OpenWRT router – 2. Problems

I purchased GL.iNet GL-B1300 right after the price drop.

Look at this beauty

This router is the simplest one I’ve seen. No crazy LED lights, no horrendous antennas, no strange shape. Just white, square box shape, few buttons and LED, only necessary amount of ethernet ports and USB port. The power adapter is also very small. All those items above would probably be smaller than my old pfsense desktop’s power supply. This is exactly what I was looking for.

But I discovered some problems I didn’t expect.

1. The stock firmware is OpenWRT 15.05, released in 2015. Now it’s 2021.
2. Their newest stock firmware was released in 2020 December but it is still based on OpenWRT 15.05
3. I could install the newest OpenWRT release but it changes a lot of things
– WAN interface disappears from the switch
– Interfaces’ names for WAN and LAN are swapped
– All configs by the maker are wiped once you install the newest OpenWRT

Problem 1. The stock firmware is OpenWRT 15.05

This stock firmware is based on OpenWRT 15.05, it’s end of life so there will be no support from OpenWRT. There should be a ton of Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE) related to this release.
Problem 2. Their newest stock firmware is still based on OpenWRT 15.05
I’ve installed their newest firmware released on 2020 December 8th to see if this will help. No, it did not.
Problem 3.1. WAN interface disappears from the switch
Here are the screenshots of switch configs between stock firmware and OpenWRT 19.07.6.


According to this document, port 3 and 4 are LAN, port 5 is the WAN. After flashing, WAN disappeared. I know how to configure things in the config file but this is not only for me. Someone else from my family should be able to follow troubleshooting instructions in case I’m away.
Problem 3.2. Interfaces’ names for WAN and LAN are swapped

Network snippet from stock

Network snippet from 19.07.6

config interface ‘lan‘ option ifname ‘eth1‘ option force_link ‘1’ option type ‘bridge’ option proto ‘static’ option netmask ‘255.255.255.0’ option ip6assign ’60’ option hostname ‘GL-B1300-af4-5G’ option ipaddr ‘192.168.8.1’ option ieee1905managed ‘1’ config interface ‘wan‘ option ifname ‘eth0‘ option proto ‘dhcp’ option hostname ‘GL-B1300-af4-5G’ config interface ‘wan6‘ option ifname ‘eth0‘ option proto ‘dhcpv6’ option disabled ‘1’

config interface ‘lan‘ option type ‘bridge’ option ifname ‘eth0‘ option proto ‘static’ option ipaddr ‘192.168.1.1’ option netmask ‘255.255.255.0’ option ip6assign ’60’ config interface ‘wan‘ option ifname ‘eth1‘ option proto ‘dhcp’ config interface ‘wan6‘ option ifname ‘eth1‘ option proto ‘dhcpv6’

I really don’t know why this happens, whether I need to bother to change it from the config. But if I want to stay away from the stock firmware, I may need to keep OpenWRT’s config when it comes to interfaces because firmware upgrade might cause troubles I would want to avoid.
Problem 3.3. All configs by the maker are wiped once you install the newest OpenWRT
This router with its stock firmware has some nice features for regular users, such as mesh, VPN servers and network file share. All those nice features and configs are wiped as soon as it’s flashed with OpenWRT. If you aren’t familiar with Linux, it might be difficult.

Since I just need it to be a router with 2 VLANs for family and guest and don’t need VPN, file share and mesh, I do not have to worry about flashing it. The main issue here will be how to configure this so that my wife can troubleshoot for me. For instance, she should be able to log in and know how to change WAN interface from VLAN tagged PPPoE protocol to DHCP if we switch to another ISP. I thought of using my ISP’s router as the gateway, turn on the advanced DMZ to let my router take the external IP address as another solution to WAN troubleshooting.

So there are solutions.

1. Flash this router with OpenWRT 19.06.7 for the security and support
2. Create multiple WAN interfaces so that my wife can choose depending on ISPs
3. Have the least features configured in this router so that it doesn’t impact a lot when it fails

OpenWRT router – 1. Planning

I have been using pfsense router at home and it’s wonderful. But there are some problems with it for home users with family members who aren’t technical.

1. It can be bulky and/or messy setup for a family
2. Troubleshooting by other family members via phone or text is nearly impossible
3. There is no pfsense device that can do all, which is firewall, routing, switching and wireless network(It’s possible but not recommended by pfsense anyways)
4. It’s a bit picky about the NIC chipset maker
5. It’s an overkill for a family with less than 15 devices

Although I’m familiar with pfsense(I’m still learning. Don’t get me wrong) but I started looking into OpenWRT router because of the reasons below:

1. It’s possible to have 1 tiny device that does all
2. OpenWRT devices offer many features(of course not what pfsense does) too
3. Lower power consumption than pfsense setup
4. I don’t have any plan to increase clients numbers so OpenWRT is definitely not an overkill
5. Easier troubleshooting, such as rebooting

There are few requirements my OpenWRT router should meet.

1. Everything should be in 1 device
2. Wireless should be dual band
3. There should be separated VLANs for different networks(e.g., guest)
4. PPPoE option should be available for WAN interface
5. WIFE test(can my wife reboot the machine or change WAN from PPPoE to DHCP if we change ISP?)
6. The hardware should be supported by OpenWRT(I have Netgear R7000, but the wireless doesn’t work with it after flashing because Broadcom chipsets aren’t supported)
7. MU-MIMO

After searching my options, GL.iNet B1300 seemed to be ideal. It doesn’t even have those horrendous, tentacle looking antennas. It rather looks cute. Their stock firmware is OpenWRT based. The price recently dropped as of last week, so I purchased it.