Custom firmware for R7800 to extend its functionality

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Voxel
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Paualsh112:

Paualsh112:

And? Maybe my English is not good enough? What is not clear?

Voxel.

Zeljko1234
Zeljko1234's picture
Should be R7800 instead of

Should be R7800 instead of R7500 ;)

Zeljko1234
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Thx. And you already have two

Thx. And you already have two pages. Mainly because of the same user, but still :)

eliz82
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"Where from did you find it?

"Where from did you find it? It's my own private site"

Ha ha, i just searched something with the "entware and netgear" on google, i didn't remember exact phraze.

I belived that has been putted officially by Netgear on their download category. I think i had to many expectations from them smiley

Voxel
Voxel's picture
Zeljko1234:

Zeljko1234:

I support both: R7500 and R7800.

Regarding snbforum: as you can see, it was not me, who started the thread. As I wrote:
 

Well, if someone would start a topic there, I'll be glad to participate/migrate.

 

So my laziness is happy.
 

eliz82:
 

Do you really believe that NG can publish Entware ;-) ?

OK, you can use it for some time, but I’ll close it soon. Damned google ;-) No any privacy...

Voxel.

 

Zeljko1234
Zeljko1234's picture
My bad, didn't read whole

My bad, didn't read whole quote, just reached 7500 and commented :D

Zeljko1234
Zeljko1234's picture
To solve my issue with WDS,

To solve my issue with WDS, righ now I have tp-link and Asus routers. Both way cheaper then R7800. Sorry to say but both of them are giving better impression than Netgear. For example, GUI looks better (especially tp-link, simple, fast...), GUI is more responsive (and tp-link is only single core), both have more features (for example site survey is available for bridging), admin user name can be easily changed (instead of Netgear when is always admin).

Maybe overall performance is better with Netgear, at least should be by specification and price and I agree that using router GUI is not on daily basis. Still Netgear should make it better and add missing features.
Voxel
Voxel's picture
I would agree with you.

I would agree with you. Regarding GUI. Unfortunately this part is closed for me.

 

OK, let's hope. Peter Redmer, admin of this forum, promised to organize my contacts with Netgear developers.

 

Voxel.

Zeljko1234
Zeljko1234's picture
Thx Voxel. I made the comment
Thx Voxel. I made the comment in a good intention. I bought Netgear mainly based on smallnetbuilder review, benchmarks results (especially NAT and samba throughput) and user comments.
GUI is not that bad until you try something else. I'm really impressed by tp-link Archer 50. Small, cheap, singe core router works smoother and has more features than almost 6x more expensive R7800.
 
Anyway, good news about get in contact with Netgear developers. Let Netgear proofs its openes to the community. Android is excelent example what open sourse can do and how company can benefit from it. Actually there are severals custom firmwares (dd-wrt, open-wrt, tomato...), Netgear just have to be more friendly to devs.
Zeljko1234
Zeljko1234's picture
Just figured out that tp-link

Just figured out that tp-link has emulator. So if someone want to see how gui looks like: http://static.tp-link.com/resources/simulator/Archer_C50(US)_2.0emulater/index.htm

Zeljko1234
Zeljko1234's picture
Damn, link got broken after

Damn, link got broken after posting. No option to edit post?!

A new link.

yazen
yazen's picture
Would you be able to offer me

Would you be able to offer me assistance with setting up OpenVPN server?  I get this message on every Windows client I have tried:

Sun Jan 29 15:44:30 2017 WARNING: No server certificate verification method has been enabled.  See http://openvpn.net/howto.html#mitm for more info.
Sun Jan 29 15:44:31 2017 LZO compression initialized
Sun Jan 29 15:44:31 2017 Control Channel MTU parms [ L:1590 D:138 EF:38 EB:0 ET:0 EL:3 ]
Sun Jan 29 15:44:31 2017 Socket Buffers: R=[8192->393216] S=[8192->8192]
Sun Jan 29 15:44:31 2017 MANAGEMENT: >STATE:1485722671,RESOLVE,,,
Sun Jan 29 15:44:31 2017 Data Channel MTU parms [ L:1590 D:1450 EF:58 EB:143 ET:32 EL:3 AF:3/1 ]
Sun Jan 29 15:44:31 2017 Local Options String: 'V4,dev-type tap,link-mtu 1590,tun-mtu 1532,proto UDPv4,comp-lzo,cipher AES-128-CBC,auth SHA1,keysize 128,key-method 2,tls-client'
Sun Jan 29 15:44:31 2017 Expected Remote Options String: 'V4,dev-type tap,link-mtu 1590,tun-mtu 1532,proto UDPv4,comp-lzo,cipher AES-128-CBC,auth SHA1,keysize 128,key-method 2,tls-server'
Sun Jan 29 15:44:31 2017 Local Options hash (VER=V4): 'b498be7c'
Sun Jan 29 15:44:31 2017 Expected Remote Options hash (VER=V4): '26e19fc0'
Sun Jan 29 15:44:31 2017 UDPv4 link local: [undef]
Sun Jan 29 15:44:31 2017 UDPv4 link remote: [AF_INET]162.206.115.32:12974
Sun Jan 29 15:44:31 2017 MANAGEMENT: >STATE:1485722671,WAIT,,,
Sun Jan 29 15:45:32 2017 TLS Error: TLS key negotiation failed to occur within 60 seconds (check your network connectivity)
Sun Jan 29 15:45:32 2017 TLS Error: TLS handshake failed
Sun Jan 29 15:45:32 2017 TCP/UDP: Closing socket
Sun Jan 29 15:45:32 2017 SIGUSR1[soft,tls-error] received, process restarting
Sun Jan 29 15:45:32 2017 MANAGEMENT: >STATE:1485722732,RECONNECTING,tls-error,,
 
 
 

 

yazen
yazen's picture
I changed protocol to TCP and

I changed protocol to TCP and I am finding that the ports are closed. 

Voxel
Voxel's picture
yazen:

yazen:

Look into my readme.docx re: how to open firewall ports. I guess that this is a reason why you cannot get OpenVPN connection.

 

Voxel.

Zeljko1234
Zeljko1234's picture
Voxel, have you managed to

Voxel, have you managed to get in contact with Netgear developers?

Voxel
Voxel's picture
No. I did my movements, I
No. I did my movements, I have no intentions to push or beg anybody. IMO it would be mutually beneficial cooperation, which would improve a stock firmware, but…
 
Voxel.
 
Voxel
Voxel's picture
New version of my custom
New version of my custom firmware build: 1.0.2.22SF.
 
 
Changes (vs 1.0.2.21SF):
1.0.2.22SF
1. OpenSSL version is upgraded 1.0.2j->1.0.2k
2. OpenVPN version is upgraded 2.3.14->2.4.0.
3. gettext version is upgraded 0.19.6->0.19.8.1.
4. confuse version is upgraded 2.7->3.0.
5. expat version is upgraded 2.1.0->2.2.0.
6. avahi version is upgraded 0.6.31->0.6.32.
7. gdbm version is upgraded 1.8.3->1.11.
8. libyaml is removed to save a space (not used).
9. dnscrypt-resolvers.csv is updated.
10. Host tools: mpfr version is upgraded 3.1.3->3.1.5.
11. Toolchain: two components are upgraded.
 
 
(Thanks to vladlenas for additional testing).
 
Voxel.
 
infobits
infobits's picture
Hi Voxel, first off, Thanks

Hi Voxel, first off, Thanks for all your hard work and effort in customizing and improving the R7800 firmware. I just bought this Netgear R7800 on sale and like the hardware very much. I'm coming from using Asus RT-AC68P and RT-68U routers which have served me well but the 1.7Ghz CPU in the R7800 picked my interest hoping it would perform a bit faster. I came upon your Voxel custom firmware and am very tempted to install it over the latest original Netgear firmware I am using now. But before I do, I need to ask, does your firmware include all the functionality of the original latest Netgear firmware or will it remove some features?

Since you say you compile the firmware with better optimization options to improve execution speed, do the optimizations also improve the original firmwares throughput speed performance for the LAN and Wi-Fi connections or are the speed improvements you mention only for the extra software for things like the openSSH, openVPN and USB storage throughput?

I can install just your R7800 firmware package without installing all the other things you list like Enware and Debian right? Or must I also install those other packages too to get all the benefits of your mods working properly?

Also, I know I should clear and reset the router nvram and configs when applying totally new firmware but I am curious, can I keep my current original Netgear firmware configuration file and reload it onto your modified firmware? Do you keep using the same configuration file format so that we can load original configurations without having to re-configure all the options again?

Thanks for any pointers on using your custom firmware.

Voxel
Voxel's picture
Thanks for your thanks ;-)

Thanks for your thanks ;-)

Stock vs my build:

The goal of this project is to extend and improve router functionality keeping advantages of stock firmware. So… I try to keep all stock functionality. I removed support of iTunes Server from R7500 firmware (because of lacking space) but not for R7800.

Speed:

Overall speed of router is increased, so it reacts faster to everything. I have responses from users of my firmware where they confirm that LAN and Wi-Fi are faster now. For example, there was a message that guy got “Class B” scores with my build vs “Class C” with stock firmware.

 

Entware/Debian:

You can use router w/o installation of Entware and/or Debian. They are optional.

Compatibility:

Usually I recommend to perform full reset, but in general my config is compatible with stock config. I have sometimes to flash temporary stock firmware and back my version. I do not perform full reset for this.

Voxel.

infobits
infobits's picture
Thanks Voxel, when I get the

Thanks Voxel, when I get the chance I will load your optimized firmware on my new R7800 and try it out.  BTW, I am the same as user Staticfree on smallnetbuilder forums... where I suggested the WAN ping response fix when VPN is enabled. I like your work and Thank You much for all your time and effort doing what you do!

Keep plugging away at it!

Voxel
Voxel's picture
;-)

;-)

gizbug
gizbug's picture
What is the prefered method

What is the prefered method to put you FW on, if we are running the most current Netgear FW?

 

Zeljko1234
Zeljko1234's picture
The same method as manually

The same method as manually flash official firmware. I think that's the easiest. Maybe Voxel has even easier way but I doubt :)

Voxel
Voxel's picture
The same method as manually

The same method as manually flash official firmware. I think that's the easiest. Maybe Voxel has even easier way but I doubt :)

 

You are right. That's easest. No sense to invent the wheel ;-)

Voxel.
 

redbutcher
redbutcher's picture
Just wanted to register to

Just wanted to register to say thanks Voxel - new router purchased last week, and chucked your firmware on it - been working rock solid so far - many thanks!

Voxel
Voxel's picture
You are welcome ;-) Voxel.

You are welcome ;-)

Voxel.

even_miles
even_miles's picture
I'm testing Voxel's firrmware

I'm testing Voxel's firrmware in my new R7800 and for now all good. It was very easy to put the firm (GUI ... oh, my God!!!)  and I have installed several packages from Entware Cortex A15.

Thanks and good job !!!

Voxel
Voxel's picture
Guys, thanks for all your

Guys, thanks for all your good words!

It is really nice to get "thanks" - I just do not know how many people are using my FW, and usually I have feedbacks only if something is wrong. And if everything is OK most of people keep silence.

If not problematic, also add few words to SNB forums. Latest FW thread:
 

https://www.snbforums.com/threads/custom-firmware-build-for-r7800-v-1-0-...

Voxel.

Zeljko1234
Zeljko1234's picture
It's not just about keep

It's not just about keep silent when everything is ok. It is Internet etiquette to avoid making simple posts like thanks, thumb up or similar. That's why some serious forums have thanks button (and limit thanks per day to avoid abuse).

Voxel
Voxel's picture
Well, I know you always post

Well, I know you always post me "thanks" here ;-) IMO it is nice.
 

Internet etiquette: perhaps... But imagine: I just do not know: maybe my custom builds are just waste of time. Mine and others. I know only 15-20 guys who use/used my builds. And I know them only because they posted me "thanks". There was about 350 downloads of my previous version (I had statistic using previous "cloud"), and what? Nothing. Was it good, bad, useless, helpful interesting or whatever else - no any info. Do you think this etiquette stimulate my future movements with all this?

I do not ask for "thanks" to thumb up my threads.But when guy has registered especially only to say me thanks - I am grateful for that. It is human etiquette.
Voxel.

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