Openwrt Router Firmware

[xiaofan]

Think the most concern of using it would be the CPU,memory,disk space usage for Adguard home, if we are talking about running it on the router itself.

Currently CPU and meme usage are fine. Disk space usage is the no. 1 issue which can be overcomes by using extroot with a USB stick attached to router. Also set logs to minimal. I had tried extroot once but removed it since I'll be using the USB port for something else.

On what device specifically do you run pi-hole on?

My OpenWRT is running as a VM on an Intel J4105 Mini PC with Proxmox Virtual Environment (PVE). Then I have two Pi-hole LXC containers running on PVE as well, one for OpenWRT and the other for my Asus RT-AX86U. Take note I have two independant home networks.

But sometimes I will switch OpenWRT to pfSense and then only one Pi-hole LXC container will run in that case. I use pfBlockerNG with pfSense.

 

[hwzlite]

So far satisfied with the results vs using the default ISP DNS, and have my custom filters setup.

I'm using on a 24/7 x86 PC

Do checkout tips on :

• DNS-over-HTTP/3 (QUIC)
• fastest” / “best” Upstream DNS server(s) for adguard, why choose or benchmark? just parallel requests it all

​

 

[gpgtmeowmeow]

I'm using on a 24/7 x86 PC

Do checkout tips on :

• DNS-over-HTTP/3 (QUIC)
• fastest” / “best” Upstream DNS server(s) for adguard, why choose or benchmark? just parallel requests it all

Thanks boss, will read those.

Talking about fastest DNS upstream servers, I use this tool as a reference:
https://www.grc.com/dns/benchmark.htm
Still playing around with it. Currently bias towards Cloudflare for its uptime, and NextDNS and Quad9 for their privacy policy. Using all 3 in parallel requests now.

 

[TanKianW]

Anyone else tried AGH on OpenWRT?

Current router is able to support it so I installed it straight on router. Initial setup was with opkg, but decided to uninstall and run the manual installation with the edge version.

So far satisfied with the results vs using the default ISP DNS, and have my custom filters setup.

https://openwrt.org/docs/guide-user/services/dns/adguard-home
https://forum.openwrt.org/t/how-to-...home-on-openwrt-manual-and-opkg-method/113904

I run AGH on my travel router over OpenWRT.

https://forums.hardwarezone.com.sg/...r-for-new-users.6592979/page-3#post-144789674

 

[newsera]

@xiaofan - would you recommend buying ea7500v2 or ea8100 running openwrt?

 

[commandowolf]

@xiaofan - would you recommend buying ea7500v2 or ea8100 running openwrt?

https://forums.hardwarezone.com.sg/posts/141981303/
Can see his previous post about it here. Also, EA7500v2 and EA8100 only about $20 on carousell, if people charge you extra for the openwrt, ownself go buy the cheaper one, flash yourself. Very easy.

EA8100 4 antenna vs the EA7500v2 which have 3 antenna

 

[xiaofan]

@xiaofan
- would you recommend buying ea7500v2 or ea8100 running openwrt?

Yes if your budget is low. The wireless performance is so-so but may be good enough if your expectation is low. It can be a cost effective solution if you need to buy multiple units to form a mesh (if you have LAN ports in the rooms).

The CPU is also rather weak but may be good enough for average users.

If the budget is a bit higher, my recommendation is mini PC plus an AP (eg: cheap WiFi 6 router like TP-Link Archer AX72 from Carousell).

 

[ferbulous]

Hi, so i followed the instructions here to create mesh network with linkysys ea7500v2 (main) & mi wifi



But the 2nd router (mi wifi) mesh doesn’t seem to connect
Any other logs I should share here for troubleshooting?

 

[xiaofan]

Small size OpenWRT capable router.

1) Linkstar H68K, from Seeedstudio, docker capable, 2.5Gbps capable
https://www.seeedstudio.com/LinkStar-H68K-0232-p-5499.html
2) GL.iNet Beryl AX router -- GL-MT3000
https://www.gl-inet.com/products/gl-mt3000/
Review: the author does not actually recommend running the SeeedStudio H68K's OpenWRT distro. He likes to run it as a compact Docker server. Hopefully there will be alternative OpenWRT distribution for this machine soon.

 

[xiaofan]

Chinese Youtuber recommendation for OpenWRT soft router (ARM and x86 mini PC).

I will think x86 mini PC (J4125, J5105, N6005, N100, Intel Pentium Gold 7505, etc, with Intel gigabit adapters or 2.5Gbps adapters) is still easier and better. Then you can add cheap AX router like TP-Link Archer AX72 or Asus RT-AX55 (sub S$100) to run as AP. This may be a very good option for those who are reluctant to put a wireless router in the DB box.


I am still using an older J4105 mini PC (with 4 Intel gigabit Ethernet adapter) and it has no issues at all running OpenWRT as a Proxmox VM and yet has no issues with 1Gbps Fibre internet. J4125 and later CPUs will be even faster.

Related Mini PC review, if you want to run more stuff.

 

[Hafi]

new to OpenWRT, I am looking to offload my Adguard Home running on a Windows based NUC to a dedicated GL.iNET router like the GL-MT2500A Brume 2. How should I connect to my existing network?

ONT ---> WAN to Brume 2 to LAN ---> router

or

ONT --> router --> Brume 2 to LAN

 

[xiaofan]

new to OpenWRT, I am looking to offload my Adguard Home running on a Windows based NUC to a dedicated GL.iNET router like the GL-MT2500A Brume 2. How should I connect to my existing network?

ONT ---> WAN to Brume 2 to LAN ---> router

or

ONT --> router --> Brume 2 to LAN

Either way is okay.

1) Brume 2 as main router -- you can utilize its full function, but you existing router may have to relagate to an AP or you have to live with Double NAT

2) Keep your existing router as the main router and use Brume 2 only for certain functions like Adguard Home.

In your specific use case, I tend to think you should go with Option 2. Then you set up Brume 2 as the DNS server for your home network, on your main router if you want all the clients to use Brume 2 as the DNS server.

 

[Hafi]

Either way is okay.

1) Brume 2 as main router -- you can utilize its full function, but you existing router may have to relagate to an AP or you have to live with Double NAT

2) Keep your existing router as the main router and use Brume 2 only for certain functions like Adguard Home.

In your specific use case, I tend to think you should go with Option 2. Then you set up Brume 2 as the DNS server for your home network, on your main router if you want all the clients to use Brume 2 as the DNS server.

thanks, thats what I think too but since the Brume 2 comes with 1gb ram and 8gb storage I assume it should have other capabilities and features/plugins that can play/explore with but my main use is to host AdGuard Home at the moment.

 

[xiaofan]

thanks, thats what I think too but since the Brume 2 comes with 1gb ram and 8gb storage I assume it should have other capabilities and features/plugins that can play/explore with but my main use is to host AdGuard Home at the moment.

Yes I think the CPU of the Brume 2 (MTK Filogic 820) should be pretty powerful and you may want to play with it to see how it goes.

You may even be able to get Docker working on it.

 

[TanKianW]

Yes I think the CPU of the Brume 2 (MTK Filogic 820) should be pretty powerful and you may want to play with it to see how it goes.

You may even be able to get Docker working on it.

I find the latest RouterOS (v7) from MikroTik to be pretty good too. Though with a steeper learning curve and requires more understanding/hands-on if you are not a Linux person. But once you master WinBox.....everything just makes so much sense. You can even control multiple wireless from different routers using the cAPsMAN controller interface. Personally, I feel ROS to be better polished than OpenWRT which is worth considering too. Their RB5009 is quite a powerful and small-sized wired router with 10G/2.5G networking.

With ROSv7, you can also run Docker containers on their ARM-based routers (hAP ax, cAP ax) or CHR (x86) now. Like AGH, PiHole and even home automation like Home Assistant.
​

 

[xiaofan]

Yes, I agree that OpenWRT is less polished compared to pfSense/OPNsense and RouterOS and some others.

On the other hand, it supports many different type of HW including wireless which is one of the major advantages.

For mini PCs (usually low power Intel CPUs), OpenWRT runs very well as a VM under either Proxmox or Vmware ESXi and consumes less resource. pfSense is also working well but seems to consume more CPU power and also less tolerant to the virtualized network adapters.

For bare metal deployment on low power mini PCs, Openwrt also supports consumer grade network adapters like RealTek NICs much better than pfSense.

For the things I am doing (DDNS, wireguard, zerotier, tailscale, simple firewall rules, no complicated stuff), it seems to me OpenWRT can do whatever pfSense can do, but often it will rely on command line and manual editing of configuration files.

But for ads blocking, I use Pi-hole container outside OpenWRT (but I could try docker container insider OpenWRT as well but I think it is better to run docker outside of OpenWRT). pfBlockerNG for pfSense may be more powerful. But I tend to like the user interface of Pi-hole.

 

[Hafi]

Either way is okay.

1) Brume 2 as main router -- you can utilize its full function, but you existing router may have to relagate to an AP or you have to live with Double NAT

2) Keep your existing router as the main router and use Brume 2 only for certain functions like Adguard Home.

In your specific use case, I tend to think you should go with Option 2. Then you set up Brume 2 as the DNS server for your home network, on your main router if you want all the clients to use Brume 2 as the DNS server.

ordered my Brume 2 from Aliexpress (Amazon US giving US plug) and its on the way (shipped).

checked up the docu, just nice can deploy as Drop-in Gateway mode https://docs.gl-inet.com/en/4/tutorials/drop-in_gateway/

 

[xiaofan]

ordered my Brume 2 from Aliexpress (Amazon US giving US plug) and its on the way (shipped).

checked up the docu, just nice can deploy as Drop-in Gateway mode https://docs.gl-inet.com/en/4/tutorials/drop-in_gateway/

Yes this is a good use case.

From what I see, this mode is actually quite popular from watching the videos of Chinese Youtubers. They call this mode 旁路由. Often they use OpenWRT just for bypassing the Great Firewall, or sometimes ads-blocking.
https://docs.gl-inet.cn/4/features/drop-in_gateway_mode/ (Chinese version of the above guide).

 

[xiaofan]

Intel i3-N305 based mini PC can be a good choice for OpenWRT, especially those whith multiple 2.5G Ethernet ports.



If you do not want to buy those no-brand ones, Beelink mini PC may be a relatively good low cost yet good quality brand to go. Beelink EQ12 Pro with N305 CPU has only two 2.5G ports, but you can match it with a 2.5Gbps switch.

Still personally it is a bit wasted if just running as an OpenWRT router, so you may want to run Docker containers to carry out other functions.



Even the lower end N100 based mini PCs are very good for OpenWRT, for example, Beelink EQ12 N100 with dual 2.5GbE.

 

[DarthGW]

what would be a suitable new router that is supportable by OpenWRT that has decent wifi coverage for a 2room hdb (elderly occupant). shortlisted Linksys E8450, but only issue is no external antennas so i am concerned about wifi coverage.