[HN Gopher] OpenWrt One/AP-24.XY: new open source router board b...
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OpenWrt One/AP-24.XY: new open source router board by OpenWrt and
Banana Pi
Author : opengears
Score : 139 points
Date : 2024-01-12 05:22 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.cnx-software.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.cnx-software.com)
| vmurthy wrote:
| Looks like decent specs for a homelab (although not for
| "creators" :-P) SoC - MediaTek MT7981B (Filogic
| 820) dual-core Cortex-A53 processor @ 1.3 GHz
| *Networking* - 2.5GbE RJ45 port - Gigabit
| Ethernet RJ45 port - Dual-band WiFI 6 via MediaTek
| MT7976C (2x2 2.4 GHz + 3x3/2x2 + zero-wait DFS 5Ghz) -
| 3x MMCX antenna connectors
|
| From TFA
|
| "The router's specifications have been selected with the goal of
| keeping the price under $100, and that's why we have interfaces
| such as USB 2.0 instead of USB 3.0 since there aren't any spare
| ones in the Filogic 820 SoC"
| geerlingguy wrote:
| 2.5G is still plenty for most creator use cases (even for
| editing a few 4K livestreams off a NAS). The only difficulty is
| if you hit certain types of routing, performance can't always
| keep up (sometimes even to a gigabit).
|
| One thing I'd love is if more vendors would give a bunch of
| examples and specifically list what things are hardware
| accelerated and which are not (MikroTik's been pretty good
| about this lately, though it's a lot of digging in docs).
| CyberDildonics wrote:
| What is the difference between a "homelab" and a "creator"? I
| don't think these labels mean anything.
|
| Also you realize this is a router to connect to the internet
| right? If you want computers to have faster ethernet links
| between themselves you can have a switch with faster ports. It
| isn't going to make sense to try to mix your router and your
| switch at that point.
| opengears wrote:
| I am really excited about this one. I have used the Turris Omnia
| in different settings, and can absolutely recommend it for people
| that want a great supported Open Source Hardware and OpenWRT
| router. This one seems to be an alternative to the Turris Omnia.
| themoonisachees wrote:
| Isn't the omnia like $350? For me that's prohibitively
| expensive to spend on a router, whereas the projected $100
| price point here is much more palatable (I probably still won't
| be buying it because I need SFP, but if not I would consider
| it)
| darkwater wrote:
| So, what are your options? I'm in the market for a "cheap
| enough" router supported by OpennWRT with an SFP because my
| FTTH is terminated in the ISP router currently (but that
| router sucks, even if I moved the wifi network completely
| outside it, it still hangs from time to time)
| jonhohle wrote:
| I'm currently using a Banana-PI R3 which meets those
| requirements. It only recently got release support for
| OpenWRT, but SinoVOIP seems to be actively working with
| them (which is confirmed with this announcement). There are
| still small issues (last I checked the boot loader method
| of cloning to nand is broken), but it's been pretty solid
| for the last 5 or 6 months.
|
| I was coming from a late model AirPort Extreme but needed
| something with more configurability. My biggest with it
| issue is that the BPI is a fast computer with lots of RAM
| and storage (and SD and M2 expand ability), but OpenWRT is
| made for the tiniest embedded systems and everything from
| configuration to pre-built packages prioritize space over
| quality of life. Busybox is fine, but when I have as much
| power as a desktop computer from 10 years ago, it feels
| like an unnecessary inconvenience. Or as I just went
| through, Ruby installs the Ruby interpreter and nothing
| else, each module in the standard library is a separate
| package and someone went through the work of configuring
| the dependencies of each of them. Likewise, LUCI is great,
| but sometimes I just want to configure a thing, not have to
| find the LUCI configuration for the thing.
| no_time wrote:
| Absolute steal for $100.
|
| I hope some EU distributor for have it near this price.
| mhitza wrote:
| My experience with EU pricing is generally: convert to euro,
| add 50-100 euros on top.
| themoonisachees wrote:
| At 150EUR, the banana pi r4 is available for not much more
| and has several nice to have feature not planned on this
| board.
| SV_BubbleTime wrote:
| Love the idea. Underwhelmed by the hardware choices.
|
| Only two nics, and only one is 2.5Gbe. Wifi6 while 6E now and 7
| is soon. What will probably be travel router level.
| magicalhippo wrote:
| Really jealous of all those who are annoyed this can't handle
| their >1Gbps internet connection...
|
| I'm in Oslo, capital of Norway, and 500/15 Mbps is the fastest
| I can get...
| happymellon wrote:
| I would love 500/15.
|
| Here in the UK I'm still stuck with BT who keep sending out
| flyers and public consultations saying they'll upgrade for
| about 5 years now, I'm assuming to try and dissuade altnets
| from coming through and taking away all their customers. They
| keep silently killing the plan after a year, and replacing
| with a new one for 2 years time so it never arrives.
|
| 50/15, not even that far out of a major town. Fucking BT.
| BenjiWiebe wrote:
| Wow, I wish I had 50. 10/3 here in the Midwest USA. :)
| rjsw wrote:
| UK altnets are spreading quite fast in areas that OpenReach
| (BT) hasn't upgraded yet, it is worth checking regularly
| what is happening in your area.
|
| I have 500/500, could have 900/900 for PS5 more per month.
| Tor3 wrote:
| That's shocking.. in Oslo? I'm out in the sticks in Norway
| and I've had 1Gb/1Gb for years. And it actually provides 1Gb
| too.
| magicalhippo wrote:
| One of those cases where being first is a disadvantage.
| We've got cable, and it's been upgraded some, but because
| of that there's like zero incentive to get fiber.
|
| Meanwhile my buddy is out in the bushes and he got 1G fiber
| like you a couple of years ago...
| lumb63 wrote:
| What are people doing that their homes need so much
| bandwidth? My ISP offers Gigabit and I use their cheaper,
| third-tier, 200 Mbps option, since I cannot conceive of a use
| for more.
| themoonisachees wrote:
| Off-site backups is a huge one. General downloads for the
| people running *arr software, and corresponding upload for
| people sharing their Plex libraries.
|
| Here in france, I get 5Gb/700Mb for 50EUR and there isn't a
| lower tier at the same ISP. Other ISPs would simply sell me
| 1Gb/700Mb for the same price, with no lower tier other than
| aDSL. Not that I'm complaining, but if I'm getting 5Gb,
| buying a router for 150EUR that hits barely 1/5th of that
| speed (the maximum on wired this board can do is 1Gb, and I
| don't even have all my devices on 5GHz wifi) isn't exactly
| a good experience.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| I'm pretty sure off-site backups would have zero issues
| at 200Mbps.
| drewg123 wrote:
| Like the parent, I'm annoyed at just Wifi 6, when 6E is out
| and 7 is around the corner. However, the feature of 6e (and
| 7) that I need is the new, larger 6Ghz band for stable
| performance in a crowded urban environment with hundreds of
| ISP configured routers all crowding the same few groups of
| channels on the 5Ghz and 2.4 Ghz bands. For me, 6ghz is far
| more stable than 5Ghz (or 2.4).
| diffeomorphism wrote:
| Why internet connection? The more obvious benefit would be
| for local connections, e.g. to a NAS.
| teleforce wrote:
| Really excited for the news, but then really dissapointed at
| the same time.
|
| I thought it has several RJ45 and SFP ports, similar specs to
| Banana Pi R4 based on the provided picture, apparently it is
| only for illustration purpose [1][2].
|
| Hopefully this will spurs more complete support and drivers for
| the BPi boards including the R4.
|
| [1]Banana Pi BPI-R4:
|
| https://wiki.banana-pi.org/Banana_Pi_BPI-R4
|
| [2]Banana Pi BPI-R4 Low-cost Router SBC:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36646382
| themoonisachees wrote:
| The picture isn't of the planned board, I'm pretty sure it's
| just a picture of a banana pi r4. The proposed board has no
| SFP, for starters.
| m463 wrote:
| look at the bpi-r3 and bpi-r4
|
| https://www.amazon.com/s?k=banana+pi+bpi-r4
|
| the bpi-r4 even has two 10gb sfp ports
| ajb wrote:
| If this one does well, I would expect further developments.
| Bananapi has the capacity to do lots of board designs, they
| have a huge backlist; so it's down to the openWRT team to see
| how many they have the capacity to do with them and support.
| rkwasny wrote:
| If you don't want to wait I recommend GL.iNet Flint 2 - based on
| newer Filogic 830 - works great - supported by openwrt
| HumblyTossed wrote:
| Was looking at this recently, but couldn't find any sort of
| range information. I have the Beryl (wifi 5 version) and it's
| good for a hotel sweet and that's about it. I would hope the
| Flint 2 would be better, but I can't find anything.
| rkwasny wrote:
| Typical range for a flagship single-access point solution I
| would say, previously I had portalwifi (from kickstarter) and
| flint 2 has better range
|
| If you have 2+ story house you need a mesh.
| LeifCarrotson wrote:
| I have had good results with the GL.iNet routers too, but the
| "supported by openwrt" just means that GL.iNet pulled an old
| version of OpenWRT and hacked it up until it worked on their
| board instead of making their own OEM firmware. They're not
| upstreaming their patches or collaborating with OpenWRT, just
| kind of leeching off them.
|
| I'm not even sure you can install vanilla OpenWRT on the Flint
| 2 yet.
|
| In contrast, this is made by and with the OpenWRT dev team!
| rkwasny wrote:
| I think it is officially supported, but honestly I use
| firmware from GL.Inet web interface is great
| andreasha wrote:
| Afaik it hasn't reached OpenWrt stable yet
| ahepp wrote:
| It looks like the patch was committed in late September
| [0] and the press release for the device is dated mid
| November [1]. So unless I'm reading things wrong they
| added support upstream before they released the product?
|
| 0: https://git.openwrt.org/?p=openwrt/openwrt.git;a=commi
| t;h=fe...
|
| 1: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/kn38opoklmwx22am6b1fm/h
| /Press...
| elitepleb wrote:
| using Qualcomm for wifi6 is mainly the reason why, their SDK
| is very picky, and kept out of tree on purpose
| ahepp wrote:
| Is [0] not a patch adding support to OpenWRT?
|
| It looks like the developer has committed previously to the
| Linux kernel as well, so they seem to be upstreaming at least
| _some_ of their patches?
|
| [0] https://git.openwrt.org/?p=openwrt/openwrt.git;a=commit;h
| =fe...
| trillic wrote:
| Can this chip manage line-rate QoS?
| aesh2Xa1 wrote:
| Probably not with QoS, but it probably can with hardware
| offload. It looks a lot like this: https://wiki.banana-
| pi.org/Banana_Pi_BPI-R4
|
| https://forum.openwrt.org/t/so-you-have-500mbps-1gbps-fiber-...
|
| The chip would need to be powerful enough to process packets to
| do advanced QoS (like SQM) at line-rate. However, offload is
| supported on MT chips, so you can still perform hardware NAT
| functions, just not as configurable as those other methods for
| traffic control.
|
| Maybe some VPP integration into the proper distribution,
| instead of packages and custom compiles, would make that work.
|
| https://github.com/k13132/openwrt-dpdk
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| > It looks a lot like this: https://wiki.banana-
| pi.org/Banana_Pi_BPI-R4
|
| With the extremely important difference that it has a dual
| core A53 instead of a quad core A73. I'm sure the board you
| linked could handle QoS just fine.
| thisislife2 wrote:
| A doubt - isn't the antennae an important part of any Wifi
| router? Are they too standardised now, with multiple options, and
| as easy to use as plug-and-play with such boards?
| anonymousiam wrote:
| There are basically three types of tiny push-on coaxial
| connectors in common use. You can get antennas for any
| combination of bands with any one of the connectors. You just
| need to be careful to order the right combination.
| agilob wrote:
| What are those 3 slots on the top left? Looks like 3 slots for
| sim cards, but there's no mention of SIM support and only 3
| quantities of something are antennas.
| Dunedan wrote:
| That picture doesn't represent the actual hardware. Pretty
| confusing, but at least they acknowledge it in its description:
|
| > For illustration only, not a rendering of the OpenWrt
| One/AP-24.XY board
| generalizations wrote:
| That looks like it's the Banana Pi BPI-R4 WiFi 7 router
| board: https://www.cnx-software.com/2023/11/23/banana-pi-
| bpi-r4-wif.... And yeah, those are three nano SIM card slots.
| You can see the image of the underside with a bunch of places
| to attach the relevant antennas.
| ahepp wrote:
| The article _needed_ a picture, so I guess they decided to use
| a picture of a completely different device.
| figmert wrote:
| Does anyone know a good late/5g dongle that works with OpenWRT?
| pedrocr wrote:
| The coolest hardware in the cheap router/APs that run OpenWRT is
| the programmable Ethernet switch. VLANs on such cheap hardware is
| an awesome tool to split up stuff at the ethernet level without
| having to have a bunch of NICs. This doesn't seem to have it.
| Does anyone know of a 5 or 10 port cheap switch that also has
| programmable VLANs? Those would be great for homelab kinds of
| uses.
| ahmedalsudani wrote:
| You can use a managed switch to get this working if you have a
| router with too few ports.
|
| I have several gl.inet routers running openwrt but they all
| have 2/3 ports total. I put a TL-SG108E in front of them and
| use that to tag ports.
|
| This particular switch has an interface that is quite easy to
| reverse engineer, so I have written a script that allows me to
| easily move ports between VLANs without bothering with the
| unintuitive web UI.
| amluto wrote:
| The usual suspects have cheap low-end switches:
|
| https://store.ui.com/us/en/pro/category/all-switching/produc...
|
| https://mikrotik.com/product/RB260GS
|
| If you want a serious switch, you can often find a big name
| used switch for $100 or even less. eBay has a couple of 12-port
| Ruckus switches listed right now, for example.
|
| Oddly, if you want to _purchase_ a license to enable the
| fancier capabilities of Ruckus switches (those "12 port" 1Gbps
| switches actually have two 10Gbps ports), it's surprisingly
| awkward to find anyone selling the licenses to individual
| users. On the other hand, the documentation quite strongly
| suggests that there is no verification whatsoever if you simply
| tell the switch that you have the appropriate license.
|
| (I assume that there are a few things going on here. First, big
| users who buy tens or hundreds of these switches will have
| accounts and will actually pay for licenses as needed and
| presumably get decent pricing. Small users are basically
| irrelevant to the manufacturer's bottom line. And serious users
| will regularly use in a configuration in which they don't have
| Internet access, and will quite sensibly refuse to purchase the
| switch if it needs Internet access.)
|
| (Whoops, the campus network is down because the core switch
| needs to re-validate its license. But it can't re-validate its
| license because it can't access the Internet until _after_ it
| starts working again. Better choose a new vendor next time!)
| zamadatix wrote:
| I've used a couple of these $30 8 port managed switches
| https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00K4DS5KU/ another commenter
| mentioned for various things and been pleased. This is fanless,
| cloudless, and has web-interface configurable VLANs, LAGs,
| mirroring, jumbo frames, IGMP, and STP.
| jbotz wrote:
| The Zyxel GS1900 series switches run OpenWrt well and like can
| do VLANs. You can an, 8, 10, or 16-port one for less than $100
| on eBAY. The GS1900-10HP has 8 GigE ports with POE and 2 SFP
| ports and I'm seeing it on eBay for around $60 right now.
| BooneJS wrote:
| I wish I could get a decent mesh system. One router isn't enough
| to cover my house with some of the building materials used.
| _huayra_ wrote:
| I've had good luck with the Mikrotik Audience, but it is not
| wifi 6 yet (likely coming soon).
|
| If you're in a country that uses steel / concrete to build,
| unfortunately physics is not so kind towards any signal
| propagation through that :(
| Haemm0r wrote:
| Wood is not either. The inside walls here are 100mm wood(CLT)
| with gypsum on both sides and the signal drop through 1 wall
| is big. 2 walls almost kill the signal. I don't have any wifi
| reception outside the house at all (65m2 is floor area) using
| 1 UI Wifi 6 LR on each floor (with the U6Pro it was even
| worse).
| saltcured wrote:
| If there is any way you can run a few ethernet cables as a
| backbone, I think it's pretty simple to just setup additional
| OpenWRT access points on the same SSID to allow client roaming.
|
| Or, with dual-radio routers, setup WDS between the routers
| using one radio per router and clients on the other, so traffic
| does not compete for the same channel. I am not sure whether
| you can still do roaming this way as I've never tried it. But I
| did use it in the past to brdige wired clients from a secondary
| router back to the main router over WDS.
| ajb wrote:
| This could be a good match, because bananapi do a lot of boards
| but their software story has been a bit poor, as it tends to be
| an android build hacked together with a conventional linux
| distribution (or was a few years ago when I last looked). Whereas
| openWRT know how to build a software platform.
|
| bananapi have some kind of link with foxconn, but I don't know
| what kind.
| jonhohle wrote:
| SINOVOIP is the major name associated with BPI, but it does
| seem like it is also affiliated with Foxconn. At least one of
| their engineers has been working with the OpenWRT team closely
| on the R3 and has been a wealth of knowledge in the BPI forums.
| squarefoot wrote:
| > bananapi do a lot of boards but their software story has been
| a bit poor
|
| This is quite common with other board manufacturers too. I'd
| rather suggest to ignore completely their cobbled together
| distros, often also tainted by proprietary modifications, that
| become unmaintained in a few years, and see if they're among
| the many supported by Armbian or DietPi.
|
| https://www.armbian.com/download/
|
| https://dietpi.com/#download
| jazzyjackson wrote:
| I had a good experience with Armbian, it was my first time
| modifying a linux distro with extra packages so that we
| didn't have to run install scripts and compile on the orange
| pi (actually I started looking at how to build armbian
| because the build step for python's crypto module would fail
| after cranking away for an hour. Not enough memory or
| something timed out. Anyway running the armbian build process
| with a target cpu architecture was a breeze following their
| docs)
| dmarinus wrote:
| I'm fairly happy with a Cudy WR1300, which runs openwrt out of
| the box. Only EUR40 euros on amazon.
| schemescape wrote:
| How paranoid should I be about routers from companies like Cudy
| that I'm not familiar with? My intuition is "very paranoid,
| even if I replace the firmware with OpenWRT".
|
| Am I being _too_ paranoid?
| deadlyllama wrote:
| Yes, you are being too paranoid. Once booted into Openwrt the
| router will only be running Openwrt code. I guess there's the
| tiny possibility of a backdoored bootloader but that would
| have to be a pretty sophisticated backdoor!
| champtar wrote:
| The mailing list announcement might be a better link
| https://lists.openwrt.org/pipermail/openwrt-devel/2024-Janua...
| password4321 wrote:
| related: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38934013
|
| _OpenWRT turns 20; wants to launch their "first upstream
| supported" design_
|
| https://lwn.net/ml/openwrt-devel/a8aaa495-da0b-4ddc-8c4f-3e1...
|
| _180 comments, 3 days ago_
| 1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote:
| This reminds me of a recurring thought I have had over the past
| 15 years using UNIX-like OS. In the past, there were many more
| computer architectures commonly in use, and some UNIX-like OS
| projects made efforts to port their OS to a variety of
| architectures. (Not naming names, but please note I am not
| referring to Linux.)
|
| Today there are fewer archs in common use, but there is still
| variety in hardware. UNIX-like OS projects make efforts to port
| their OS to a variety of hardware. Assuming they make an attempt
| and are successful, this usually takes time. There will usually
| be a considerable period of time where the hardware is for sale
| but before the UNIX-like OS project is running on the hardware,
| and able to utilise a sufficient number of its features to
| justify installing it.
|
| And so the recurring idea I kept having was "Why not prioritise
| support for a particular hardware product."^1 Of course this idea
| is unpleasantly inequitable, but the practical benefits could
| justify it. As it happens, eventually, the project I was using
| started to officially prioritise certain architectures.
|
| 1. The hardware product chosen for prioritisation should be one
| that is likely to be produced for many years, not the type that
| is a passing fad.
|
| The benefit I imagined is that someone who prefers to install a
| non-Linux UNIX-like OS themselves could purchase a new item of
| hardware and install the OS on it and have every feature working
| _immediately_. Generally, this is 100% of people using this non-
| Linux UNIX-like OS. With this project, there is no GUI, all can
| install the OS with or without an installer, all can compile
| software from source.
|
| To some extent, this already happens. There are some particular
| hardware products, e.g., development boards, that are produced
| for many years that continue to work with this non-Linux UNIX-
| like OS and they tend to receive consistent attention by the OS
| project volunteers.
|
| To sum it up, the pipe dream here is that some non-Linux UNIX-
| like OS user who does not like pre-installed OS and likes to
| install the OS himself can purchase a brand new device and _know_
| 100% that all the features of the hardware will work.
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