Voxel Custom firmware build for R7800 v. 1.0.2.80SF & v. 1.0.2.80.4SF & v. 1.0.2.80.5SF

[thegr8anand]

Thanks again Voxel! KUTGW!

 

[pege63]

Good work as usual Voxel!!!

 

[Squuiid]

Finally took the plunge and moved from stock to Voxel. I run in AP mode and haven't noticed a single changed setting or menu since upgrading, other than the logo and Voxel firmware wording.
Are all Voxel features aimed at routing functionality? Or is the benefit when in AP mode just that the the firmware simply has more up to date packages with the latest security updates? Or am I completely missing something?

 

[Infinitum]

Thank you, as always, for the new firmware! Nearly everything working perfectly, though I am experiencing a new bug pertaining to the kamoj add on and Client VPN. To start, steps:

1. updated firmware to 80 on my primary R7800 via UI
2. set up ssh, reboot
3. installed kamoj add on, reboot
4. attempted to set up SurfShark VPN via kamoj UI, but the "Country" drop down under "Create OpenVPN Client Config" only loads 1 value: <blank>

I verified this still worked on my second R7800 in wireless AP mode on 79. No issue. Updated firmware to 80, repeated above process, secondary R7800 does exactly the same thing.

Tried a different VPN service, and Country options loaded, but other than as a point of comparison that isn't much help to me. I waited 5 minutes and the values never load. Logged in several hours later and tried again, no go.

Of course I can generate the ovpn files manually, but I thought it might be worthwhile to report the incident.

As always, I very much appreciate the software both Voxel and kamoj provide here, not to mention the support. This is a low urgency ticket.

Thank you!

 

[kamoj]

Surshark has changed address so it can not work with any kamoj add-on.
The vpn client is also not working in AP mode.
So I don't understand your point with 79SF.
If you want to patch the R7800 in Router mode you can try:

sed -i 's/account.surfshark/my.surfshark/g' /www/cgi-bin/kamoj.sh

Thank you, as always, for the new firmware! Nearly everything working perfectly, though I am experiencing a new bug pertaining to the kamoj add on and Client VPN. To start, steps:

1. updated firmware to 80 on my primary R7800 via UI
2. set up ssh, reboot
3. installed kamoj add on, reboot
4. attempted to set up SurfShark VPN via kamoj UI, but the "Country" drop down under "Create OpenVPN Client Config" only loads 1 value: <blank>

I verified this still worked on my second R7800 in wireless AP mode on 79. No issue. Updated firmware to 80, repeated above process, secondary R7800 does exactly the same thing.

Tried a different VPN service, and Country options loaded, but other than as a point of comparison that isn't much help to me. I waited 5 minutes and the values never load. Logged in several hours later and tried again, no go.

Of course I can generate the ovpn files manually, but I thought it might be worthwhile to report the incident.

As always, I very much appreciate the software both Voxel and kamoj provide here, not to mention the support. This is a low urgency ticket.

Thank you!

 

[Infinitum]

Surshark has changed address so it can not work with any kamoj add-on.
The vpn client is also not working in AP mode.
So I don't understand your point with 79SF.
If you want to patch the R7800 in Router mode you can try:

sed -i 's/account.surfshark/my.surfshark/g' /www/cgi-bin/kamoj.sh

Sorry for the confusion, I wasn't trying to activate the VPN on my AP router, I was trying to confirm the issue was a bug with the new firmware. Foolishly, I forgot I already had an ovpn file on the second router, so my "test" was completely useless.

Thank you for the quick research and explanation! Given this is actually unrelated to the new fw, I'll end this discussion here.

 

[Voxel]

Are all Voxel features aimed at routing functionality? Or is the benefit when in AP mode just that the the firmware simply has more up to date packages with the latest security updates? Or am I completely missing something?

What specific functionalities are used in router mode? Probably only OpenVPN client/server, DNSCrypt, stubby. What else? All the other functions could be used in such modes as AP/bridge mode. You can use Entware/Debian, Transmission etc.

Well. Maybe one of the main goal of my development is: to force this device to function using all its hardware capability in full power. Does not matter: Router mode, AP mode, Bridge mode. If software cannot use all the power of hardware: it is bad. It is obvious for any platform, not only concrete router. Just compare, benchmarks, OpenSSL encryption used by about 40 programs in your R7800 in AP mode:

Just run in telnet console the command:

openssl speed aes-256-cbc

You will get having e.g. the stock 1.0.2.68 firmware such results:

The 'numbers' are in 1000s of bytes per second processed.
type             16 bytes     64 bytes    256 bytes   1024 bytes   8192 bytes
aes-256 cbc      26183.17k    30566.66k    31463.09k    31475.29k    31214.25k

now run this command using Voxel firmware:

The 'numbers' are in 1000s of bytes per second processed.
type             16 bytes     64 bytes    256 bytes   1024 bytes   8192 bytes
aes-256 cbc      55144.53k    61366.88k    63316.51k    63087.65k    63961.04k

Feel the difference. Your R7800 could run the program two time faster. It means that such functionality as e.g. ReadyCLOUD, https, NETGEAR Downloader etc. could work much faster. And general gadget performance is increased as well. So even usual Wi-Fi speed is increased too.

Check the very first my thread regarding my build for R7800 on this SNB. There is other benchmarks of performance. Discussion with sfx2000, I am too lazy to seek it myself.

Increased performance means that your device is working faster, Including AP mode.

Voxel.

 

[scooter2765]

Excellent as usual ..Thanks Voxel.

 

[jsmiddleton4]

My 5G keeps dropping.

 

[jsmiddleton4]

I changed the 5ghz channel, saved of course, did a full power off boot. Hasn't dropped since. First time that's ever happened though with a VOXEL firmware upgrade.

 

[Squuiid]

What specific functionalities are used in router mode? Probably only OpenVPN client/server, DNSCrypt, stubby. What else? All the other functions could be used in such modes as AP/bridge mode. You can use Entware/Debian, Transmission etc.

Well. Maybe one of the main goal of my development is: to force this device to function using all its hardware capability in full power. Does not matter: Router mode, AP mode, Bridge mode. If software cannot use all the power of hardware: it is bad. It is obvious for any platform, not only concrete router. Just compare, benchmarks, OpenSSL encryption used by about 40 programs in your R7800 in AP mode:

Just run in telnet console the command:

openssl speed aes-256-cbc

You will get having e.g. the stock 1.0.2.68 firmware such results:

The 'numbers' are in 1000s of bytes per second processed.
type             16 bytes     64 bytes    256 bytes   1024 bytes   8192 bytes
aes-256 cbc      26183.17k    30566.66k    31463.09k    31475.29k    31214.25k

now run this command using Voxel firmware:

The 'numbers' are in 1000s of bytes per second processed.
type             16 bytes     64 bytes    256 bytes   1024 bytes   8192 bytes
aes-256 cbc      55144.53k    61366.88k    63316.51k    63087.65k    63961.04k

Feel the difference. Your R7800 could run the program two time faster. It means that such functionality as e.g. ReadyCLOUD, https, NETGEAR Downloader etc. could work much faster. And general gadget performance is increased as well. So even usual Wi-Fi speed is increased too.

Check the very first my thread regarding my build for R7800 on this SNB. There is other benchmarks of performance. Discussion with sfx2000, I am too lazy to seek it myself.

Increased performance means that your device is working faster, Including AP mode.

Voxel.

Thank you for the detailed response, and above all thank you so much for providing the community with this firmware. It is excellent and I for one am extremely grateful as I’m sure everyone else using it is.
Thank you Voxel.

 

[Armitage]

Is there a setting I can access via telnet to fully turn off WPS on the router with this firmware? Apparently disabling the PIN doesn't actually turn off WPS, it just makes it inaccessible which isn't exactly ideal.

 

[Voxel]

Is there a setting I can access via telnet to fully turn off WPS on the router with this firmware? Apparently disabling the PIN doesn't actually turn off WPS, it just makes it inaccessible which isn't exactly ideal.

I am not sure, did not dig it much, but try to set:

nvram set endis_wla_wps=0
nvram set endis_wl_wps=0
nvram commit

and reboot your router.

Voxel.

 

[jsmiddleton4]

What's the advantage to completely disabling WPS?

 

[Candurin]

What's the advantage to completely disabling WPS?

So it’s COMPLETELY not on?

 

[danlat1415]

I'm using 80SF and all is going well, no issues to note.

Is there likely to be another update coming soon based on Netgear's updated firmware version 1.0.2.74 that was released on 09/09/20 or does Voxel 1.0.2.80SF already include or exceed the claimed bug fixes?

 

[Squuiid]

I'm using 80SF and all is going well, no issues to note.

Is there likely to be another update coming soon based on Netgear's updated firmware version 1.0.2.74 that was released on 09/09/20 or does Voxel 1.0.2.80SF already include or exceed the claimed bug fixes?

Voxel puts out almost monthly updates of his firmware, which frankly is incredible. I don't want to speak for him but my guess is he will most likely be assimilating these changes in the next release

R7800 Firmware Version 1.0.2.74
Security Fixes:

• Fixes security issues.

Bug Fixes:

• Fixes the issue where if the router is in AP mode, some files become corrupted during file transfer between two wireless clients.
• Fixes the issue where some devices disappear from the attached device list in the router web interface and Nighthawk app.
• Fixes minor bugs

 

[Armitage]

I am not sure, did not dig it much, but try to set:

nvram set endis_wla_wps=0
nvram set endis_wl_wps=0
nvram commit

and reboot your router.

Voxel.

Brilliant! Thanks for that, it appears to have worked.

What's the advantage to completely disabling WPS?

I can only speak for myself but simply put, I don't trust it and I have never used it nor will I ever, so for me it's a superfluous feature. But mainly for me, I was having issues with my neighbour's wireless devices showing up in Windows network devices lists, which was annoying. Although Windows has a service called Connect Now that instigates this behaviour, I realised from my desktop PC which has no WiFi or Bluetooth adapters and only connects via Ethernet that devices still showed up on it, meaning Connect Now was getting the info from the router (because WPA was still switched on even though I had the PIN disabled), so I resolved to just try and get WPA turned off completely which Voxel has kindly showed how to do.

 

[Voxel]

s there likely to be another update coming soon based on Netgear's updated firmware version 1.0.2.74 that was released on 09/09/20 or does Voxel 1.0.2.80SF already include or exceed the claimed bug fixes?

GPL source codes of 1.0.2.74 are not published yet, check this link:

https://kb.netgear.com/2649/NETGEAR-Open-Source-Code-for-Programmers-GPL

latest codes: 1.0.2.68

So changes in 1.0.2.74 could not be processed by me and are not included into my build.

But I am a bit skeptical regarding:

R7800 Firmware Version 1.0.2.74
Security Fixes:

• Fixes security issues.

Bug Fixes:

• Fixes the issue where if the router is in AP mode, some files become corrupted during file transfer between two wireless clients.
• Fixes the issue where some devices disappear from the attached device list in the router web interface and Nighthawk app.
• Fixes minor bugs

First, as I guess security all the fixes are related to some issues (IMO not so serious) re: access to router GUI via https. At least partially fixed in 80SF (https://github.com/SVoxel/R7800/commit/6079a3e0a7fac3c928a001b984314eb81273fdb7).
There are a lot of much more serious CVEs left in the stock. Briefly I've checked the binary firmware, and e.g. 1.0.2.74 is still using OpenSSL 1.0.2h (May 2016), and not accelerated. There following CVE since this version detected (I exclude platform-specific CVE):

CVE-2016-7052
CVE-2016-7055
CVE-2017-3731
CVE-2017-3735
CVE-2017-3737
CVE-2018-0739
CVE-2018-0737
CVE-2018-0732
CVE-2018-0734
CVE-2018-5407
CVE-2019-1559
CVE-2019-1547
CVE-2019-1563

Version of libjson-c in 1.0.2.74 is 0.12.1. So at least CVE-2020-12762.

Well, there are other old packages.


Fix of corrupted files in AP mode according to NG official announcement above is related to wireless clients. I've faced such corrupted files using wired client. So I am not sure that everything is really fixed.

I do not remember such bug reports re: disappeared devices from attached device list with my latest releases.

Minor bugs... Well. As a rule there could be new bugs after such fixes by NG/DNI.


So, let us wait for GPL.

Voxel.

 

[Candurin]

The 'numbers' are in 1000s of bytes per second processed.
type             16 bytes     64 bytes    256 bytes   1024 bytes   8192 bytes
aes-256 cbc      55144.53k    61366.88k    63316.51k    63087.65k    63961.04k

Feel the difference. Your R7800 could run the program two time faster. It means that such functionality as e.g. ReadyCLOUD, https, NETGEAR Downloader etc. could work much faster. And general gadget performance is increased as well. So even usual Wi-Fi speed is increased too.

Check the very first my thread regarding my build for R7800 on this SNB. There is other benchmarks of performance. Discussion with sfx2000, I am too lazy to seek it myself.

Increased performance means that your device is working faster, Including AP mode.

Voxel.

Just out of curiosity. what does this tell us? I am posting my results (this is from my MacBook that is hardwired to my R7800 using .80 Voxel FW), just for science

The 'numbers' are in 1000s of bytes per second processed.
type 16 bytes 64 bytes 256 bytes 1024 bytes 8192 bytes
aes-256 cbc 102383.69k 110675.55k 112628.04k 113276.08k 113119.07k