Custom firmware build for R9000/R8900 v. 1.0.4.40HF

[Voxel]

Well, R9000/R8900 owners are not very active (re: my custom builds). Maybe my fw is not so popular (R9000/R89000)?

Anyway, a lot of changes... So:

Continuation of:

https://www.snbforums.com/threads/custom-firmware-build-for-r9000.40125/
. . .
https://www.snbforums.com/threads/custom-firmware-build-for-r9000-r8900-v-1-0-4-38-3hf.62650/
https://www.snbforums.com/threads/custom-firmware-build-for-r9000-r8900-v-1-0-4-39-1hf.62968/

New version of my custom firmware build: 1.0.4.40HF.

Changes (vs 1.0.4.39.1HF):

1. OpenVPN is upgraded 2.4.8->2.4.9 (CVE-2020-11810).

https://openvpn.net/community-downloads/​

2. OpenSSL v. 1.1.1 package is upgraded 1.1.1e->1.1.1g (CVE-2020-1967).

https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2020-1967​

3. ipset package v. 7.4 is added (including kernel modules).
4. wireguard package is upgraded 0.0.20200318->1.0.20200413.
5. iw package is upgraded 3.15->5.4.
6. libnl-tiny package is upgraded 0.1->2019-10-29.
7. ethtool package is upgraded 4.19->5.4.
8. ubus package is upgraded 2020-01-05->2020-02-05.
9. libevent package is upgraded 2.1.8->2.1.11.
10. libxml2 package is upgraded 2.9.9->2.9.10.
11. libreadline package is upgraded 6.3->8.0.
12. nano package is upgraded 4.9->4.9.2.
13. coreutils (sort) package is upgraded 8.31->8.32.
14. Host tools (e2fsprogs): is upgraded to 1.45.6.
15. Host tools (xz): is upgraded to 5.2.5.
16. Host tools (mm-macros): is upgraded to 1.0.0.
17. Toolchain: Go is upgraded 1.14.1->1.14.2.

The link is:

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

Voxel.

 

[kamoj]

There is a great interest in your R9000 firmware.
I know since there are many more R9000 users than I ever thought that are beta testing my add-on.
R9000 users are enthusiasts!
So keep up the enormously good and popular work Voxel.

 

[R9000]

Thank you very much Voxel (and kamoj) for your hard work! I love your firmware and with the help of kamoj add-on I'm, as a newbie, finally able to use my router at full capacity and in full potential!

 

[Voxel]

Thank you very much Voxel (and kamoj) for your hard work! I love your firmware and with the help of kamoj add-on I'm, as a newbie, finally able to use my router at full capacity and in full potential!

Well, if R9000 itself says so - it has a sense

P.S. First time I see "thanks" from my router... I like your nick

Voxel.

 

[Jauger]

R9000 user here.....no problems 99% of the time hence no reason to get on here to complain......thanks for all your hard work

 

[Kai Vilonen]

Thanks for your work from me also, have been using your firmware on several routers. On R9000 however I am still plagued by recurrent crashes of DHCP server which occurs both with your firmware and stock one. I am under impression that this is common complaint. Have you found anything which is causing this?

Keep up the good work !

 

[Voxel]

I am still plagued by recurrent crashes of DHCP server which occurs both with your firmware and stock one. I am under impression that this is common complaint. Have you found anything which is causing this?

I never faced such crash. And nobody reports such an issue. Did you meet the similar reports from others?

Voxel.

 

[Kai Vilonen]

On Netgear forums there are quite a few reports on this. Basically router works OK few days and suddenly stops giving new DHCP leases and has to be restarted to work again. Giving static IP addresses will sometimes help nyt this is not practical when you have a lot of tablets, phones etc. on your network.

 

[Kai Vilonen]

There has been speculation that Apple TV, Chromecast or overheating causes this but no firm solution. I'm quite sure that none of these is causing this as I have none of these on my home net.

 

[Voxel]

Giving static IP addresses will sometimes help nyt this is not practical when you have a lot of tablets, phones etc. on your network.

Did you try to use Address Reservations? What (approximately) amount of gadgets in your LAN?

Voxel.

 

[Kai Vilonen]

Never used reservations but have some 'mission critical' (gaming ) PCs outside DHCP space using static addresses. Usually have between 10 - 15 devices attached, mainly Wlan. Also using D-link P2502 mesh to extend Wlan around House.D -link used both frequencies, R9000 only 5 GHz. No channels overlap.

 

[R9000]

I have a question...just a curiosity...but, in my opinion it will be wonderful. Voxel and and Kamoj are fantastic. Stop. Nothing else to say. Have you ever thought to join your works, joining Kamoj add-on in the Voxel firmware as "stock" configuration? In other words, when I download Voxel Firmware I can see Kamoj add-on already installed...
I guess you have your reason, but you are working so good "together" that I think it could be a very interesting idea, in my opinion

 

[KW.]

For me it is like Christmas when my r9000 get a Voxel update. The truth is that when I bought the r9000 the first thing I did was to hide the receipt from my wife. When I got going and logged in to the Netgear firmware I got upset. The router I had before the r9000 had better firmware but didn't had good enough performance I thought. And that old router I also felt was bummer from the one I had before that, cause that router had no alternative firmware. But at least that firmware that was on it was way better then Netgears.

So here I was with a new router that would be really hard to motivate. Then I found your firmware that is stable and delivers whats most important for me and also i found the bonus with Kamojs addon that added even more options. Now I love the router and feel that I even, in a weak moment, could show my wife the receipt. You made it a damn good and secure router that evolves thanks to the work done here.

Thank you

 

[lateparty]

Signal boosting my thanks for your continued support.

Had a question for your @Voxel does the donate button on your site go to you, or to your web host? Have been pushing through pretty regular donos this year and don't really intend to stop, regardless of where they go just wanted to confirm

 

[Toni]

In first place thanks for your good work, your last toolchain update amazes me.

Lately I changed a lot of versions of your firmware trying to fix a problem I detected after upgrading to 1.0.4.39.1, not sure when appeared.

Maybe my setup is uncommon with the following gear:

Netgear R9000
Netgear EX8000
Ubiquiti EdgeRouter 6P (ER6)
Ubiquiti EdgeRouter PRO (ERP)
Ubiquiti EdgeSwitch 8-150W (ES8)
Ubiquiti UFiber Nano G (UF)

maybe a diagram will help (sorry, the dot lines are trying to fix the diagram):

.................................../ - ER6-\
................................./ ...............\
R9000 ————-----------ES8---------- UF ——- Internet
.................................\................/
.................................. \ - ERP-/

The R9000 is working in AP mode and provides three SSID (2.4Ghz, 5Ghz and 2.4Ghz Guest) the EX8000 is irrelevant and we can consider it switched off for the matter (I tried switching it off and I have the same problem)

The ES8 provides switching, VLAN and PoE

The ER’s provides routing, firewall, NAT, VPN and DHCP services. They’re clustered running VRRP.

The UF provides access to the Internet through a GPON network with a symmetric 600Mbps service.


My problem is that over the air or when wired to the R9000 I only get 350Mbps download speed and full 620Mbps upload speed.

With my laptop wired to the ES8 on the same port and with the same cable where is connected the R9000 I get full 620/620 Mbps.

Running the Speedtest from the R9000 with the Nighthawk app from Netgear I also get full 620/620Mbps.

Four weeks ago I was getting full 620/620 Mbps when connected to the R9000 over the air, now, no matter which client I use I only get 350/620Mbps.

I tried a lot of things, switched ports, cables, connected the R9000 directly to the ER’s, switched firmware versions and all I get is 350/620Mbps.

I was thinking throwing away the R9000 and if I’m not doing it is because I love your firmware and your Entware distribution. Please keep up with the good work.

In the meantime I will keep trying to fix my R9000, if you or anyone reading this have any advice it’s welcome, I’m running out of ideas to keep my R9000 running as healthy as always.

Thanks again!

 

[dotvop]

Hi, I can't mount external HDD via usb. It is formatted to ext4, and it is visible through web gui in usb preferences, but it is not mounted. I also can't mount it from ssh manually, console throws an error like "mount: mounting /dev/sdb1 on /tmp/media failed". How can I debug further? Actually, I could not mount ext4 flash drive in the same way, before I reformatted it within router shell, and now it is visible and mounted in weird way like "/dev/sda1 on /tmp/mnt/sde1 type ext4 (rw,nodev,noatime,nobarrier,data=writeback)" from mount command output. I won't format HDD since it is 10Tb and full of media...

 

[Voxel]

Four weeks ago I was getting full 620/620 Mbps when connected to the R9000 over the air, now, no matter which client I use I only get 350/620Mbps.

But what happened during this time (four weeks)? What firmware was flashed?

Voxel.

 

[Voxel]

It is formatted to ext4

How did you format it? From router telnet/ssh? Exact command please.

If just mkfs.ext4 /dev/sda1 it could not be mounted. There are special options...

Voxel.

 

[dotvop]

How did you format it? From router telnet/ssh? Exact command please.

It was formatted long time ago, not from the router, I don't remember exact options. Can I adjust something with tune2fs? I tried
'tune2fs -O metadata_csum' with no luck though...

 

[Voxel]

I won't format HDD since it is 10Tb and full of media...

I am not sure... Maybe there are limitation on the size of HDD. 10TB. Try to check the official NG forum. As far as I remember there was some alarms that such big HDD cannot be used. I am not sure...

Voxel.