[NNagain] Internet Education for Non-technorati?

Fri Oct 13 04:38:17 EDT 2023

Hi Bob,

> On Oct 13, 2023, at 06:31, rjmcmahon via Nnagain <nnagain at lists.bufferbloat.net> wrote:
> 
> Hi David,
> 
> I think we're looking at different parts of the elephant. I perceive huge advances in WiFi (phy, dsp, radios, fems, etc.) and residential gateway chips of late. Not sure the state of chips used by the openwrt folks here,

	[SM] The core OpenWrt developers seem to be mostly software folks (that are occasionally hired-by/cooperating with hardware companies) so in a sense OpenWrt uses those "chips" that are available in (cheapish) WiFi APs/routers available on the market where the manufacturer is either opensource friendly (some NDAs seem to be acceptable at least to some of the developers) or where folks are eager enough to reverse engineer stuff. That leaves some large vendors pretty much out of the OpenWrt ecosystem... e.g. broadcom has a reputation as being opensource unfriendly and hence has a lot of SoC/chips that are not supported by the opensource OpenWrt mainline.... I guess there might be vendor-private SDKs for broadcom chips that are based on OpenWrt, but I am purely speculating... (I think there is mainline support for some/most? ethernet chips, and some mostly oder WiFi, but modern WiFi or stuff like DSL seems not supported).

> though they may be lagging a bit - not sure.
> 
> https://investors.broadcom.com/news-releases/news-release-details/broadcom-announces-availability-second-generation-wi-fi-7
> 
> Broadcom’s Wi-Fi 7 ecosystem product portfolio includes the BCM6765, BCM47722, and BCM4390.
> 
> The BCM6765 is optimized for the residential Wi-Fi access point market. Key features include:
> ...
> The BCM47722 is an enterprise access point platform SoC supporting Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth Low Energy, and 802.15.4 protocols. Key features include:
> ...
> The BCM4390 is a highly-integrated Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 5 combo chip optimized for mobile handset applications. Key features include:
> ...

	[SM] Yeah, these are not supported by OpenWrt yet, and likely never will, unless Broadcom changes its stance towards coperation with opensource developers in that section of the market.

Regards
	Sebastian

> 
> Bob
>> On Thu, 12 Oct 2023, rjmcmahon via Nnagain wrote:
>>> I looked at openwrt packages and iperf 2 is  at version 2.1.3 which is a few years old.
>>> The number of CPE/AP systems to test against is quite large. Then throwing in versions for backwards compatibility testing adds yet another vector.
>> for the market as a whole, yes, it's a hard problem. But for an
>> individual manfacturer, they only have to work with their equipment,
>> not all the others. The RF side isn't changing from release to release
>> (and usually the firmware for the Wifi isn't changing), so that
>> eliminates a lot of the work. They need to do more smoke testing of
>> new releases than a full regression/performance test. Some
>> incompatibility creeping in is the most likely problem, not a subtle
>> performance issue.
>> For the Scale conference, we have a Pi tied to a couple relays hooked
>> to the motherboard of the router we use and it's tied in to our github
>> repo, so every PR gets auto-flashed to the router and simple checks
>> done. Things like this should be easy to setup and will catch most
>> issues.
>> David Lang
>>> Since it's performance related, statistical techniques are required against multiple metrics to measure statistically the same or not. Finally with WiFi, one needs to throw in some controlled, repeatable RF variability around the d-matrices (range) & h-matrices (frequency responses in both phase and amplitudes per the MIMO spatial streams.)
>>> I can see why vendors (& system integrators) might be slow to adopt the latest if there is not some sort of extensive qualification ahead of that adoption.
>>> Bob
>>> PS. Iperf 2 now has 2.5+ million downloads (if sourceforge is to be believed.) My wife suggested I write a book titled, "How to create software with 2.5M downloads, a zero marginal cost to produce, and get paid zero dollars!!" I suspect many openwrt & other programmers could add multiple chapters to such a book.
>>>> On Thu, Oct 12, 2023 at 9:04 AM rjmcmahon via Nnagain
>>>> <nnagain at lists.bufferbloat.net> wrote:
>>>>> Sorry, my openwrt information seems to be incorrect and more vendors use
>>>>> openwrt then I realized. So, I really don't know the numbers here.
>>>> There are not a lot of choices in the market. On the high end, like
>>>> eero, we are seeing Debian derived systems, also some chromeOS
>>>> devices. Lower end there is "buildroot", and forked openwrts like
>>>> Meraki.
>>>> So the whole home router and cpe market has some, usually obsolete,
>>>> hacked up, and unmaintained version of openwrt at its heart, on
>>>> everything from SFPs to the routers and a lot of iOt, despite many
>>>> advancements and security patches in the main build.
>>>> It would be my earnest hope, with a clear upgrade path, downstream
>>>> manufacturers would release within a few months of the main OpenWrt
>>>> releases, or even at the same time, having worked with their customers
>>>> through the 6 month release candidate cycle. Microsoft accomplishes
>>>> this, at least.
>>> https://www.reddit.com/r/openwrt/comments/175z8t9/imminent_release_of_openwrt_2305/
>>>>> I do agree with the idea that fixes should be pushed to the mainline and
>>>>> that incremental upgrades should be standard practice.
>>>> +1000
>>>>> Arista's SW VP gave a talk where he said that 80% of their customer
>>>>> calls about bugs were already fixed but their customer wasn't following
>>>>> an upgrade policy. This approach applies to most any sw based product.
>>>> +100
>>>>> Bob
>>>>> > Hi David,
>>>>> >
>>>>> > The vendors I know don't roll their own os code either. The make their
>>>>> > own release still mostly based from Linux and they aren't tied to the
>>>>> > openwrt release process.
>>>>> >
>>>>> > I think GUIs on CPEs are the wrong direction. Consumer network
>>>>> > equipment does best when it's plug and play. Consumers don't have all
>>>>> > the skills needed to manage an in home packet network that includes
>>>>> > wifi.
>>>>> >
>>>>> > I recently fixed a home network for my inlaws. It's a combo of
>>>>> > structured wire and WiFi APs. I purchased the latest equipment from
>>>>> > Amazon vs use the ISP provided equipment. I can do this reasonably
>>>>> > well because I'm familiar with the chips inside.
>>>>> >
>>>>> > The online tech support started with trepidation as he was concerned
>>>>> > that the home owner, i.e me, wasn't as skilled as the ISP technicians.
>>>>> > He suggested we schedule that but I said we were good to go w/o one.
>>>>> >
>>>>> > He asked to speak to my father in law when we were all done. He told
>>>>> > him, "You're lucky to have a son in law that know what he's doing. My
>>>>> > techs aren't as good, and I really liked working with him too."
>>>>> >
>>>>> > I say this not to brag, as many on this list could do the equivalent,
>>>>> > but to show that we really need to train lots of technicians on things
>>>>> > like RF and structured wiring. Nobody should be "lucky" to get a
>>>>> > quality in home network.  We're not lucky to have a flush toilet
>>>>> > anymore. This stuff is too important to rely on luck.
>>>>> >
>>>>> > Bob
>>>>> > On Oct 11, 2023, at 3:58 PM, David Lang <david at lang.hm> wrote:
>>>>> >
>>>>> >> On Wed, 11 Oct 2023, rjmcmahon wrote:
>>>>> >>
>>>>> >>> I don't know the numbers but a guess is that a majority of SoCs
>>>>> >>> with WiFi
>>>>> >>> radios aren't based on openwrt.
>>>>> >>
>>>>> >> From what I've seen, the majority of APs out there are based on
>>>>> >> OpenWRT or one
>>>>> >> of the competing open projects, very few roll their own OS from
>>>>> >> scratch
>>>>> >>
>>>>> >>> I think many on this list use openwrt but
>>>>> >>> that may not be representative of the actuals. Also, the trend is
>>>>> >>> less sw in
>>>>> >>> a CPU forwarding plane and more hw, one day, linux at the CPEs mayhttps://investors.broadcom.com/news-releases/news-release-details/broadcom-announces-availability-second-generation-wi-fi-7
>>>>> >>> not be
>>>>> >>> needed at all (if we get to remote radio heads - though this is
>>>>> >>> highly
>>>>> >>> speculative.)Peregrine - 112G PAM4
>>>>> >>
>>>>> >> that is countered by the trend to do more (fancier GUI, media
>>>>> >> center, etc) The
>>>>> >> vendors all want to differentiate themselves, that's hard to do if
>>>>> >> it's baked
>>>>> >> into the chips
>>>>> >>
>>>>> >>> From my experience, sw is defined by the number & frequency of
>>>>> >>> commits, and
>>>>> >>> of timeliness to issues more than a version number or compile
>>>>> >>> date. So the
>>>>> >>> size and quality of the software staff can be informative.
>>>>> >>>
>>>>> >>> I'm more interested in mfg node process then the mfg location &
>>>>> >>> date as the
>>>>> >>> node process gives an idea if the design is keeping up or not.
>>>>> >>> Chips designed
>>>>> >>> in 2012 are woefully behind and consume too much energy and
>>>>> >>> generate too much
>>>>> >>> heat. I think Intel provides this information on all its chips as
>>>>> >>> an example.
>>>>> >>
>>>>> >> I'm far less concerned about the chips than the software. Security
>>>>> >> holes are far
>>>>> >> more likely in the software than the chips. The chips may limit the
>>>>> >> max
>>>>> >> performance of the devices, but the focus of this is on the
>>>>> >> security, not the
>>>>> >> throughput or the power efficiency (I don't mind that extra info,
>>>>> >> but what makes
>>>>> >> some device unsafe to use isn't the age of the chips, but the age of
>>>>> >> the
>>>>> >> software)
>>>>> >>
>>>>> >> David Lang
>>>>> >>
>>>>> >> Bob
>>>>> >> On Wed, 11 Oct 2023, David Bray, PhD via Nnagain wrote:
>>>>> >>
>>>>> >> There's also the concern about how do startups roll-out such a
>>>>> >> label for
>>>>> >> their tech in the early iteration phase? How do they afford to do
>>>>> >> the
>>>>> >> extra
>>>>> >> work for the label vs. a big company (does this become a regulatory
>>>>> >> moat?)
>>>>> >>
>>>>> >> And let's say we have these labels. Will only consumers with the
>>>>> >> money to
>>>>> >> purchase the more expensive equipment that has more privacy and
>>>>> >> security
>>>>> >> features buy that one - leaving those who cannot afford privacy and
>>>>> >> security bad alternatives?
>>>>> >>
>>>>> >> As far as security goes, I would argue that the easy answer is to
>>>>> >> ship
>>>>> >> a current version of openwrt instead of a forked, ancient version,
>>>>> >> and
>>>>> >> get their changes submitted upstream (or at least maintained against
>>>>> >> upstream). It's a different paradigm than they are used to, and
>>>>> >> right
>>>>> >> now the suppliers tend to also work with ancient versions of
>>>>> >> openwrt,
>>>>> >> but in all the companies that I have worked at, it's proven to be
>>>>> >> less
>>>>> >> ongoing work (and far less risk) to keep up with current versions
>>>>> >> than
>>>>> >> it is to stick with old versions and then do periodic 'big jump'
>>>>> >> upgrades.
>>>>> >>
>>>>> >> it's like car maintinance, it seems easier to ignore your tires,
>>>>> >> brakes, and oil changes, but the minimal cost of maintaining those
>>>>> >> systems pays off in a big way over time
>>>>> >>
>>>>> >> David Lang
>>>>> >>
>>>>> >> -------------------------
>>>>> >>
>>>>> >> Nnagain mailing list
>>>>> >> Nnagain at lists.bufferbloat.net
>>>>> >> https://lists.bufferbloat.net/listinfo/nnagain
>>>>> >>
>>>>> >> -------------------------
>>>>> >>
>>>>> >> Nnagain mailing list
>>>>> >> Nnagain at lists.bufferbloat.net
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