OpenWRT is available for N56U (full support, including both wireless radios)

[ncfoster]

Ok. I am on Barrier Breaker now. Since that July 13th date has passed, I am just curious whether your builds are online, and how I would go about moving to those. Thanks.

The post you quoted is about a different router N65 and not N56.

Don't know why there is less activity here now. I still use this router, and I do compile openwrt trunk once in a while for it, with the link in openwrt wiki for this router. My internet is down until at least July 13th since I just moved so the link to my openwrt builds is dead until then (i do host it on my own internet connection due to package requirements).

I should probably update OP with my builds too, but can't do till my connection is up and running.

 

[moonman]

Ok. I am on Barrier Breaker now. Since that July 13th date has passed, I am just curious whether your builds are online, and how I would go about moving to those. Thanks.

Damn ISP hasn't come out to install internet yet. I've been battleng with them for several days now. Don't have an exact date for you atm.

 

[ncfoster]

Damn ISP hasn't come out to install internet yet. I've been battleng with them for several days now. Don't have an exact date for you atm.

Thanks for the reply. That must be quite annoying for you.

 

[Roxy]

Hello

I am using Padavan on n56u at the moment, however setting up OpenVPN at the router level has proven to be going nowhere fast. I am considering moving to OpenWRT as I can at least get proper instructions for that from most VPN providers.
With that said, I am concerned about some of the feature loss on Open WRT from Padavan :

A) NAT offload. Will this affect me? Five internal devices, three wired/two wireless gigabit network with 100mb fibre connection.
B) I need an intuitive UI for basic network setup and getting internet connection. The only thing advanced I will most likely look at is the OpenVPN setup.
C) Wireless - will want both 2.4 and 5ghz running simultaneously.

Please comment on the above.

 

[ncfoster]

Hello

I am using Padavan on n56u at the moment, however setting up OpenVPN at the router level has proven to be going nowhere fast. I am considering moving to OpenWRT as I can at least get proper instructions for that from most VPN providers.
With that said, I am concerned about some of the feature loss on Open WRT from Padavan :

A) NAT offload. Will this affect me? Five internal devices, three wired/two wireless gigabit network with 100mb fibre connection.
B) I need an intuitive UI for basic network setup and getting internet connection. The only thing advanced I will most likely look at is the OpenVPN setup.
C) Wireless - will want both 2.4 and 5ghz running simultaneously.

Please comment on the above.

As someone who just recently made the switch, I'd say:
A) I think that most agree that this is overrated for the most part. In my previous experience, it caused more problems than it was worth.
B) I do find the interface a bit annoying, but it is not all that dense, especially if you stick to the parts that you need.
C) At least on the basic Barrier Breaker release that I installed, it seems like you had to manually edit the wireless configuration file in order to get 5GHz working. It is simple editing of a text file. I used WinSCP to connect to the router, and edited it with Notepad++. Pretty simple process if you are comfortable with that sort of thing.

 

[Roxy]

With the GUI, can I at least get all LAN/WAN settings going and internet running without needing to drop into command/console mode?
And have you used Open VPN on it?

 

[ncfoster]

With the GUI, can I at least get all LAN/WAN settings going and internet running without needing to drop into command/console mode?
And have you used Open VPN on it?

The only thing that I required anything outside of the GUI for so far is the 5 GHz stuff. I have not used OpenVPN.

 

[moonman]

Hello

I am using Padavan on n56u at the moment, however setting up OpenVPN at the router level has proven to be going nowhere fast. I am considering moving to OpenWRT as I can at least get proper instructions for that from most VPN providers.
With that said, I am concerned about some of the feature loss on Open WRT from Padavan :

A) NAT offload. Will this affect me? Five internal devices, three wired/two wireless gigabit network with 100mb fibre connection.
B) I need an intuitive UI for basic network setup and getting internet connection. The only thing advanced I will most likely look at is the OpenVPN setup.
C) Wireless - will want both 2.4 and 5ghz running simultaneously.

Please comment on the above.

A) Without HW NAT and your connection you should be fine. HW NAT is really for connections >200 Mbit/s, test and see. You can always go back.
B) LuCi may not be as intuitive, but it is very powerful. Usually whatever you may need is found on the internet by just googling.
C) Both bands work. As mentioned by ncfoster you do have to fiddle a bit to get 5GHz band working in the release of BarrierBraker. It was fixed later in trunk builds.

Things you may want to consider:
OpenWRT is modular. You flash an image with only the basic functionality and you have to build upon it by choosing the packages that you need. Usually every functionality has a corresponding LuCi (name of WebUI in openwrt) module.

Openwrt wiki is a good source when you need something setup. As an example there are at least 2 pages that describe how to setup VPN: http://wiki.openwrt.org/inbox/vpn.howto
There is LuCi module that is not mentioned somehow: luci-app-openvpn

If you run out of space, you can move all packages to an external flash/hard drive. Also described in OpenWRT wiki.

 

[moonman]

The server is up now. No recent builds yet as some core packages fail to build.

 

[ncfoster]

The server is up now. No recent builds yet as some core packages fail to build.

Thanks for the heads up. Where is the server, and is there a changelog? I don't see a link.

 

[moonman]

Changelog:
https://github.com/openwrt-mirror/openwrt/commits/master

Link at the bottom of 1st post

 

[Roxy]

A) Without HW NAT and your connection you should be fine. HW NAT is really for connections >200 Mbit/s, test and see. You can always go back.
B) LuCi may not be as intuitive, but it is very powerful. Usually whatever you may need is found on the internet by just googling.
C) Both bands work. As mentioned by ncfoster you do have to fiddle a bit to get 5GHz band working in the release of BarrierBraker. It was fixed later in trunk builds.

Things you may want to consider:
OpenWRT is modular. You flash an image with only the basic functionality and you have to build upon it by choosing the packages that you need. Usually every functionality has a corresponding LuCi (name of WebUI in openwrt) module.

Openwrt wiki is a good source when you need something setup. As an example there are at least 2 pages that describe how to setup VPN: http://wiki.openwrt.org/inbox/vpn.howto
There is LuCi module that is not mentioned somehow: luci-app-openvpn

If you run out of space, you can move all packages to an external flash/hard drive. Also described in OpenWRT wiki.

Thank you and to the others as well. I did have a play with it and turns out I liked the modular setup however OpenVPN never went well. I have since moved onto making my own pfSense firewall box and am humming along nicely.

 

[000]

moonman,

Which build of OpenWRT would you install on an RT-N56U if you were doing it today for the first time, e.g. one that's starting from the manufacturer stock firmware? Is Chaos Calmer RC3 adequately bug free at this point to choose over Barrier Breaker stable?

 

[ncfoster]

My 2.4GHz network seems to have crapped out on me. On my laptop, it is giving me an error that I don't have a valid IP address. 5 GHz band is fine. Still on Barrier Breaker release. I don't believe that I made any changes in the interim. Any thoughts?

 

[kalpik]

moonman,

Which build of OpenWRT would you install on an RT-N56U if you were doing it today for the first time, e.g. one that's starting from the manufacturer stock firmware? Is Chaos Calmer RC3 adequately bug free at this point to choose over Barrier Breaker stable?

Install the stable one first, and then upgrade.

Sent from my A0001

 

[000]

Install the stable one first, and then upgrade.

I see.. to confirm: Neither the CC RC builds on downloads.openwrt.org nor moonman's custom builds are appropriate to install first from stock?

 

[kalpik]

I see.. to confirm: Neither the CC RC builds on downloads.openwrt.org nor moonman's custom builds are appropriate to install first from stock?

Custom builds are fine, CC RC aren't.

Sent from my A0001

 

[000]

Does anyone know what the significance is of moonman's custom builds at http://olegtown.pw/openwrt/ stopping being generated since 6/17/2015?

 

[L&LD]

That might be better asked on the appropriate forum?

I believe he moved quite a while ago to openwrt.

 

[moonman]

Does anyone know what the significance is of moonman's custom builds at http://olegtown.pw/openwrt/ stopping being generated since 6/17/2015?

openwrt has moved on from uclibc to musl c runtime library and I haven't had time to fix the scripts to build it. For me it fails on libssh build and won't go any further, even with IGNORE_ERRORS set to 1.