don't you?
Yes to all those things. I ran the script on the dumb AP only, but for some reason it seems to have impacted everything. Given that I tried the same install process that worked on the first two on a third puck, it must be my PC or home network?
And yes I tried a fixed IP address, switching ports, and pinging 192.168.1.1. The ping doesn't work even with a fixed IP.
I was actually looking at the wiki again. May aswell ask here.
Just to clarify some things.
1: MyMeshID is just the ID for mesh nodes to connect to each other and isn't broadcasted by the nodes to normal clients like laptops/phone?
2: mywificode is the password for the nodes to join the mesh id for authentication purposes? It's nothing to do with the normal SSID and password?
3: myrootpassword is just the login for cli or Luci (default username admin) to save you setting it up after flashing?
4: Obviously you set each mesh node to have different LAN IP addresses but do you also have to configure other nodes to point to the node with wan access for dns and dhcp assignment?
5: Likely stupid question but do you configure the same SSID on each mesh node (for roaming) or will the mesh autobroadcast the SSID from the main portal node to all others? i.e say my phone is just in range of mesh node 2 but I did not configue an SSID on node 2, would my phone still be able to "see" the SSID and connect? I hope that makes sense.
MyMeshID is a secret mesh id string of your choice. This is used as a seed for generating secure keys to be used for encrypting all traffic on the mesh backhaul. ONLY other meshnodes with the same id string will be able to connect. User/client devices should not display this, although some older devices might do so.
MyWifiCode is the wifi access code you will use for connecting user devices to the Mesh Gate Access Points. It is not used at all by the meshnode to meshnode communications.
Yes, correct.
No - very wrong. All meshnodes will be configured with the exact same ipv4 address. This is used ONLY if a meshnode finds itself connected by its wan port to an upstream Internet feed.
All other meshnodes (mesh peers) will get an ipv4 address via dhcp.
You are missing the point, you do not have to configure anything on a node by node basis. This is done autonomously by mesh11sd.
The Rapid Deployment configuration will normally be EXACTLY the same on EVERY node.
All the meshnode SSIDs will be the same except for a suffix eg something like OpenWrt-5g-xxxx
The "base" ssid is the default found in the wireless config. In the upcoming mesh11sd v5, this can be set more easily from the mesh11sd config.
The suffix approach works reliably when moving around, but relies on the user accepting meshnode ssids in the area within which they are moving.
Actual "roaming" is different as it relies more on what is going on in the client operating system. Generally it is less reliable unless you are very careful in placing your "access points". This type of placement though is incompatible with the requirements of a mesh, where node to node connections require good signal.
That is not how it works. By default mesh11sd enables all "access point" SSIDs.
I had some time to try this myself... it did not go well. I don't know what I did wrong. So I created an image as per wiki with the proper packages. I was able to log in with myrootpassword and the 192.168.9.1 IP address so I knew it worked... however something I did not expect happened. Maybe this will help to explain:
Even though OpenWRT stated the SSID was disabled, I was able to join and connect to the mesh11 generated 2G SSID on a laptop and had internet access. Obviously I quickly pulled the plug on the router since I realised anyone could join either the 2G or 5G network.
There is a known bug in v4.x.x where encryption type 3 fails, so select type 1.
For clarity, the relevant "uci-defaults" section would look something like this:
uci set mesh11sd.setup.auto_config='1'
uci set mesh11sd.setup.auto_mesh_id='MyMeshID'
uci set mesh11sd.setup.mesh_gate_encryption='1'
uci set mesh11sd.setup.mesh_gate_key='mywificode'
uci commit mesh11sd
uci set network.lan.ipaddr='192.168.9.1'
uci commit network
rootpassword="myrootpassword"
/bin/passwd root << EOF
$rootpassword
$rootpassword
EOF
Note that the documentation and wiki pages are currently in the process of being updated, so you may have missed this on your first read.
Note also from the latest documentation:
Mesh11sd uses the uci utility to manage dynamic configuration changes, moreover autoconfiguration is done on every startup and is not a one off process.
In normal operation, configuration changes are not written to the config files in /etc/config but are kept in volatile storage by way of the uci utility.
Directly editing a config file will very likely break something, all manual changes should be done with the uci utility and then only by expert users.
The OpenWrt Luci web interface does not support mesh11sd configuration and will probably not even show its effects.
Encyption on 1 is still making the SSIDs be unencrypted. If it helps, this is on a Zyxel EX5601. I'm wondering if this router having a 2.5 Gbps WAN port is somehow messing something up. Also just to be clear, I'm doing this on 23.05.5 as I thought it would be the most stable to do testing on.
