[Cerowrt-users] Some setup questions

[Cerowrt-users] Some setup questions

[Marc MERLIN]

Hi,

I've used linux on wireless routers for many years, and recently got a
WNDR3800 on which I just installed Cerowrt.

I used openwrt-ar71xx-generic-wndr3800-squashfs-sysupgrade.bin 3.3.8-26
on top of an openwrt test install.

Two questions:

1) Before cerowrt, I tried openwrt 12.09-beta2
Is fq_codel and most of cerowrt in openwrt 12.09-beta2?  If I can't get
cerowrt, will openwrt 12.09-beta2, be pretty close to cerowrt for latency
patches?

2) I'm going to need usb to serial (pl2303) support. I already read that cerowrt
doesn't have most packages from openwrt, but since they should be mostly compatible
can't I just point cerowrt to
http://downloads.openwrt.org/attitude_adjustment/12.09-beta2/ar71xx/generic/packages/Packages
and use those packages instead, including
http://downloads.openwrt.org/attitude_adjustment/12.09-beta2/ar71xx/generic/packages/kmod-usb-serial-pl2303_3.3.8-1_ar71xx.ipk ?

3) in the network/switch page, I noticed that it shows port4 even though I
don't have one, and CPU seems to be the uplink port, but it shows 1000bT
full-duplex whether I have my uplink cable plugged in, or not.
Is that normal?

Thanks,
Marc
-- 
"A mouse is a device used to point at the xterm you want to type in" - A.S.R.
Microsoft is to operating systems ....
                                      .... what McDonalds is to gourmet cooking
Home page: http://marc.merlins.org/

Re: [Cerowrt-users] Some setup questions

[Marc MERLIN]

On Thu, Oct 25, 2012 at 09:29:02PM -0700, Marc MERLIN wrote:
> 2) I'm going to need usb to serial (pl2303) support. I already read that cerowrt
> doesn't have most packages from openwrt, but since they should be mostly compatible
> can't I just point cerowrt to
> http://downloads.openwrt.org/attitude_adjustment/12.09-beta2/ar71xx/generic/packages/Packages
> and use those packages instead, including
> http://downloads.openwrt.org/attitude_adjustment/12.09-beta2/ar71xx/generic/packages/kmod-usb-serial-pl2303_3.3.8-1_ar71xx.ipk ?

Actually as a followup, considering that I need to use my WNDR3800 as a rock
solid internet gateway for my house, and it will double as a serial console
server for my server (hence the need for 3rd party modules and packages that
are in the openwrt tree).
I won't be reflashing it often, ideally once every few years at most, and on
top of wanting to benefit the fq_codel work (I already signed up for a
monetary donation to help pay for it), all I see myself using is:
- bind
- dhcp
- minicom
- screen

This is what I currently have on my old WRT-600N with dd-wrt, but dd-wrt is
obsolete, and the router's wireless is poor, hence my upgrading.

Given that, am I better off with openwrt 12.09-beta2 if I want a long term
stable build or the latest cerowrt?

Thanks,
Marc
-- 
"A mouse is a device used to point at the xterm you want to type in" - A.S.R.
Microsoft is to operating systems ....
                                      .... what McDonalds is to gourmet cooking
Home page: http://marc.merlins.org/  

Re: [Cerowrt-users] Some setup questions

[Dave Taht]

On Fri, Oct 26, 2012 at 2:55 AM, Marc MERLIN <marc@merlins.org> wrote:
> On Thu, Oct 25, 2012 at 09:29:02PM -0700, Marc MERLIN wrote:
>> 2) I'm going to need usb to serial (pl2303) support. I already read that cerowrt
>> doesn't have most packages from openwrt, but since they should be mostly compatible
>> can't I just point cerowrt to
>> http://downloads.openwrt.org/attitude_adjustment/12.09-beta2/ar71xx/generic/packages/Packages
>> and use those packages instead, including
>> http://downloads.openwrt.org/attitude_adjustment/12.09-beta2/ar71xx/generic/packages/kmod-usb-serial-pl2303_3.3.8-1_ar71xx.ipk ?
>
> Actually as a followup, considering that I need to use my WNDR3800 as a rock
> solid internet gateway for my house, and it will double as a serial console
> server for my server (hence the need for 3rd party modules and packages that
> are in the openwrt tree).

As noted the serial modules are

> I won't be reflashing it often, ideally once every few years at most, and on
> top of wanting to benefit the fq_codel work (I already signed up for a
> monetary donation to help pay for it), all I see myself using is:

I have appreciated all the donations since I started soliciting for
them a month ago. It made the difference between living under a
bridge, and living in a yurt, that month.

http://www.bufferbloat.net/projects/cerowrt/wiki/yurtlab

The outpouring of support was wonderful and encouraging and I'd have
never got sugarland out the door if that hadn't happened. That said,
the donations/subscriptions so far are not suffiicient presently to
carry the project very far. As one example, I'd like to repeat the
field test above in the april timeframe, with some fixed wireless
code.

I've spent a lot of time these past two months trying to find ways to
raise enough money to fund another 18 month development cycle, solving
the as yet unsolved problems with wireless, working on mdns issue,
dlna, and the like - but getting a non-profit off the ground is going
to take time, and running a kickstarter/indigogo campaign, while
helpful,
seems unlikely to generate enough funds to really go after those problems.

I'm (teklibre) prepared to fund at least part of the next development
cycle, after I get unburied from my new contract and the mountain of
debt accumulated in support of bufferbloat.net reduced somewhat.

The research benefit from the bufferbloat project has been enormous -
not just the development of fq_codel, but the insights gained from a
hard look at the device driver problems (BQL, TCP small queues,
codel), from routing everything, trying to make ipv6 work, tracking
the work of the homenet and mdnsext working groups, etc, so I would
hope to find matching funds from a set of corporate donors for the
next round.

And I'm tickled that so many notables (dave miller, eric dumazet,
david reed, esr, jg,  dozens of others) are running cerowrt on a day
to day basis. And delighted by all the hard work, development, and
testing, by the openwrt folk and the cerowrt volunteers in getting to
this point in 18 months... and the work in the mainline kernel... and
the theoretical work by dozens of academics and then of course there's
the huge contributions of van, kathie, edumazet, and tom herbert in
fixing linux, felix on the ath9k...

but I'm pretty tapped out personally through the end of the year.
There is some good work going on that will make the openwrt and
cerowrt development process easier - in particular a 4 node heavy duty
cluster is going into place to help with continuous integration, thx
to the hard work of denis and john, openwrt is streamlining their
processes, and I'm trying to spread the knowlege of how to build the
darn thing around.

I'm heading up to linaro's event in the EU this weekend, and linuxcon
the next, in the hope that I can convince some org/co to help out more
on the money side.

I seem to have missed your contribution on this page:

http://cero2.bufferbloat.net/cerowrt/credits.html

I will go look at the backlog from paypal.

> - bind

I ripped bind out of the sugarland build as we'd encountered memory
use problems on 64MB and lower systems and went back to dnsmasq.

Also bind was on it's 5th CVE for the year. I was kind of fed up.

It's still easily installable (and will work fine on a 3800), and I
like to think it's the most robust implementation of bind ever done -
and somewhere on this I documented how to install bind-latest and
bind-latest-config on top of sugarland, or I put it on the wiki...

> - dhcp

In this case we are using dnsmasq for dhcp

> - minicom
> - screen

I can add those to the next build. Probably.

> This is what I currently have on my old WRT-600N with dd-wrt, but dd-wrt is
> obsolete, and the router's wireless is poor, hence my upgrading.
>
> Given that, am I better off with openwrt 12.09-beta2 if I want a long term
> stable build or the latest cerowrt?

I would wait on both counts - wait for openwrt to go final, wait for
cerowrt to sync up.

And in the meantime, play a little with both sets of ideas. A huge
core difference between openwrt and cerowrt is that openwrt is
bridged, cerowrt is routed. Cerowrt also does a few other things
differently, and comes with a boatload of test tools, mostly
documented here:

http://cero2.bufferbloat.net/cerowrt/about.html

However, given your desire for multi-year LTS, that really isn't in
the cards for cerowrt.

It is my hope that we'll get a cerowrt-3.3.8 stable release soon, but
i wasn't planning on maintaining that for more than a few months,
preferring to launch back into tracking 3.6 and later with new
de-bufferbloating fixes that are waiting in the wings.

I
>
> Thanks,
> Marc
> --
> "A mouse is a device used to point at the xterm you want to type in" - A.S.R.
> Microsoft is to operating systems ....
>                                       .... what McDonalds is to gourmet cooking
> Home page: http://marc.merlins.org/
> _______________________________________________
> Cerowrt-users mailing list
> Cerowrt-users@lists.bufferbloat.net
> https://lists.bufferbloat.net/listinfo/cerowrt-users



-- 
Dave Täht

Fixing bufferbloat with cerowrt: http://www.teklibre.com/cerowrt/subscribe.html

Re: [Cerowrt-users] Some setup questions

[Dave Taht]

On Fri, Oct 26, 2012 at 12:29 AM, Marc MERLIN <marc@merlins.org> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I've used linux on wireless routers for many years, and recently got a
> WNDR3800 on which I just installed Cerowrt.
>
> I used openwrt-ar71xx-generic-wndr3800-squashfs-sysupgrade.bin 3.3.8-26
> on top of an openwrt test install.
>
> Two questions:
>
> 1) Before cerowrt, I tried openwrt 12.09-beta2
> Is fq_codel and most of cerowrt in openwrt 12.09-beta2?  If I can't get
> cerowrt, will openwrt 12.09-beta2, be pretty close to cerowrt for latency
> patches?

My hope is to sync up with the openwrt final from a binary perspective.

There are about 12 of cerowrt's more experimental patches missing from
openwrt beta - notably one that speeds up ivp6 a  lot. there are also
some experimental variants of fq_codel in there. There's a change to
wireless diffserv behavior. There's a patch reducing buffering on the
ath9k (but I think that's in openwrt too)

the debloat package runs all interfaces, turning off various offloads,
and enabling fq_codel on all interfaces.

It is kind of my hope more folk try running the debloat package on
openwrt AA final, rather than trying to run cerowrt as their main
router.


> 2) I'm going to need usb to serial (pl2303) support. I already read that cerowrt
> doesn't have most packages from openwrt, but since they should be mostly compatible
> can't I just point cerowrt to

cerowrt has these usb-serial packages built. They are used by gpsd among others.

You can see the package list in the relevant release's package directory.

> http://downloads.openwrt.org/attitude_adjustment/12.09-beta2/ar71xx/generic/packages/Packages
> and use those packages instead, including
> http://downloads.openwrt.org/attitude_adjustment/12.09-beta2/ar71xx/generic/packages/kmod-usb-serial-pl2303_3.3.8-1_ar71xx.ipk ?
>
> 3) in the network/switch page, I noticed that it shows port4 even though I
> don't have one, and CPU seems to be the uplink port, but it shows 1000bT
> full-duplex whether I have my uplink cable plugged in, or not.
> Is that normal?

Dunno.

> Thanks,
> Marc
> --
> "A mouse is a device used to point at the xterm you want to type in" - A.S.R.
> Microsoft is to operating systems ....
>                                       .... what McDonalds is to gourmet cooking
> Home page: http://marc.merlins.org/
> _______________________________________________
> Cerowrt-users mailing list
> Cerowrt-users@lists.bufferbloat.net
> https://lists.bufferbloat.net/listinfo/cerowrt-users



-- 
Dave Täht

Fixing bufferbloat with cerowrt: http://www.teklibre.com/cerowrt/subscribe.html

Re: [Cerowrt-users] Some setup questions

[Marc MERLIN]

First, thanks for your answers.

On Fri, Oct 26, 2012 at 07:10:11AM -0400, Dave Taht wrote:
> It is kind of my hope more folk try running the debloat package on
> openwrt AA final, rather than trying to run cerowrt as their main
> router.

That was my understanding, thanks for confirming. Since I only have limited
time to tweak my main home router, and fix it if it breaks when I'm not home
but my wife is :) , I'm trying to see which one of the two options will work
best.
Initially I'm leaning towards openwrt mostly because they have all those
precompiled packages, some I will want, but it might be possible to somehow
make them work with cerowrt since both installs are supposed to be pretty
much compatible binary wise I'm guessing.

> > 2) I'm going to need usb to serial (pl2303) support. I already read that cerowrt
> > doesn't have most packages from openwrt, but since they should be mostly compatible
> > can't I just point cerowrt to
> 
> cerowrt has these usb-serial packages built. They are used by gpsd among others.

I'll check thanks.

> You can see the package list in the relevant release's package directory.
> 
> > http://downloads.openwrt.org/attitude_adjustment/12.09-beta2/ar71xx/generic/packages/Packages
> > and use those packages instead, including
> > http://downloads.openwrt.org/attitude_adjustment/12.09-beta2/ar71xx/generic/packages/kmod-usb-serial-pl2303_3.3.8-1_ar71xx.ipk ?

So I was confused because you don't use the same package names than they do,
and assumed you didn't have a pl2303 kernel module.

On Fri, Oct 26, 2012 at 08:39:32AM -0400, Dave Taht wrote:
(...)
> The research benefit from the bufferbloat project has been enormous -
> not just the development of fq_codel, but the insights gained from a
> hard look at the device driver problems (BQL, TCP small queues,
> codel), from routing everything, trying to make ipv6 work, tracking
> the work of the homenet and mdnsext working groups, etc, so I would
> hope to find matching funds from a set of corporate donors for the
> next round.

Absolutely, I want to be just one more person to thank you for it.
That's why I wanted to donate even if I end up using openwrt in the end.

> I seem to have missed your contribution on this page:
> http://cero2.bufferbloat.net/cerowrt/credits.html
> I will go look at the backlog from paypal.

I think the may have been a problem. I donated yesterday after trying
earlier with the amazon thing that didn't work, but I can't see a trace of
that in my paypal activity. Please contact me off list if it didn't go
through and I'll try again.
 
> > - bind
> 
> I ripped bind out of the sugarland build as we'd encountered memory
> use problems on 64MB and lower systems and went back to dnsmasq.

Makes sense. I actually use bind and dhcp on my much smaller wrt600n with
dd-wrt because I like being able to share config files between my PC server
and my router servers (I copy dhcp.conf around with static leases and use
bind to replicate internal zones maintained on my main server).

> Also bind was on it's 5th CVE for the year. I was kind of fed up.

Yeah, that sucks :(
But either way, I should be able to re-add bind and isc dhcp after the fact
for my own use like I did on my wrt600n.
(this is also non internet facing, so security isn't as crucial).

Speaking of which, dd-wrt allowed me to run ssh on another port than 22 on
the internet facing ip, while using 22 on the internal IP. I don't think openwrt
does without me tweaking startup scripts by hand, correct?

> > - minicom
> > - screen
> 
> I can add those to the next build. Probably.
 
Are you sure we can't just use the openwrt packages directly instead of you
having to rebuild them? Surely, you ought to be compatible with the latest
openwrt beta, no?

> > Given that, am I better off with openwrt 12.09-beta2 if I want a long term
> > stable build or the latest cerowrt?
> 
> I would wait on both counts - wait for openwrt to go final, wait for
> cerowrt to sync up.
 
I see. Fair enough. I'll give it a shot now since I just got the hardware,
but if it doesn't work, I'll just wait a bit.

> And in the meantime, play a little with both sets of ideas. A huge
> core difference between openwrt and cerowrt is that openwrt is
> bridged, cerowrt is routed. Cerowrt also does a few other things
> differently, and comes with a boatload of test tools, mostly
> documented here:
> http://cero2.bufferbloat.net/cerowrt/about.html

I read about your routing idea, which I think it good for most.
For me, it's not. I use nfs on my laptop and switch between wired to 2.4G
and 5G without changing my IP, so it has to be bridged.
Am I going to be having a hard time changing cerowrt to make all 3
interfaces bridged again?
 
> However, given your desire for multi-year LTS, that really isn't in
> the cards for cerowrt.

I'm not expecting to ask you for LTS support :) for that matter, dd-wrt
sucks in many ways, and upgrading with them can definitely make things worse.
I was able to install it and make it work the way I needed it a long time
ago and leave it alone.  I'm planning on doing the same here if I can :)

> It is my hope that we'll get a cerowrt-3.3.8 stable release soon, but
> i wasn't planning on maintaining that for more than a few months,
> preferring to launch back into tracking 3.6 and later with new
> de-bufferbloating fixes that are waiting in the wings.

Right. That's obviously what cerowrt is about. 
If I can:
- make openwrt packages work on it out of the box
- change it to bridge instead of route
- run bind/dhcp with my current config files
I'll be all set.

If not, I'll try openwrt and try again.
And if that still doesn't work, I'll wait a while as you recommended.

Thanks again for your work,
Marc
-- 
"A mouse is a device used to point at the xterm you want to type in" - A.S.R.
Microsoft is to operating systems ....
                                      .... what McDonalds is to gourmet cooking
Home page: http://marc.merlins.org/  

Re: [Cerowrt-users] Some setup questions

[Marc MERLIN]

On Fri, Oct 26, 2012 at 11:55:10AM -0700, Marc MERLIN wrote:
> Right. That's obviously what cerowrt is about. 
> If I can:
> - make openwrt packages work on it out of the box

I didn't try kernel modules, but I can confirm that I was able to point
to the openwrt package list and just install stuff from there.
Since I read on one of your pages or posts (I forget) that it takes you too
long to build the repo, may I suggest that you just point to it or copy it
over? :)

All I had to do was:
root@wireless:~# cat /etc/opkg.conf 
#src/gz sugarland http://huchra.bufferbloat.net/~cero1/3.3/3.3.8-26/packages
src/gz sugarland
http://downloads.openwrt.org/attitude_adjustment/12.09-beta2/ar71xx/generic/packages
dest root /
dest ram /tmp
lists_dir ext /var/opkg-lists
option overlay_root /overlay

and I was able to install screen and minicom and then I can switch
the config back to cerowrt for other packages.
(I didn't check if I can have both sources active at the same time, I'm not
knowledgeable about opkg much).

> - change it to bridge instead of route

This one, I want to make sure not everything will break if I do that.

> - run bind/dhcp with my current config files

I haven't done the entire config yet, but got the packages installed.

So, I think it's just a matter of switching the routing config back to
bridging (sorry :) ).
I'll see if I can figure out how to do that with the GUI or command line.

Marc
-- 
"A mouse is a device used to point at the xterm you want to type in" - A.S.R.
Microsoft is to operating systems ....
                                      .... what McDonalds is to gourmet cooking
Home page: http://marc.merlins.org/  

Re: [Cerowrt-users] Some setup questions

[Marc MERLIN]

On Sat, Nov 03, 2012 at 07:00:32PM -0700, Marc MERLIN wrote:
> > >> So, I think it's just a matter of switching the routing config back to
> > >> bridging (sorry :) ).
> > >> I'll see if I can figure out how to do that with the GUI or command line.
> > 
> > It's doable. You just have to be careful to fix the network and the
> > firewall rules at the same time. I really should put up a config for
> > it and be done with it...
> 
> I can wait a bit if you think you'll get to it, but if you're busy, I'll
> just give it a shot. I take it it can't be that hard.
 
Hi,

Turns out I didn't have time to work on this, but still need to. If it's not
trivial to change the config back to one big bridged network, and if anyone
has some kind of cookbook, I'll take it :)

Thanks,
Marc
-- 
"A mouse is a device used to point at the xterm you want to type in" - A.S.R.
Microsoft is to operating systems ....
                                      .... what McDonalds is to gourmet cooking
Home page: http://marc.merlins.org/  

Re: [Cerowrt-users] Some setup questions

[Dave Taht]

hop on #bufferbloat, we can walk you through it.

On Wed, Nov 14, 2012 at 9:03 AM, Marc MERLIN <marc@merlins.org> wrote:
> On Sat, Nov 03, 2012 at 07:00:32PM -0700, Marc MERLIN wrote:
>> > >> So, I think it's just a matter of switching the routing config back to
>> > >> bridging (sorry :) ).
>> > >> I'll see if I can figure out how to do that with the GUI or command line.
>> >
>> > It's doable. You just have to be careful to fix the network and the
>> > firewall rules at the same time. I really should put up a config for
>> > it and be done with it...
>>
>> I can wait a bit if you think you'll get to it, but if you're busy, I'll
>> just give it a shot. I take it it can't be that hard.
>
> Hi,
>
> Turns out I didn't have time to work on this, but still need to. If it's not
> trivial to change the config back to one big bridged network, and if anyone
> has some kind of cookbook, I'll take it :)
>
> Thanks,
> Marc
> --
> "A mouse is a device used to point at the xterm you want to type in" - A.S.R.
> Microsoft is to operating systems ....
>                                       .... what McDonalds is to gourmet cooking
> Home page: http://marc.merlins.org/



-- 
Dave Täht

Fixing bufferbloat with cerowrt: http://www.teklibre.com/cerowrt/subscribe.html