Custom NSS-enabled firmware images (compiled locally from source) for OpenWrt for the Dynalink DL-WRX36
As of this release I will be releasing two different versions. One that uses unbound+odhcpd for DNS+DHCP, and one than uses dnsmasq-full. I reccomend using the unbound varient unless you have a specific need for dnsmasq-full (e.g., it is a requirement for another package you want to use like pbr).
The new build is largely the same as the previous NSS build (with everything updated and now buiilt with GCC 14). It is slightly leaner, giving you a bit more free flash space and a bit more memory headroom if you are running plexmediaserver on the unbound varient.
In addition to the "general purpose" CPU, the dynalink dl-wrx36 (and all other ipq807x-based routers) have additional processors that are specifically designed to handle certain networking-related tasks. These extra processors and their related functionality are collectively known as the "Networking Sub-System", or NSS.
In mainline OpenWrt, the NSS system is largely inactive and mostly just sits there idle and unused. In this NSS-enabled build, however, the NSS is active and takes over the vast majority of the networking stack. This both allows the router to process more traffic than what would be possible using the CPU (I only have only tested it on a 1 gbps connection; but, in theory, it should handle up to a 10 gbps connection). Using the NSS to handle networking stuff also frees up the CPU to do other potentially useful things (file sharing, recursive, DNS lookup, running a plex media server instance, etc.)
Enabling NSS is particularly beneficial for high-bandwidth connections - anyone with an internet connection with bandwidth of a few hundred mbps (or more) should notice distinctly better router performance. Those with connection speeds under ~100 mbps will likely see minimal improvements, and might see slightly better performance on mainline openwrt.
This OpenWrt firmware image can be installed using the standard WRX36 install instructions for OpenWrt.
Firmware images are located in the WRX36/bin/target/qualcommax/ipq807x directory. you will want either
If you are already on OpenWrt, you can either install the sysupgrade image (e.g., though LUCI), or you can boot into the USB recovery and re-flash /dev/mtd18 and /dev/mtd20 with the factory squashfs image.
Notes re: sysupgrade - On a few previous iterations of this build, sysupgrade refused to work over LUCI but worked when run from the commandline. Also, you can avoid having to "force" the update due to a "missing signature" error if, before doing the sysupgrade, you run
opkg-key add key-build.pubwhere key-build.pub is found in this repo at WRX36/bin/extra/keys
When you first flash the device:
ssh root@10.0.0.1 or via LUCI by going to 10.0.0.1 in a web browser.The intended usage for LAN port 4 is to plug in a 2nd router in "dumb AP" mode and broadcast a secondary network (on different WiFi channels) for things like IoT devices (smart plugs/lights, alexa, google assistant, smart TV's, etc.). This both:
If you dont want this then un-configuring LAN4 is fairly straightforward (much more so than setting it up)
NOTE: both DNS and DHCP are handled by unbound (with the help of odhcpd for DHCP). adblock is pre-setup to integrate with unbound. unbound has been compiled and setup to be as performant as possible, and is by default in "recursion" mode (not "forwarding" mode). dnsmasq is NOT installed.
First, go to 10.0.0.1 in a web browser and in the "system" menu set your timezone and (optionally) desired hostname (default hostname is "OpenWrt"). After setting the timezone update the system clock (sync with NTP server). Note that chrony handled NTP and is setup to use a stratum 1 server with NTS enabled (encrypted ntp).
Second, in LUCI go into wifi settings and (in the roaming tab) turn on time advisement and select your time zone (for both 2g and 5g). Note: the correct time zone is only an option in the drop-down menu here if you first set it in the system tab.
While you are in the wifi configuration tab, you should also probably change your wifi network name and password to whatever you want to use. If you change the wifi network name, next you should go into the usteer configuration tab (available in LUCI) and change the name of the network usteer does band steering for as well.
The last "initial setup" item Id reccomend is going to system->startup and disabling the services you know your wont use.
There is an init script setup that will install and then auto start on boot a plex media server instance running on the router and serving media on an external hard drive.
Plex media server setup and starting/stopping are controlled by the 'plexmediaserver' service. To control plex media server, use service plexmediaserver <COMMAND>. There are a handful of commands, but the most useful are start, stop, restart, and update.
If your external hard drive has a plexmediaserver instance on it already the plexmediaserver service should auto-detect it. If not, you can initialize one by running
mkdir -p <external_drive_mount_point>/.plex/LibraryThen run
service plexmediaserver startand it should set everything up for you. If something isnt working right, try deleting the plexmediaserver config file then restart the plexmediaserver service. It will automatically re-generate the config for you, but only if it is missing (meaning that if the config exists but is wrong it wont automatically change it unless you delete it first).
rm /etc/config/plexmediaserver
service plexmediaserver restartTo access plex from a web browser, go to 10.0.0.1:32400/web.
NOTE: plexmediaserver requires unzip curl and squashfs-tools-mksquashfs. This build has them compiled in, but standard openwrt builds do not and will need them installed (using opkg)
When setup running, plex media server consumes ~35% of the available system RAM. The (very aggressive) builtin settings for unbound consume, by default, around 30% of the available system RAM. The various items that different programs require to be stored under /tmp takes up an additional ~10%. Combined, this only leaves ~1/4 of the system RAM for everything else. This build uses a compressed ramdisk for swap (zram + zswap), which helps, but there still isnt a lot of extra RAM to spare.
As is, the build works just fine with like this...there isnt much free RAM, but as they say free RAM is wasted RAM. However, if you were to add another ram-hungry program to run in the build you might encounter out-of-memory problems. In this case Id recommend tuning down the unbound settings a bit or not running plex media server on the router.
The standard
opkg update
opkg install $PKGwill work. However, it may pull in and try to install kmod packages that may not be fully compatible with the device. A handful of extra kmod packages are available in this repo. When possible, I reccomend using the kmod packages from this repo if you need to install one.
Disclaimer: My wrx36 is running the firmware that the firmware image's in this repo were based on. The only difference in this firmware image and the one my wrx36 uses is that some configs that would share private info (like my wifi network name and password) were changed/removed. That said, I have not physically flashed this image to a router yet.
luci-app-sqm does not work properly. If you attempt to setup SQM using LUCI you will get high CPU usage and other undesirable behavior. (Note: this is a general openwrt bug, not a NSS-specific one).
The following SQM config (/etc/config/sqm) works quite well for me with a 1000/500 mbps fiber connection:
config queue 'eth0'
option enabled '1'
option interface 'wan'
option download '960000'
option upload '500000'
option qdisc 'fq_codel'
option script 'nss-zk.qos'
option overhead '44'
option linklayer 'ethernet'
option linklayer_advanced '1'
option tcMTU '2047'
option tcTSIZE '512'
option tcMPU '84'
option ingress_ecn 'ECN'
option egress_ecn 'ECN'
option squash_dscp '1'
option squash_ingress '1'
option target ''
option itarget ''
option etarget ''
option qdisc_advanced '1'
option qdisc_really_really_advanced '1'Enabling the NSS subsystem on OpenWrt is about as cutting edge as openwrt gets. As such, the better performance that using NSS gives comes at the cost of bugs being more likely. If/when any bugs are reported I will list them here.
It is worth noting that this build does NOT include mesh support.