Netgear LBR20

Image Credits: https://www.the-ambient.com/reviews/netgear-orbi-4g-lte-router-lbr20-review-2532/

Flash the current SNAPSHOT of the Openwrt Factory image, through the Netgear/Voxel firmware.

• You will get a warning that the version you are trying to flash is older. Just click 'Yes' and proceed.
• Settings in the NVRAM (the settings for the Netgear/Voxel configuration you are currently running) do not get reset.
• > If you flash back to Netgear/Voxel, the LBR20 will start with the settings you had before you flashed Openwrt.
• > This is convenient, because if you have a little difficulty with Openwrt or need to test something out, the N/V firmware will still have your previous settings.

To consistently get the LBR20 into TFTP recovery mode, such as when you want to flash back to Netgear/Voxel from an active Openwrt image, pull power from the connector on the back, press and hold the RESET button with a SIM tool, and push the power connector back in. Wait 30 seconds before releasing the RESET button. The LBR20's white tower light should be regularly turning on and off, and the power LED indicator near the power port, should be blinking RED.

Now you can set your ethernet adapter to 192.168.1.10 and use your laptop to tftp an image into the device on port 69, as per normal NETGEAR TFTP recovery.

Use the LAN2 port as the wired connection to your laptop when configuring the ORBI LBR20, not the WAN/LAN1 port.

→ generic.sysupgrade

Follow the TFTP flash guide on this page, above.

See the TFTP flash guide above.

Use the LAN2 port as the wired connection to your laptop when flashing/configuring the ORBI LBR20, not the WAN/LAN1 port.

Openwrt does not enable IPv6 on the cell connection by default. Only IPv4. That's a problem, because downloads.openwrt.org does not fully support IPv4, so you will get errors when trying to run 'opkg update' then e.g. 'opkg install luci-ssl' (so you can have web access, as SNAPSHOT does not contain Luci). There are kludgy work-arounds for the underlying wget, but the best thing is to use an SCP app (such as WinSCP) to connect into the LBR20, and edit the file /etc/config/network, changing the 'pdptype' value to be 'ipv4v6' instead of 'ipv4', and then save and restart the router. You should have basic cell connectivity now, particularly if the Orbi LBR20 was working previously on the Netgear/Voxel firmware, as the Quectel modem will pull configuration information from the SIM card.

• The only text editor included with SNAPSHOT, is VI. Not nano or anything reasonably easier and intuitive. So you are in a Catch-22 if you want to ssh into the LBR20 and edit the network config. Unless you want to learn VI. That is why the suggestion to use SCP.

Quectel modems in general have an industry reputation for having poor quality firmware and hardware design flaws. If you run into frustrating issues, it is not Openwrt, but rather hardware/software bugs in the Quectel modem.

• DO NOT, under any circumstances, tell the tower LED lights (referred to as 'backlights' in the LED Configuration page in Luci) to blink in coordination with wwan0 (cell modem) receive/transmit. That causes some kind of hardware signal interference, which will cause a crash of your connection. If you notice, the Netgear and Voxel firmware do not use the tower light for that indicator, and at least in the Voxel firmware (which is a more open version of the stock Netgear firmware), that light is completely off when the LBR20 is connected and running properly.

• The A05 modem firmware runs better and is more stable than the A06. If you have a used Orbi20, it may already have the LTE Modem firmware 'upgrade' A06. Downgrade A05 first using the firmware from Netgear's support page, before flashing Openwrt. Symptoms of running A06, include reconnecting several times a day, instead of a solid connection. If you do not have a wan watchdog script running in cron (Scheduled Tasks), the 4G LTE connection will just 'die', and you will have no internet.

Here is a wan_watchdog.sh script that tests the connection, and if it receives no response from several well-known DNS providers, it will:

1. Tell the modem to soft-off.
2. Wait
3. Tell the modem to soft-on (boot up).
4. Wait
5. Restart the interface.

• You will need to add the packages 'socat' and 'fping'.
• Save this as 'wan-watchdog.sh' in your /root/
• Add

   */4 * * * * /root/wan-watchdog.sh 

  in your Scheduled Tasks.

#!/bin/sh
TRIES="0"
while [[ "${TRIES}" -lt 5 ]]
do
	echo $TRIES
	echo "Attempting to ping a variety of well-known ipv4 and ipv6 addresses..."
	# ONE failure will not fail fping. All of them failing, will.
	if fping --alive 1.1.1.1 9.9.9.9 8.8.8.8 2001:4860:4860::8888 2620:fe::fe | grep -q .
#	if fping --alive blablahblah | grep -q . # this will intentionally make the script fail, when we are testing the rest of the script.
	then
	echo "SUCCESS: DO NOT RESET WWAN. EXIT IMMEDIATELY" # Positive reply from one (1) of the fping destinations - therefore internet is working, do nothing.
		exit 0
	fi
	sleep 1 # Pause 1 second, before incrementing the number of tries, and re-trying the fping.
    TRIES=$(($TRIES+1))
done

echo "PING FAILED 5 CONSECUTIVE TIMES. RESETTING WWAN CELL CONNECTION"
# Tell the modem to turn off without actually disconnecting the tty serial communication interface:
echo AT+CFUN=0 | socat - /dev/ttyUSB2,crnl
sleep 5
# tell the modem to turn on
echo AT+CFUN=1 | socat - /dev/ttyUSB2,crnl
sleep 5
# restart the network interface
ifup qmippp # this is where you change 'qmippp' to whatever your upstream cell interface is called in Luci.
date >> /root/wan_reset_log.txt # if there is a failure, write a log. This will be persistent between reboots. Verify you have the space (it doesn't take much but over a very long time, it could..)

The default network configuration in Openwrt is:

</WRAP>

→ hardware.button on howto use and configure the hardware button(s). Here, we merely name the buttons, so we can use them in the above Howto.

The Netgear LBR20 has the following buttons:

---- datatemplatelist dttpllist ---- template: meta:template_datatemplatelist cols : Brand, Model, Versions, Device Type, Availability, Supported Since Commit_git, Supported since Rel, Supported current Rel, Unsupported, Bootloader, CPU, Target, CPU MHz, Flash MBs, RAM MB, Switch, Ethernet 100M ports_, Ethernet Gbit ports_, Comments network ports_, Modem, VLAN, WLAN 2.4GHz, WLAN 5.0GHz, WLAN Hardwares, WLAN Comments_, Detachable Antennas_, USB ports_, SATA ports_, Comments USB SATA ports_, Serial, JTAG, LED count, Button count, Power supply, Device Techdata_pageid, Forum topic URL_url, wikidevi URL_url, OEM Device Homepage URL_url, Firmware OEM Stock URL_url, Firmware OpenWrt Install URL_url, Firmware OpenWrt Upgrade URL_url, Comments_ filter : Brand=Netgear filter : Model=LBR20 filter : Versions=

See above photos.

Note: This will void your warranty!

Here's a good video on how to open it up: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ModkiMVGvu8

• Remove the 8mm nuts on the LTE External antenna connectors.
• There are Torx screws above and to the outer side of the LTE Antenna ports, behind the rear label.
• Cut the bottom label in half along the seam, or peel it off.
• Remove the two rubber feet on either side, that bridge the front and back halves of the case.
• Now you can slide the front half of the case down, and it will lift directly off.

→ port.serial general information about the serial port, serial port cable, etc.

How to connect to the Serial Port of this specific device:
Insert photo of PCB with markings for serial port

→ port.jtag general information about the JTAG port, JTAG cable, etc.

How to connect to the JTAG Port of this specific device:
Insert photo of PCB with markings for JTAG port

→ bootloader

See the above Youtube video, as after he separates the case, it goes into how to install additional antennas. The ORBI LBR20 has internal UF.L connectors.

Space for additional notes, links to forum threads or other resources.

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