Openwrt Router Firmware

[xiaofan]

OpenWRT 23.05 has been released, adding support for IPQ
https://openwrt.org/releases/23.05/notes-23.05.0

Many new devices added​

OpenWrt 23.05 supports over 1790 devices. Support for over 200 new devices was added in addition to the device support by OpenWrt 22.03.

• The ipq807x target for the Qualcomm IPQ807x Wifi 6 SoCs was added
• The mediatek/filogic subtarget for the Mediatek Filogic 830 and 630 SoCs was added
• The sifiveu target for the HiFive RISC-V Unleashed and Unmatched boards

Highlights of device support​

• Switched ipq40xx target to DSA
• VDSL support on AVM FRITZ!Box 7530
• Support for devices with 2.5G PHYs
  • Acer Predator W6 (MT7986A), Mercusys MR90X v1 (MT7986BLA), Netgear WAX206 (MT7622), Netgear WAX220 (MT7986), ZyXEL NWA50AX Pro (MT7981), Asus (TUF Gaming) AX4200 (MT7986A), Netgear WAX218 (IPQ8074), Xiaomi AX9000 (IPQ8074), Dynalink DL-WRX36 (IPQ8074), GL.iNet GL-MT6000 (MT7986A), Netgear WAX620 (IPQ8072A), ZyXEL EX5700 (MT7986)
• Support for Wifi 6E (6GHz)
  • Acer Predator W6 (MT7986A), ZyXEL EX5700 (MT7986)
• 2 Gbps WAN/LAN NAT Routing on ramips MT7621 devices (See OpenWrt forum)
• Improved DSL statistics on ubus and in LuCI
• Added Arm SystemReady (EFI) compliant target replacing the armvirt target

 

[xiaofan]

Just looked at the device support, there are no much updates.

1) No much change to the supported AX routers
https://openwrt.org/toh/views/toh_available_16128_ax-wifi

Asus RT-AX53U, RT-AX1800U, D-Link DAP-X1860, Linksys E8450 and Xiaomi AX3200 are supported.

Then there are quite a few have snapshot release, including Asus TUF-AX4200, Linksys E7350, Xiaomi AX3600 and Xiaomi AX9000.

2) Linksys EA7500v2 and Linksys EA8100 v1 -- supported by OpenWRT 23.05.0 release

3) Linksys WRT AC series (WRT1900AC v1/v2, WRT1900ACS, WRT1200AC, WRT32X, WRT3200ACM) -- last release was 22.03.2, no upgrade to the latets 23.05 series

4) D-Link DIR-865L has also snapshot release but I was not able to get it work in my last try. DIR-868L is not supported but you are better to use DD-WRT for it.

 

[xiaofan]

First try of OpenWRT 23.05 on Proxmox PVE8.

Hostname	OpenWrt
Model	QEMU Standard PC (i440FX + PIIX, 1996)
Architecture	QEMU Virtual CPU version 2.5+
Target Platform	x86/64
Firmware Version	OpenWrt 23.05.0 r23497-6637af95aa / LuCI openwrt-23.05 branch git-23.236.53405-fc638c8
Kernel Version	5.15.134
Local Time	2023-10-15 01:56:07
Uptime	2h 6m 31s
Load Average	0.00, 0.00, 0.00

I am using a newly bought Intel N100 based mini PC with 16GB RAM and 512GB SSD storage. It has two 2.5G Ethernet ports.

iperf3 test server -- on the WAN side, using Proxmox Debian 12 LxC container
iperf3 test client -- on the LAN side, Acer Swift 3 2021 model with external Ugreen USB 3.0 to 2.5G adapter

PS C:\work\speedtest\iperf-3.15-win64> .\iperf3.exe -c 192.168.50.11
Connecting to host 192.168.50.11, port 5201
[  5] local 192.168.60.196 port 61600 connected to 192.168.50.11 port 5201
[ ID] Interval           Transfer     Bitrate
[  5]   0.00-1.00   sec   254 MBytes  2.13 Gbits/sec
[  5]   1.00-2.00   sec   253 MBytes  2.12 Gbits/sec
[  5]   2.00-3.00   sec   254 MBytes  2.13 Gbits/sec
[  5]   3.00-4.00   sec   254 MBytes  2.13 Gbits/sec
[  5]   4.00-5.00   sec   255 MBytes  2.14 Gbits/sec
[  5]   5.00-6.00   sec   253 MBytes  2.12 Gbits/sec
[  5]   6.00-7.00   sec   253 MBytes  2.12 Gbits/sec
[  5]   7.00-8.00   sec   254 MBytes  2.13 Gbits/sec
[  5]   8.00-9.00   sec   249 MBytes  2.09 Gbits/sec
[  5]   9.00-10.00  sec   251 MBytes  2.10 Gbits/sec
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
[ ID] Interval           Transfer     Bitrate
[  5]   0.00-10.00  sec  2.47 GBytes  2.12 Gbits/sec                  sender
[  5]   0.00-10.05  sec  2.47 GBytes  2.11 Gbits/sec                  receiver

iperf Done.
PS C:\work\speedtest\iperf-3.15-win64> .\iperf3.exe -c 192.168.50.11 -R
Connecting to host 192.168.50.11, port 5201
Reverse mode, remote host 192.168.50.11 is sending
[  5] local 192.168.60.196 port 61605 connected to 192.168.50.11 port 5201
[ ID] Interval           Transfer     Bitrate
[  5]   0.00-1.00   sec   283 MBytes  2.37 Gbits/sec
[  5]   1.00-2.00   sec   283 MBytes  2.37 Gbits/sec
[  5]   2.00-3.00   sec   281 MBytes  2.36 Gbits/sec
[  5]   3.00-4.00   sec   278 MBytes  2.34 Gbits/sec
[  5]   4.00-5.00   sec   281 MBytes  2.36 Gbits/sec
[  5]   5.00-6.00   sec   282 MBytes  2.36 Gbits/sec
[  5]   6.00-7.00   sec   283 MBytes  2.37 Gbits/sec
[  5]   7.00-8.00   sec   283 MBytes  2.37 Gbits/sec
[  5]   8.00-9.00   sec   269 MBytes  2.25 Gbits/sec
[  5]   9.00-10.00  sec   283 MBytes  2.37 Gbits/sec
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
[ ID] Interval           Transfer     Bitrate         Retr
[  5]   0.00-10.05  sec  2.74 GBytes  2.34 Gbits/sec    0             sender
[  5]   0.00-10.00  sec  2.74 GBytes  2.35 Gbits/sec                  receiver

iperf Done.

 

[xiaofan]

Linksys EA7500v2 upgraded to OpenWRT 23.05.0.

Wireless client used -- Acer Switf 3 Windows 11 laptop (2021 model) with built-in Intel AX201 WiFi 6 adapter.

1) Using OpenWRT 22.03.5

Hostname	OpenWrt
Model	Linksys EA7500 v2
Architecture	MediaTek MT7621 ver:1 eco:3
Target Platform	ramips/mt7621
Firmware Version	OpenWrt 22.03.5 r20134-5f15225c1e / LuCI openwrt-22.03 branch git-23.093.57104-ce20b4a
Kernel Version	5.10.176
Local Time	2023-10-15 06:04:20
Uptime	3h 27m 49s
Load Average	0.10, 0.06, 0.04

Wireless speedtest

2) Upgraded to 23.05.0

Hostname	OpenWrt
Model	Linksys EA7500 v2
Architecture	MediaTek MT7621 ver:1 eco:3
Target Platform	ramips/mt7621
Firmware Version	OpenWrt 23.05.0 r23497-6637af95aa / LuCI openwrt-23.05 branch git-23.236.53405-fc638c8
Kernel Version	5.15.134
Local Time	2023-10-15 06:23:09
Uptime	0h 12m 40s
Load Average	0.03, 0.21, 0.16

 

[xiaofan]

Even with cheap and low end Linksys EA7500v2 (similar to Linksys EA8100, which you can get at around S$10 from Carousell), you can effectively block ads and malware, by simply install the https-dns-proxy package. Then you can use Adgyard Family and Control-D family as the DoH providers.

Then carry out test using DNS Leak Test and Ads block test, you will find no DNS Leak and you can achieve 93% score in the test, same score as what I can get using Pi-Hole.
https://www.dnsleaktest.com/
https://d3ward.github.io/toolz/adblock.html

 

[newsera]

@xiaofan , did you notice the drop in download speed (even in your above speedtest results) after DSA introduction? Also some reported that software offloading broke in kernel 6.1. Right now openwrt space looks fragile. I switched to dd-wrt for the time being (running linksys wrt1900acsv2 - just for routing/dhcp/vpn)

 

[xiaofan]

@xiaofan , did you notice the drop in download speed (even in your above speedtest results) after DSA introduction? Also some reported that software offloading broke in kernel 6.1. Right now openwrt space looks fragile. I switched to dd-wrt for the time being (running linksys wrt1900acsv2 - just for routing/dhcp/vpn)

My SpeedTest results posted above are with DSA, both OpenWRT 22.03 and 23.05. I would say the wireless speed test results are comparable between the two, and comparable with the earlier 21.02 version (first official release to support Linksys EA7500 v2 and Linksys EA8100 v1) which is also using DSA. The MT7621 chipset is well supported by OpenWRT.
https://downloads.openwrt.org/releases/23.05.0/targets/ramips/mt7621/

But for Linksys WRT AC series, like your WRT1900ACS V2 and my WRT1900 AC V1, indeed I think OpenWRT is no longer a good choice, the wireless driver has always had a bit of problem. And the last version to support them is OpenWRT 22.03.2. They are not inclued in OpenWRT 23.05.0 release.

So I agree with you that DD-WRT is now a better choice for WRT AC series.
https://openwrt.org/toh/linksys/wrt_ac_series

 

[xiaofan]

No issues with Software offloading.

Wired speed test for the Linksys EA7500 v2 running OpenWRT 23.05.0.
Wired client used -- Acer Switf 3 Windows 11 laptop (2021 model) with external Ugreen USB 3.0 to gigabit Ethernet adapter

 

[xiaofan]

2.4GHz wireless speedtest result is only for reference. In typical Singapore household (HDB flat or condo flat) 2.4GHz band is just too congested.

Wireless router -- Linksys EA7500v2 runningOpenWRT 23.05.0.
Wireless client used -- Acer Switf 3 Windows 11 laptop (2021 model) with built-in Intel AX201 WiFi 6 adapter.

 

[newsera]

wow. that looks pretty impressive. for 7500v2, how is the bufferbloat like while testing 1G on wired?

 

[newsera]

True. I was curious to know your thoughts on why the download speed is lower than upload speed on 5 ghz when running openwrt? I was under the impression that this is due to DSA as noticed by vantech too.
430 Download vs 600 Upload, 411 Download vs 575 Mbps Upload

 

[xiaofan]

True. I was curious to know your thoughts on why the download speed is lower than upload speed on 5 ghz when running openwrt? I was under the impression that this is due to DSA as noticed by vantech too.
430 Download vs 600 Upload, 411 Download vs 575 Mbps Upload

Maybe DSA plays a part. I am not sure.

But for Linksys EA7500 v2 and Linksys EA8100 v1, we can not do much as the first officially supported version 21.02 is already using DSA. In fact OpenWRT 21.02.0 release did not work for me and I was using snapshot release with my Linksys EA7500 v2 back in 2021.

On the other hand, I had past result where download speed was the same as upload, using OpenWRT 22.03.

That being said, in majorty of the my past wireless test results, usually download is slower compared to upload.

An earlier test result using OpenWRT snapshot back in 2021.

 

[newsera]

22.03 seems like a good place to be as 500/500 seems pretty decent for a wireless client of ea7500v2

 

[xiaofan]

22.03 seems like a good place to be as 500/500 seems pretty decent for a wireless client of ea7500v2

Two test results mentioned above are actually using 22.03.5.
https://forums.hardwarezone.com.sg/threads/openwrt-router-firmware.5967482/page-21#post-149751488

 

[xiaofan]

wow. that looks pretty impressive. for 7500v2, how is the bufferbloat like while testing 1G on wired?

It is not bad with the score of A. But we need to take the result with a grain of salt as the speed from waveform.com is slow for the wired connection.

 

[newsera]

Let me try to swap the router and see how it is like with EA7500v2.

Update: Upload Latency was super high in bufferbloat test with EA7500v2 when compared with WRT1900ACSv2

 

[xiaofan]

Let me try to swap the router and see how it is like with EA7500v2.

Update: Upload Latency was super high in bufferbloat test with EA7500v2 when compared with WRT1900ACSv2

I see. That is why I say we need to take a grain of salt at my A result, since my upload is slow.

Did you reach 700Mbps+ with your upload? With high upload speed, I expect it to have some issues.

 

[newsera]

yes.. close to 850 Mbps.. i might go back to edgerouter X hehe

 

[newsera]

Below speedtest result from a wired client connected to Linksys WRT1900ACSv2 running DD-WRT.

# speedtest

Speedtest by Ookla

Server: Singtel - Singapore (id: 13623)
ISP: M1
Idle Latency: 4.10 ms (jitter: 0.07ms, low: 4.00ms, high: 4.19ms)
Download: 948.93 Mbps (data used: 463.8 MB)
11.55 ms (jitter: 1.25ms, low: 3.87ms, high: 16.55ms)
Upload: 944.30 Mbps (data used: 437.2 MB)
4.87 ms (jitter: 0.36ms, low: 3.35ms, high: 6.47ms)
Packet Loss: 0.0%

Firmware: DD-WRT v3.0-r53616 std (10/12/23)
Kernel: Linux 4.9.337

Heard the next version of dd-wrt 53675 jumps to 6.1 with multiple good fixes (working shortcut forwarding engine - SFE on Kernel 6.1).

 

[nothinghere]

Routers like EA7500v2 and EA8100v1 has the MT7621 SoC, which may be old but is still very good as OpenWRT supports hardware offloading for gigabit connections.

Bufferbloat is another issue though, MT7621's SoC is only powerful enough to run SQM like Cake and fq_codel at less than 150Mbps.