OpenWrt

What is OpenWrt?

OpenWrt is described as a Linux distribution for embedded devices.

Instead of trying to create a single, static firmware, OpenWrt provides a fully writable filesystem with package management. This frees you from the application selection and configuration provided by the vendor and allows you to customize the device through the use of packages to suit any application. For developer, OpenWrt is the framework to build an application without having to build a complete firmware around it; for users this means the ability for full customization, to use the device in ways never envisioned.

> Supported Devices

Update on Linksys WRT1900AC support

Given the confusion that the mentions of OpenWrt support in Linksys press releases have caused, we would like to clarify the state of WRT1900AC support in OpenWrt and the ongoing collaboration with Linksys.

Members of the OpenWrt team have been in contact with Linksys for a while, discussing collaboration on device support in OpenWrt.
There had been no technical collaboration on device support until Belkin engineers posted a few incomplete patches in early April. These patches are currently being cleaned up, as they do not meet our quality standards.

The most important part that is still missing is a usable driver for the Marvell 802.11ac wireless chipset. Belkin is working on fixing this, but they have not given us an estimation on when such a driver will be provided.

The default firmware for this device seems to be using a proprietary driver provided by Marvell, which uses non-standard APIs for configuration. We don't know if Marvell will open source this driver, or will work on an alternative Linux driver. We believe that both approaches require a considerable amount of effort and time.

Because of these issues, we would currently recommend against purchasing this device until we have the missing pieces of software to make it functional with OpenWrt.

The Linksys press release claims that the device is "OpenWrt ready" and "Open Source ready". Given how much is still missing, and that not even the GPL code for this device was posted to the Linksys GPL code center, we consider these claims to be premature and unfortunately misleading.

Regards,

The OpenWrt Team

Wireless Battle of the Mesh v7

The "Wireless Battle of the Mesh" is an event that aims to bring together people from across the globe to test the performance of different routing protocols for ad-hoc networks, like Babel, B.A.T.M.A.N., BMX, OLSR, and 802.11s.

Many developers and community networkers will join the event to hack, test, discuss, explain and learn.

If you are interested in dynamic routing protocols or wireless community networks you can't miss this event!

The battlemesh is free of charge and open for all, every year we strive to keep participation costs low by negotiating deals for accommodation and food.

This year the event will take place from Monday 12th to Sunday 18th of May 2014 in Leipzig, Germany at the Sublab, a very cool local hackerspace.

OpenWrt.org both support and endorses Battle of the Mesh and the multiple communities involved in the event.

Further information is found @ www.battlemesh.org/BattleMeshV7

Attitude Adjustment (12.09 final)

25th April 2013

The OpenWrt Release Team would like to announce the final Attitude Adjustment Release (12.09).

  _______                     ________        __
 |       |.-----.-----.-----.|  |  |  |.----.|  |_
 |   -   ||  _  |  -__|     ||  |  |  ||   _||   _|
 |_______||   __|_____|__|__||________||__|  |____|
          |__| W I R E L E S S   F R E E D O M
 -----------------------------------------------------
 ATTITUDE ADJUSTMENT (12.09, r36088)
 -----------------------------------------------------
  * 1/4 oz Vodka      Pour all ingredients into mixing
  * 1/4 oz Gin        tin with ice, strain into glass.
  * 1/4 oz Amaretto
  * 1/4 oz Triple sec
  * 1/4 oz Peach schnapps
  * 1/4 oz Sour mix
  * 1 splash Cranberry juice
 -----------------------------------------------------

The OpenWrt 12.09 "attitude_adjustment" source code can be checked out at:
  svn://svn.openwrt.org/openwrt/tags/attitude_adjustment_12.09/

Further information on how to checkout the release source code is found at:
  https://dev.openwrt.org/wiki/GetSource

Highlights since Backfire 10.03.1:

• Dropped support for legacy Broadcom target (brcm-2.4)

• Switched to Kernel 3.3

• Switched to uClibc 0.9.33.2

• Switched x86 images from ext2 to ext4 filesystem

• Improved parallel building support

• New netifd implementation to replace the old script based network configuration system

• Switched to shadow passwords

• Support for external overlay filesystems in release images

• Various firewall enhancements

• Wireless driver updates and stability improvements

• Experimential support for 5 and 10 MHz channels in ath5k and ath9k

• Package updates and dependency fixes

• New target support: ramips, bcm2708 (Raspberry Pi) and others

• Support for further router models

• Support for building with eglic instead of uClibc

• Support for 6RD configuration

• Support for bridge firewalling in release images

Known Issues:

• Most open tickets at the time of the final builds

• Lower end devices with only 16 MiB RAM will easily run out of Memory, for bcm47xx based devices is Backfire with brcm-2.4 recommended

More detailed information available at:
  https://dev.openwrt.org/query?status=cl … ment+12.09

Detailed core changelog at: https://dev.openwrt.org/log/branches/attitude_adjustment
Detailed packages changelog at: https://dev.openwrt.org/log/branches/packages_12.09
Binaries can be downloaded at http://downloads.openwrt.org/attitude_adjustment/12.09/

Yours truly,
The OpenWrt developer team

BattleMeshV5

The BattleMesh organizers have announced the 'Battle of the Mesh version 5', which will be held in Athens, Greece. BattleMesh is a technical tournament with an overwhelming social character. If you are a mesh networking enthusiast, community networking activist, or have an interest in mesh networks you might find this gathering highly interesting. This event is an opportunity to meet developers from the most popular open source mesh protocol implementations, such as B.A.T.M.A.N, OLSR, Babel, BMX and L3 and L2.

The BattleMeshV5 will be held in Athens, Greece from the 26th of March until 1th of April. The testing / hacking / talks will take place in the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA). A large room that can accommodate 100 persons has been reserved for the BattleMesh participants. To this comes space for workshops, hacking sessions and a long list of social activities.

There is further organized a BattleMeshV5 Warmup which will be held during the weekend of 23rd - 25th of March in the mountain village of Sarantaporo. Sarantaporo is a small mountain village, situated at an altitude of 840m, opposite Olympus mountain, in the prefecture of Larisa, not far from Athens. It’s permanent population is about 900 inhabitants and their main activities are agriculture, farming and surfing the web!

Further information can be found on the BattleMeshV5 website: http://battlemesh.org/BattleMeshV5

The OpenWrt developers

Backfire 10.03.1 final

21 December 2011

The OpenWrt Release Team would like to announce the final
Backfire Interim Release 1 (10.03.1).

Binaries can be downloaded at http://downloads.openwrt.org/backfire/10.03.1/

Highlights since Backfire 10.03.1 RC6:

  * Added support for the TP-Link TL-MR3420
  * Added support for the Netgear WNDR3800
  * Added support for the D-Link DSL-2650U
  * Another round of mac80211 improvements and stability fixes
  * Changed wireless interface numbering schema to support restarts of single radios
  * Fixed ethernet on newer Compex WP543 Boards
  * Fixed race condition in link state handling of ag71xx ethernet driver
  * Fixed cpmac ethernet regressions on various AR7 boards
  * Fixed various busybox issues
  * Fixed dropbear segmentation fault when using remote port forwardings
  * Fixed the second ethernet port on Ubiquiti NanoStation M devices
  * Prevent accidental bridging of station mode interfaces
  * Indefinitely try to resolve NTP server addresses, improves reliability of time sync

Known Issues:

  * Most open tickets at the time of the final builds
  * Various 5GHz channels may be locked due to lacking DFS support and other regulatory requirements

More detailed information available at:

  https://dev.openwrt.org/milestone/Backfire%2010.03.1

Detailed core changelog at: https://dev.openwrt.org/log/branches/backfire?revs=28695-29592
Detailed packages changelog at: https://dev.openwrt.org/log/branches/packages_10.03.1?revs=28695-29592

Yours truly,
The OpenWrt developer team

Backfire 10.03.1-rc6

1 November 2011

The OpenWrt Release Team would like to announce a sixth release candidate (RC6) for Backfire Interim Release 1 (10.03.1).  Testing of this release candidate will allow further refinement of 10.03.1

Binaries can be downloaded at http://downloads.openwrt.org/backfire/10.03.1-rc6/

Highlights since Backfire 10.03.1 RC5:

* Further throughput and interoperability improvements in ath9k and mac80211
* Added support for the TL-WR740N
* Merged WZR-HP-G300NH and -G301NH images
* Fixed default network configuration for ASUS WL-330gE
* Fixed WRT160NL support for revisions with certain flash chips using a bigger block size
* DMA fixes in ag71xx ethernet driver
* Fix multicast traffic handling on RDC platform
* Fix ARM SDK building
* Improve ImageBuilder index generation, strip uneeded opkg work data
* Fix 6in4 endpoint update with changed HE.net api
* Fix mtu_fix rule generation, use mangle instead of filter table
* Switch from rdate to ntpd for more reliable time synchronization
* Various network configuration and base-files fixes
* Various fixes in uhttpd web server
* Support pptp configuration with symbolic server names
* Support disabling single wireless networks
* Rework MAC address generation for wireless VAPs
* Support binding dropbear to a specific network
* Introduce AC and Service name options for PPPoE, work around   argument order issues
* Fix block-extroot on brcm-2.4
* Allow configuration of lifetime parameters for 6to4
* Allow negations, multiple values and other advanced configurations   in firewall package
* Tune ICMPv6 default rules
* Add UCI configuration and LuCI module for wondershaper
* Deprecate iptables-utils
* Fix openl2tp build for distributions without current rpcgen
* Fix freeswitch for Backfire

Dropped platforms:

* Cobalt - not in release shape
* Octeon - not in release shape

Known Issues:

* Most open tickets at the time of the RC6 builds
* Various 5GHz channels may be locked due to lacking DFS support and other regulatory requirements

More detailed information available at:

  https://dev.openwrt.org/milestone/Backfire%2010.03.1

Detailed core changelog at: https://dev.openwrt.org/log/branches/backfire?revs=27609-28694
Detailed packages changelog at: https://dev.openwrt.org/log/branches/packages_10.03.1?revs=27609-28694

Yours truly,
The OpenWrt developer team

OpenWrt merchandise

OpenWrt has in collaboration with FreeWear.org launched the first series of official OpenWrt merchandise. It is a modest beginning, but more will come in due time. FreeWear.org handles production and distribution and each item sold includes a 3 Euro donation which goes directly to OpenWrt.
Further information is found on the www.freewear.org website.