Timeline for an 18.x release?

Which is exactly the point -- Archer C7 users will have to wait for 4.14.

The presence of that work, as quickly as it is progressing and as exciting as I find it, should not cause other users to have to wait even longer than they already have.

OpenWrt is a community project and as such it depends on time of a big number of volunteers.
ar71xx is pretty much hit the end because mach files are taking too much space on flash and in the RAM for a number of devices.

Switch has to happen sometime,and it looks like the time is now

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I don't understand why we even need to ask this question considering the point that all ar71xx users have to do is not upgrade when a new version comes out. Good advice for any embedded device. This vs not being able to use new hardware in production because no stable release with support is available... no comparison.

LP,
Jure

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So any ar71xx devices with 18.06 will perform not as good as with 17.01?

No, they should perform pretty much identical to their 17.01.x base line.

But kernel 4.14 and flowoffloading allows a significant speedup compared to everything before (new feature), that is not available to ar71xx (which is stuck on kernel 4.9), but will be part of the new kernel 4.14 and DTS based ath79 target (covering the same devices). ath79 is actively being worked on right now, it just didn't make it in time for the 18.06.x branch (and it will take a few more weeks before it actually becomes feature complete for the supported devices in master as well, followed by porting over the individual devices one by one).

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AFAIK devices such as the Archer C7 will get 18.06, but on the 4.9 kernel instead of 4.14. It will be perfectly usuable and will have all the security patches it needs.

Does anyone know whether 18.06 images are being created automatically by the buildbots? Or is compiling yourself necessary at this time?

Sure the 18.06 binaries will be generated automatically. Buildbot is already crunching normal test snapshot builds of 18.06:
http://release-builds.lede-project.org/18.06/images/grid
http://release-builds.lede-project.org/18.06/packages/grid

But no "official" rc binaries have been released so far, as the build after branching is still being stabilised. (e.g. the build signing keys in the keyring were adjusted yesterday)

I must be blind, but I can only find the build logs, including the logs were the images are being uploaded. However, I am unable to find the images themselves. Care to point me in the right direction? :slight_smile:

http://downloads.openwrt.org/releases/18.06-SNAPSHOT/

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On a personal note, I simply would not run a firmware that didn't at least support FastPath / CTF / SFE by now. The performance is just too slow without it to a point where OEM firmwares with hardware NAT blows it away (yes I know QoS functionality takes a hit but don't need all that) where I don't max out my 500Mbit cable modem.

In many routers DD-WRT already supports this (e.g. R7000, R7800) via SFE, and now FastPath is finally hitting OpenWrt (e.g. WRT3200ACM, WRT32X, not sure what else).

It should be mentioned that there's a reason that directory is not public: At of now, these are test builds. The devs are still tweaking and modifying these builds pretty hard, it's really not advisable to grab these builds just yet.

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Absolutely, run a stock firmware with FastPath/CTF/SFE, so that it can be hacked faster.

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You don't want your regular end user looking for a stable release to run these; but beyond that, these builds should get all the testing they can get. And bugs can/should be reported AFAIK. Not just when the RCs come out.

'Given enough eyes, all bugs are shallow' goes the saying.

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This makes no sense. No one is getting "hacked" on their home network unless you're leaving a bunch of ports open you shouldn't. DD-WRT with SFE enabled goes from 300Mbits max to 900Mbits max, 100% worth it would never use without it. Same with OpenWrt builds that finally have FastPath.

And to support my argument, hnyman just added FastPath into the master R7800 kernel 4.14 builds a few hours ago.

While I agree that "fast path" shouldn't significantly change the security profile of an OpenWRT device, I think more caution is appropriate than

especially in world today. Between 100 Mbps+ home service, GHz-clocked ARM processors, the history of vulnerabilities of software running on routers, the software that users choose to run on their routers, users that enable UPnP, and the behavior and potential compromise of IoT devices (and end-user systems), the risk profile is significantly different than it was five or ten years ago. "Home" targets are often the most fruitful for hackers.

Timely update (unfortunately):

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Interesting link. I'm sure people will start asking if OpenWrt 2018 will protect against it any minute now even though the malware hasn't been investigated yet :smiley:

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Right... Of course...

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Since 18.06 has been branched already and this thread is drifting into offtopic, I'm closing it now.

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