Voxel Custom firmware build for R7800 v. 1.0.2.104SF

[Voxel]

Continuation of

. . .
https://www.snbforums.com/threads/custom-firmware-build-for-r7800-v-1-0-2-102sf.84747/
https://www.snbforums.com/threads/custom-firmware-build-for-r7800-v-1-0-2-103sf.85479/

New version of my custom firmware build: 1.0.2.104SF.

Changes (vs 1.0.2.103SF):

1. Toolchain: GCC is upgraded 13.1.0->13.2.0.
2. Toolchain: Go is upgraded 1.20.5->1.21.0.
3. OpenSSL v. 1.1.1 package is upgraded 1.1.1u->1.1.1v (fixing CVE-2023-3817, CVE-2023-3446).

https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2023-3817​

(score 5.3, Medium)​

https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2023-3446​

(score 5.3, Medium)​

4. DNSCrypt Proxy v.2 is upgraded 2.1.4->2.1.5.
5. curl package is upgraded 8.1.2->8.2.1.
6. ethtool package is upgraded 6.3->6.4.
7. dbus package is upgraded 1.14.6->1.14.8.
8. ubus package is upgraded 2022-06-15->2023-06-05.
9. uci package is upgraded 2023-03-05->2023-08-10.
10. iperf3 package is upgraded 3.13->3.14.
11. tar package is upgraded 1.34->1.35.
12. libxml2 package is upgraded 2.11.4->2.11.5.
13. libjson-c package is upgraded 0.16->0.17.
14. libflac package is upgraded 1.4.2->1.4.3.
15. '-O3' optimization for ppp.
16. Boost of kernel ('-O3' compilation option for the whole kernel).
17. Change building EXT4_FS as a module (kernel).
18. Enable EXT4_USE_FOR_EXT23 (kernel).
19. Host tools: upgrade UPX to 4.1.0.
20. Host tools: upgrade mklibs to 0.1.45.
21. Host tools: upgrade gmp to 6.3.0.

The link is:

https://www.voxel-firmware.com (thanks to vladlenas for his help with hosting).

Voxel.

 

[fossil]

Thank you @Voxel
Working like a charm

 

[LeKeiser]

Again, THANK YOU Mr @Voxel
New version installed and everything is working peachy

 

[Remy561]

More speedups! Thanks as always <3

 

[hunk-dory]

New version working. Crushing those CVEs! Thanks @Voxel

 

[Thang]

tks so much & so much

 

[microchip]

I no longer use an R7800 but I really appreciate the time and work you put into this firmware!

 

[HELLO_wORLD]

Thank you!
As always, smooth and painless upgrade.

 

[Luizk]

thank u kindly!

 

[scooter2765]

Thanks so much! Works well.

 

[semsem]

Hello guys! Thank you so much for this release. Today I have switched from Openwrt to Voxel firmware with Kamoj’s addon. It is working great except for something. I am unable to ssh into the router once I take out the usb flash drive that have the setssh files and authorized_keys. Is this normal and an expected behavior?

 

[L&LD]

Yes.

You need to leave the USB drive installed.

Re-insert it, and reboot the router to ensure everything is loaded/started properly.

 

[Voxel]

Hello guys! Thank you so much for this release. Today I have switched from Openwrt to Voxel firmware with Kamoj’s addon. It is working great except for something. I am unable to ssh into the router once I take out the usb flash drive that have the setssh files and authorized_keys. Is this normal and an expected behavior?

To setup SSH access such prepared USB flash drive should be used once. It is not recommended to leave this USB drive attached.

If you are able to ssh to your router when USB is inserted just check that your files are already copied into /root/.ssh:

ls -la /root/.ssh

or enable and use telnet check this. Files are in nand, so USB is not needed anymore.

If you leave this USB flash drive all your SSH files will be copied to nand every router's reboot. Not so good for nand...

Voxel.

 

[HELLO_wORLD]

Maybe something like this would help to not wear the NAND while leaving the USB flash drive plugged all the time:

[ -e /root/.ssh/authorized_keys ] && grep -qF "$(cat PATH_TO_CERT_PUB_TO_ADD_IF_MISSING)" /root/.ssh/authorized_keys || { touch /root/.ssh/authorized_keys; cat PATH_TO_CERT_PUB_TO_ADD_IF_MISSING >>/root/.ssh/authorized_keys; }

Replacing of course PATH_TO_CERT_PUB_TO_ADD_IF_MISSING by the proper path to the public certificate to use.

 

[pintycar]

Hello @Voxel , and thank you very much for the invaluable work that you do for this router. I've had it since 2017 and it has been A M A Z I N G thanks to your firmware and support. I can't believe it still does everything I want from it.
I wanted to run something by you to know your opinion: I'm setting up a nextcloud server in a small Intel Nuc, and when I try copying files at full speed over LAN, I get a lot of disconnections and issues. I've done a bit of research and found this thread. Do you have any idea if that is solvable without moving away from your firmware? What could be causing this problem? I have to say that I've never encountered problems when copying files in SMB shares for example and I do find this particular situation strange, but plausible nonetheless.

Thank you again for your work and I look forward to your feedback!

 

[Voxel]

Hello @Voxel , and thank you very much for the invaluable work that you do for this router. I've had it since 2017 and it has been A M A Z I N G thanks to your firmware and support. I can't believe it still does everything I want from it.
I wanted to run something by you to know your opinion: I'm setting up a nextcloud server in a small Intel Nuc, and when I try copying files at full speed over LAN, I get a lot of disconnections and issues. I've done a bit of research and found this thread. Do you have any idea if that is solvable without moving away from your firmware? What could be causing this problem? I have to say that I've never encountered problems when copying files in SMB shares for example and I do find this particular situation strange, but plausible nonetheless.

Thank you again for your work and I look forward to your feedback!

I don't think the firmware is the problem. You refer to thread 2017, and people there write about NETGEAR stock firmware problems. Yes, the quality of NETGEAR's stock firmware is known. In my version, however, 90 percent of all firmware code is compiled with the GCC 13.2.0 compiler, whereas the stock version uses 4.6.x, fixed a bunch of bugs, and updated about 80 percent of packages. It's a completely different version vs stock firmware.

For the router, I recommend you turn off all NETGEAR cookies like ReadyCLOUD, kwilt, aws-iot, afp, turn off Transmission if you don't use it.

And then check your NextCloud settings. I don't use NextCloud with the R7800, but I do use ownCloud with the R9000, and ownCloud works very consistently for everyone in my family. I previously used ownCloud with the R7800 (a couple years ago). Didn't have any problems either. As far as I remember, NextCloud is a branch from ownCloud. So they are very similar. In ownCloud there were some PHP settings, for large files, cache, I changed the settings a long time ago for stable operations. Also, ownCloud still uses PHP-7.4, which is not officially supported anymore, and you need to have constant updates. I don't know about NextCloud. I use Debian and the unofficial repository for PHP 7.4 (https://packages.sury.org/php/). Updates are released quite frequently there. So, there was something last week.

Voxel.

 

[pintycar]

I don't think the firmware is the problem. You refer to thread 2017, and people there write about NETGEAR stock firmware problems. Yes, the quality of NETGEAR's stock firmware is known. In my version, however, 90 percent of all firmware code is compiled with the GCC 13.2.0 compiler, whereas the stock version uses 4.6.x, fixed a bunch of bugs, and updated about 80 percent of packages. It's a completely different version vs stock firmware.

For the router, I recommend you turn off all NETGEAR cookies like ReadyCLOUD, kwilt, aws-iot, afp, turn off Transmission if you don't use it.

And then check your NextCloud settings. I don't use NextCloud with the R7800, but I do use ownCloud with the R9000, and ownCloud works very consistently for everyone in my family. I previously used ownCloud with the R7800 (a couple years ago). Didn't have any problems either. As far as I remember, NextCloud is a branch from ownCloud. So they are very similar. In ownCloud there were some PHP settings, for large files, cache, I changed the settings a long time ago for stable operations. Also, ownCloud still uses PHP-7.4, which is not officially supported anymore, and you need to have constant updates. I don't know about NextCloud. I use Debian and the unofficial repository for PHP 7.4 (https://packages.sury.org/php/). Updates are released quite frequently there. So, there was something last week.

Voxel.

I understand. Thank you very much for your prompt and detailed response, I trule appreciate it. I'll try tuning those PHP settings and see if I can make the connection reliable.
Yes, you're right that nextcloud and owncloud are quite similar. The former is more focused towards apps and community support, the latter is more enterprise oriented.
Thanks for your insights and have a great week!

 

[pintycar]

I understand. Thank you very much for your prompt and detailed response, I trule appreciate it. I'll try tuning those PHP settings and see if I can make the connection reliable.
Yes, you're right that nextcloud and owncloud are quite similar. The former is more focused towards apps and community support, the latter is more enterprise oriented.
Thanks for your insights and have a great week!

Great news! I no longer have these issues. The problem was with hammering the NAT loopback. I was relying on the router to constantly translate my external domain into an internal IP during those LAN transfers and *I think* that's what was causing the issue (and the slower speeds). Now, and thanks to @kamoj 's wonderful add-on, I've taken advantage of the ease of use of AdGuard's GUI to add a custom dns rule, and everything works flawlessly. I can saturate the 1G LAN, the router doesn't go to 100% CPU usage anymore and, most importantly, large files transfer without any error whatsoever.
I was reaaally close to buying an Asus RT-AX86U Pro just for this (I don't really care for WiFi 6) so I'm really glad I didn't and saved quite a bit of money by investigating further. Thanks guys.

 

[Octf]

Firstly I wish to thank you for the awesome work.
I have a R7800, and I’m trying to get the samba server 4 working.
Installed latest Voxel, setup ssh and installed samba4-server Entware; it doesn’t quite work. Firstly it will not sync settings from the Web GUI unless writing a script. Secondly, The smbd 4.18 installed under /opt fails to serve files listed in conf file. Another worst thing is that, for every reboot, the optware drive gets flushed out, i need to reinstall and reconfigure everything from start.

In short, it’s very frustrating and time-consuming to use samba4 in the current Voxel firmware.

Somehow, I badly need samba4 because iOS and Mac devices don’t play nice with older sambas. (they need the vfs_fruit module in samba4, or sending files to the drive always fail).

So my question is, is possible to include builtin samba4 in the firmware(not as entware) in the future?
If not, is there any newer NETGEAR router that has preinstalled samba4?
(All that is for seamless access from Apple products.)

 

[Voxel]

The smbd 4.18 installed under /opt fails to serve files listed in conf file. Another worst thing is that, for every reboot, the optware drive gets flushed out, i need to reinstall and reconfigure everything from start.

Something is wrong with your Entware installation. When Entware is installed it should survive restart of router. Also, Entware version of samba 4.x works fine. Not configurable by router GUI (as well as any other Entware package).

I'd suggest you to disable RedyCLOUD to deal with Entware. And to remove /opt (ReadyCLOUD trash) and to re-install Entware again.

I do not have Mac so cannot check samba 3.x. As far as I know there is netatalk package in my firmware, what is/was used with Mac. TimeMachine(?)

So my question is, is possible to include builtin samba4 in the firmware(not as entware) in the future?
If not, is there any newer NETGEAR router that has preinstalled samba4?

No such plans (at least now) to include samba 4.x (it is very huge). Sorry.
Stock version supports samba 4.x (old version). I do not know re: other NETGEAR router.

Voxel.