[Solved] Wireless Access Point / Dumb Access Point

[anon72830772]

Questions for those familiar with Wireless Access Point / Dumb Access Point,
re: EnGenius EAP1300

Is the following comment posted by OpenWrt still correct/applicable?
The dumb AP does not provide DHCP service, DNS resolution, or a firewall

If so, since EAP1300 will be connected to an OpenWrt router,
Can/should firewall4 and dnsmasq be removed if using Firmware Selector with Customize installed packages option?
If possible to remove,
Any other packages that should also be removed?
e.g. ppp, ppp-mod-pppoe?

NB: I'm aware that packages can be added when using Firmware Selector but don't know if packages can be removed from stable and snapshot releases.

Thank-you

[frollic]

@anon72830772

If so, since EAP1300 will be connected to an OpenWrt router,
Can/should firewall4 and dnsmasq be removed if using Firmware Selector with Customize installed packages option?
If possible to remove,
Any other packages that should also be removed?
e.g. ppp, ppp-mod-pppoe?

Yes they can be removed, the ppps too.
No package has to be removed.

[anon72830772]

Thanks frollic.

Don't see any need to install packages that will just take up space and do nothing.

[giuliomagnifico]

You can' remove firewall4, but the dnsmasq, ppp, dnsmasq can be removed if you want to use it as access point only, but they weight nothing, few kb... or you can also leave them there and disable the service at boot using (example) service dnsmasq disable

[d687r02j8g]

Any thoughts on whether or not disabling these services would help AP performance?

[giuliomagnifico]

I don't think, at least if you aren't using a very old/limited wireless devices with a poor CPU and little RAM, those services do nothing to wireless antennas and since the router is workink in AP mode, it's also doing (almost) nothing with the CPU and RAM, so you won't have better wifi performance. You have to tune the wireless settings for it.

[anon72830772]

@giuliomagnifico

You can' remove firewall4 ...

That's an irritant.
Don't see why developers included firewall4 and the other packages for the dumb access points when they will do nothing, except make the end user manually disable them.

[giuliomagnifico]

That isn't developers choice, the firewall is built-in with kernel, (firewall4 now), if you don't include it, it will include the "old" firewall (iptables), you can disable the firewall and "don't install" the LuCi firewall page if you don't like it

[anon72830772]

Thanks for the explanation giuliomagnifico.

[account4538]

You can't remove firewall4 but you can disable it. Disable odhcpd as well.

[Borromini]

@anon72830772

Don't see why developers included firewall4 and the other packages for the dumb access points when they will do nothing, except make the end user manually disable them.

They're included because OpenWrt is primarily targeted at routers. What the dumb AP recipe does 90% of the tme is turning a router into an access point, which means you disable its routing capabilities.

You're stll free yourself to try and strip the firewall (amongst other things) from your own firmware with the image builder or the buildroot if it irks you that much. You just cannot reasonably expect developers to strip the firewall for a few devices that can be used as a router (which you can do with lots of hardware sold as access points after all). On targets like realtek, for example, the firewall is absent by default, because the hardware has no routing capabilities at all, and every single supported device is a switch, nothing more.

@d687r02j8g If you have an old device that is sitting on the fence, it might help free up some resources.