Uses of Openwrt/DDwrt - Open firmwares for router. Simplified

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Nah :p, not yet.
Modded it and bumped the TX to 30 .. and under observation.
I’m out for a week when I return will do some more exp... back to stock will be only in extreme conditions.

Will keeep this updated accordingly.
 
babhishek said:
back to stock ;)
Click to expand...
yes I'm back to stock as i type :(

wireless throughput was not upto acceptable level, even thought the signal quality was much stronger than stock.

Normally use to stream the videos, short from my phone, to big tv screen to enjoy with family.... today morning when I tried, it refused to play smoother, and video freezing and shutting terribly.
did a couple to test, and discover any file which is greater than 2gb was struggling to stream in the network (from phone or nas)... was socked as earlier my benchmark was 32gb file ( 52gig if video profile 4.1 with ref-frame 4)

did iperf test and after found the speed is 270mbps on average after 6 set of test. :mad: ( with signal quality is around -47db).
did few online search and discovered this article - https://pappp.net/?p=1525 .. after that i flashed back to stock, and restored my previous config.
And i'm back to full speed, tested with a 36gig remux.. streaming like butter. (with signal quality is around -61db).
  • im going to miss all the schedule tasks and automation badly.
  • not going to regret much on terms of adblocking, as dns level blocking was unable to filter out YouTube ads .. so im back to adguard DNS.
  • planing to put pi-hole to block ads locally instead of relying on adguard.
  • I'm also feeling a little more "in control" in terms of firewall of stock router.

Take Away
In this entire flashing thing i learnt a lot which cant be explained here.
openWRT community is not as beginner friendly as i was expecting... they are very knowledgeable person and only respond to a certain type of issues.
In every steps i struggled to get help, with every new version of openwrt things changes so old forum posting are mostly outdated.

My next mission would be getting a raspberry pi, and setup with pfSence -- kill the tracking & advertisement traffic before even it hits my home gateway, and to safeguard the network with a superior firewall.
I don't have all the knowledge as of now but will do research before i put my hands on it, in early 2019.

as of now, im going to focus on my google/facebook free ecosystem project already started with migrating my email off to google. 1-jan-2019 i should be able to put entire google an FB domain in my host file :)
 
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There is a misconception here which most do not understand - having pfsense does not magically make your network stronger. For most home networks like yours, if there is no public access, you really do not need a pfsense box unless for some specific cases like tunnelling and all.

Its like saying FreeNAS is needed for any NAS setup, when OMV will do a decent job for most users.
 
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vivek.krishnan said:
There is a misconception here which most do not understand - having pfsense does not magically make your network stronger.
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Thanks Vivek, i don't know the specifics of pfsence.. just see its been praised all over in openwrt forums, so just thought it might add a little extra layer of firewall thingi across network.
If you say so i can ignore it.

What's your thought about getting an raspberry and installing pi-hole in that?
Will i see better ad-blocking in the network or it will be more or less the same what adgurads dns is providing ?
I know ad-blocking in DNS - level has its limitation... but trying to gauge if its really worth the effort in setting up the pi-hole after getting a pi 3+?

i'm most affected by YouTube ads in my TV, basically which stops the video in the middle and plays ads... any technique to get rid of those?
 
netant said:
i'm most affected by YouTube ads in my TV, basically which stops the video in the middle and plays ads... any technique to get rid of those?
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Save yourself the trouble and get a subscription, I'm 50% sure pfsense or pihole will not be able to get rid of those ads in between YouTube videos
 
netant said:
Thanks Vivek, i don't know the specifics of pfsence.. just see its been praised all over in openwrt forums, so just thought it might add a little extra layer of firewall thingi across network.
If you say so i can ignore it.

What's your thought about getting an raspberry and installing pi-hole in that?
Will i see better ad-blocking in the network or it will be more or less the same what adgurads dns is providing ?
I know ad-blocking in DNS - level has its limitation... but trying to gauge if its really worth the effort in setting up the pi-hole after getting a pi 3+?

i'm most affected by YouTube ads in my TV, basically which stops the video in the middle and plays ads... any technique to get rid of those?
Click to expand...

DNS Blocking doesn't work for the most part on youtube. Also most google services have hardcoded DNS, so set a rule to block google DNS on port 53. If it's an android tv then install youtube vanced and micro g on phone and you can cast videos or you can install smart youtube and see if that works.

https://www.reddit.com/r/pihole/comments/930g2z/psa_google_services_including_ads_and_others_try/
https://smartyoutubetv.github.io/
https://vanced.cf/
 
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netant said:
Thanks Vivek, i don't know the specifics of pfsence.. just see its been praised all over in openwrt forums, so just thought it might add a little extra layer of firewall thingi across network.
If you say so i can ignore it.

What's your thought about getting an raspberry and installing pi-hole in that?
Will i see better ad-blocking in the network or it will be more or less the same what adgurads dns is providing ?
I know ad-blocking in DNS - level has its limitation... but trying to gauge if its really worth the effort in setting up the pi-hole after getting a pi 3+?

i'm most affected by YouTube ads in my TV, basically which stops the video in the middle and plays ads... any technique to get rid of those?
Click to expand...

It does add that extra layer, but its not needed in most home use scenarios.

RPi and pihole is a good idea, but ensure you will need a firewall to block DNS on your router.

You should see better if adguard has limited rules.

Pi Hole? Yes. But you need a firewall on the router.

Get Youtube Premium when it launches in India. Till then use modded APKs and the like.
 
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netant said:
:hearteyes:updates:- in post #17


I flashed OpenWrt in my archer today... I’m too much confused ‍♂️.
Its overwhelming and very complicated to find something and configure.
Hardly any good YouTube video tutorials, majority is clickbait. It’s said openWrt had a wealth of documentation.. I’m struggling to find proper documentation in lede as well as wrt site. . IRC is helpful but again no one will help step by step.

It took me almost 3hours to get the Adblock working, non of the documents listed the dependencies .
Adblocking is not very efficient as its DNS based and filters list are very limited. For example HPhost filter list , has over 45k domain but wrt version has only 12,000ish.
Doesn’t block YouTube/Facebook/LinkedIn ads at all. Setting AdGuard dns was proving better ad blocking.
I’m sure I’m missing something in configure Adblock.

@cute.bandar @vivek.krishnan @nimod please help me by pointing any good links of documentation which is well explained for beginner if you know.

I’m trying to achieve following things at the beginning.
  1. Security of this router from external world (wan interface). After flashing I only configured pppoe and wifi radios. Firewall settings are non existent, and are too complicated. So everything is is in default.
  2. Block ads and tracking. - DONE (using the default adblock , with StevenBlack host. and few other built in filter like, youtube block list& easylist. total 60k domains, using more will impact the router. using this is very light on my router and free memory came down to 68% from 75% without adblock. This providing me a average adblock but NOT close to what i am expecting. tested almost 15 adblock lists but unable to tame facebook & youtube video ads :(. So as of now im good with this, and moving my focus to other things, but later on i will figure out another solution like pihole etc,)
  3. Use DNScrypt, Ressolving Dns over https/encrypted.
  4. Hide my internet traffic from the isp. They should only see the encrypted traffic and should not sniff my packets.
  5. IP reservation in DHCP based on my devices MAC address (I’m yet to higher out where is address reservation and lease time settings). - DONE ! settings found under - network (Tab) ---> DHCP and DNS
  6. Unable to find how to configure guest network.
  7. Few schedules:
    1. Turn off wi-fi radios after 10:00pm every night and again turn on at 7:00am. - done ( https://www.gargoyle-router.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=2064)
    2. Disconnect the internet after 10:30pm (reject any request to auto dial and connect the PPPoE). --- DONE !!
    3. Reboot the router at 6am, Connect to Internet, update Adblock list and reboot at 6:30am, before enabling wifi at 7am. - done! ( command - sleep 70 && touch /etc/banner && reboot, /etc/init.d/adblock reload)
  8. Administrate devices, and guest network.
    1. For example block any Facebook activity in the network regardless, website or via fb app in mobiles.
    2. Let’s say Instagram can only be accessed between 10am to 5pm.
    3. Certain devices can only have access to LAN and not internet (media servers).

I have listed down few things which I’m trying to achieve so that people can hint me to the right direction.

Else, I will flash back to tplink back .. I was feeling more secure in my previous configurations and had more control over the router. And will install piHole to block ads.

Thanks.

Edit:
Paging @rajil.s as well.
Click to expand...
I agree with you, did the same. on my Archer 2600 as well, the UI of opentwrt is complicated (too much to learn as starter).
I am planning to revert to stock firmware via the tftp flash method (only this works soo far).
 
Futureized said:
the UI of opentwrt is complicated
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xiaomi has taken these same openwrt and build a beautiful UI around that for their routers.

The problem with openWRT is, its more of an embed software with one size fits all approach. One who knows how to build specially for their router will be different experience I guess.


@k_m_Arya thanks for pointing, 8.8.8.8 & 8.8.4.4 is now blocked system wide in my router.
My tv is not an android based and will never buy any android based devices. What google made out of it is horrible spyware and not open source as it was started.

I don’t use YouTube in phone :).
subscription to YouTube will never happen in this era... Even if they provide subscription in $1.
The day I get a little more annoyed, I will uninstall it from my tv as well.
 
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