OpenWRT One Released: First Router Designed Specifically For OpenWrt (sfconservancy.org) 62
Friday the Software Freedom Conservancy announced the production release of the new OpenWrt One network router — designed specifically for running the Linux-based router OS OpenWrt (a member project of the SFC). "This is the first wireless Internet router designed and built with your software freedom and right to repair in mind.
"The OpenWrt One will never be locked down and is forever unbrickable." This device services your needs as its owner and user. Everyone deserves control of their computing. The OpenWrt One takes a great first step toward bringing software rights to your home: you can control your own network with the software of your choice, and ensure your right to change, modify, and repair it as you like.
The OpenWrt One demonstrates what's possible when hardware designers and manufacturers prioritize your software right to repair; OpenWrt One exuberantly follows these requirements of the copyleft licenses of Linux and other GPL'd programs. This device provides the fully copyleft-compliant source code release from the start. Device owners have all the rights as intended on Day 1; device owners are encouraged to take full advantage of these rights to improve and repair the software on their OpenWrt One. Priced at US$89 for a complete OpenWrt One with case (or US$68.42 for a caseless One's logic board), it's ready for a wide variety of use cases...
This new product has completed full FCC compliance tests; it's confirmed that OpenWrt met all of the FCC compliance requirements. Industry "conventional wisdom" often argues that FCC requirements somehow conflict with the software right to repair. SFC has long argued that's pure FUD. We at SFC and OpenWrt have now proved copyleft compliance, the software right to repair, and FCC requirements are all attainable in one product!
You can order an OpenWrt One now! Since today is the traditional day in the USA when folks buy gifts for love ones, we urge you to invest in a wireless router that can last! We do expect that for orders placed today, sellers will deliver by December 22 in most countries... Regardless of where you buy from, for every purchase of a new OpenWrt One, a US$10 donation will go to the OpenWrt earmarked fund at Software Freedom Conservancy. Your purchase not only improves your software right to repair, but also helps OpenWrt and SFC continue to improve the important software and software freedom on which we all rely!
LWN.net points out that OpenWrt has also "served as the base on which a lot of network-oriented development (including the bufferbloat-reduction work) has been done." The OpenWrt One was designed to be a functional network router that would serve as a useful tool for the development of OpenWrt itself. To that end, the hope was to create a device that was entirely supported by upstream free software, and which was as unbrickable as it could be... The OpenWrt One comes with a two-core Arm Cortex-A53 processor, 1GB of RAM, and 256MB of NAND flash memory. There is also a separate, read-only 16MB NOR flash array in the device. Normally, the OpenWrt One will boot and run from the NAND flash, but there is a small switch in the back that will cause it to boot from the NOR instead. This is a bricking-resistance feature; should a software load break the device, it can be recovered by booting from NOR and flashing a new image into the NAND array. ..
After booting into the new image, the One behaved like any other OpenWrt router... What could be more interesting is seeing this router get into the hands of developers and enthusiasts who will use it to make OpenWrt (and other small-system distributions) better.
Long-time Slashdot reader dumfrac writes: The intent to build the device was announced on the OpenWRT forums earlier this year. It is based on MediaTek MT7981B (Filogic 820) SoC and MediaTek MT7976C dual-band WiFi 6 chipset and the board is made by Banana Pi. A poll to select the logo was run in April on the OpenWRT forums, and now the hardware is available for purchase. .
"The OpenWrt One will never be locked down and is forever unbrickable." This device services your needs as its owner and user. Everyone deserves control of their computing. The OpenWrt One takes a great first step toward bringing software rights to your home: you can control your own network with the software of your choice, and ensure your right to change, modify, and repair it as you like.
The OpenWrt One demonstrates what's possible when hardware designers and manufacturers prioritize your software right to repair; OpenWrt One exuberantly follows these requirements of the copyleft licenses of Linux and other GPL'd programs. This device provides the fully copyleft-compliant source code release from the start. Device owners have all the rights as intended on Day 1; device owners are encouraged to take full advantage of these rights to improve and repair the software on their OpenWrt One. Priced at US$89 for a complete OpenWrt One with case (or US$68.42 for a caseless One's logic board), it's ready for a wide variety of use cases...
This new product has completed full FCC compliance tests; it's confirmed that OpenWrt met all of the FCC compliance requirements. Industry "conventional wisdom" often argues that FCC requirements somehow conflict with the software right to repair. SFC has long argued that's pure FUD. We at SFC and OpenWrt have now proved copyleft compliance, the software right to repair, and FCC requirements are all attainable in one product!
You can order an OpenWrt One now! Since today is the traditional day in the USA when folks buy gifts for love ones, we urge you to invest in a wireless router that can last! We do expect that for orders placed today, sellers will deliver by December 22 in most countries... Regardless of where you buy from, for every purchase of a new OpenWrt One, a US$10 donation will go to the OpenWrt earmarked fund at Software Freedom Conservancy. Your purchase not only improves your software right to repair, but also helps OpenWrt and SFC continue to improve the important software and software freedom on which we all rely!
LWN.net points out that OpenWrt has also "served as the base on which a lot of network-oriented development (including the bufferbloat-reduction work) has been done." The OpenWrt One was designed to be a functional network router that would serve as a useful tool for the development of OpenWrt itself. To that end, the hope was to create a device that was entirely supported by upstream free software, and which was as unbrickable as it could be... The OpenWrt One comes with a two-core Arm Cortex-A53 processor, 1GB of RAM, and 256MB of NAND flash memory. There is also a separate, read-only 16MB NOR flash array in the device. Normally, the OpenWrt One will boot and run from the NAND flash, but there is a small switch in the back that will cause it to boot from the NOR instead. This is a bricking-resistance feature; should a software load break the device, it can be recovered by booting from NOR and flashing a new image into the NAND array. ..
After booting into the new image, the One behaved like any other OpenWrt router... What could be more interesting is seeing this router get into the hands of developers and enthusiasts who will use it to make OpenWrt (and other small-system distributions) better.
Long-time Slashdot reader dumfrac writes: The intent to build the device was announced on the OpenWRT forums earlier this year. It is based on MediaTek MT7981B (Filogic 820) SoC and MediaTek MT7976C dual-band WiFi 6 chipset and the board is made by Banana Pi. A poll to select the logo was run in April on the OpenWRT forums, and now the hardware is available for purchase. .
Great summary (Score:5, Informative)
Hey, here's this open source project! Here's a link where you can buy it!
I was about to hit submit on a snarky post about how it doesn't have any hardware source files but I googled before I did. It does: https://one.openwrt.org/hardwa... [openwrt.org]
Some sort of repo might be better than dumping them in a directory on a webserver though.
Re: Great summary (Score:2)
And its official store appears to be Alibaba? They make Amazon look reputable.
Re: (Score:1)
Ummm you mean Aliexpress. You might want to put your glasses back on :)
Re: (Score:2)
AliExpress or Alibaba, plenty of people won't buy anything from either. There is nothing wrong in selling on AliExpress such that they serve parts of the world who have no other way than importing goods directly from China. But they also need to set up a shipping address in US/EU for people and businesses who require a brick-and-mortar address that deals with import duties and warranty. Making the router was the expensive and difficult part. Setting up one distributor per continent isn't expensive or diffic
Re: (Score:3)
AliExpress or Alibaba, plenty of people won't buy anything from either.
Put it this way: Amazon makes almost no effort to ensure that whatever you're buying is what it claims to be. If it isn't, it's up to you to figure that out and return it. Once I ordered a water softener kit from Amazon and it literally wasn't even from the same company that they listed on their storefront. Didn't meet the same specs (different, cheaper exchange media, wrong fittings.) I literally called amazon asking wtf, and they said they'd accept the return later than the usual 30 days (which I needed,
Re: (Score:2)
AliExpress is part of the AliBaba group (as well as the AliYun cloud provider, etc.).
Re: (Score:2)
Aliexpress IS alibaba. The former is their b2c storefront while the latter is b2b.
MESH and API (Score:3)
while this is terribly nice and all
BUT
It needs a robust Mesh mode
preferably a standard HTTPS API for management
good on them
John Jones
Re:MESH and API (Score:5, Informative)
MESH on OpenWRT [tekovic.com] is simple. A search engine [duckduckgo.com] is your friend.
Re: MESH and API (Score:3)
Of course there is a web interface. It's called Luci: https://openwrt.org/docs/guide... [openwrt.org]
OpenWRT is Linux. So you also get to ssh in and opkg install or update. Opkg is apt-based, with similar options and commands. Familiar with other Debian(-bases) distro's? Then this will be a no-brainer.
Since it's Linux, you also get all the network stuff that comes with that. OpenWRT supports NFS, rsync, Nextcloud, adblock, you name it. Only restrictions is the storage and memory capabilities of your device.
Did anyone men
Re: (Score:2)
Luci is a web user interface for people, not an API for computers.
As far as I know, OpenWRT doesn't really provide an API outside localhost, and then that API is basically Linux. I think having a REST API would be quite nice.
Re: (Score:2)
https://github.com/openwrt/luci/blob/master/docs/JsonRpcHowTo.md [github.com]
It has all of the opkg and uci functionality, at least.
Re: (Score:2)
Thanks, this seems quite useful!
Connecting over ssh can take a bit of time, e.g. if I want to list all connected clients in all APs. This is quite possibly faster than using ssh to do it.
Re: (Score:2)
Luci is a web user interface for people, not an API for computers.
As far as I know, OpenWRT doesn't really provide an API outside localhost, and then that API is basically Linux. I think having a REST API would be quite nice.
You could always write one if you think it needs one. There is even a cheap development board you can buy.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
it does have ssh and everything you can do through luci you can do on the command line.
And using Ansible, you can script stuff with no dependencies to install on the remote Linux device -- SSH is all you need.
Re: (Score:2)
And using Ansible, you can script stuff with no dependencies to install on the remote Linux device -- SSH is all you need.
Looks great except where's the USB? (Score:2, Interesting)
Loads of RAM, plenty of storage if it had a USB. You could mount some remote storage on it, but one of the cool things you can do easily with openwrt is run the transmission daemon on your router to torrent for you. I have a USB stick plugged in to my linksys router and mount it with nfsv4, so nothing else has to be on.
It would also have been nice to see dual 2.5GbE. I know this is sort of meant to be a research device, but if not that then most people would probably benefit more from an integrated GbE swit
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
When are they gonna get around to adding that email client?
Re:Looks great except where's the USB? (Score:4, Informative)
Loads of RAM, plenty of storage if it had a USB. You could mount some remote storage on it, but one of the cool things you can do easily with openwrt is run the transmission daemon on your router to torrent for you. I have a USB stick plugged in to my linksys router and mount it with nfsv4, so nothing else has to be on.
It would also have been nice to see dual 2.5GbE. I know this is sort of meant to be a research device, but if not that then most people would probably benefit more from an integrated GbE switch.
They have a higher end version with 10GbE, SFP slots, more RAM, and lots of other upgrades - for an appropriately higher price.
https://docs.banana-pi.org/en/... [banana-pi.org] k on OpenWRT Filogic drivers should benefit both.
Re:Looks great except where's the USB? (Score:4, Informative)
It has a USB 2.0 (A) connector and a M.2 2242/2230 socket for NVMe SSD (PCIe gen 2 x1).
Re: (Score:2)
It has a USB A port.
Re: (Score:2)
You could mount some remote storage on it, but one of the cool things you can do easily with openwrt is run the transmission daemon on your router to torrent for you. I have a USB stick plugged in to my linksys router and mount it with nfsv4, so nothing else has to be on.
I would say people who are doing more than occasional torrenting already have a server or NAS of some sort operating in the home that their client runs on, and have access to a much larger amount of local storage than a thumb drive.
Also don't forget those Mac users who apparently never turn off their computers anyway.
Re: (Score:2)
You're looking for the Turris Omnia. https://www.turris.com/en/prod... [turris.com]
Running basically openwrt, there even exists a NAS kit to connect 2 SATA drives.
No 2.5GbE ethernet, but it does have an SFP slot, so at least for WAN 2.5GbE is technically doable... If you find an SFP module that agrees to work in the omnia.
I run a homeassistant instance on it, + some other services.
can we get more ports or at least 2 2.5 ports? (Score:2)
can we get more ports or at least 2 2.5 ports?.
as lot's of ISP are starting to offer 1G or higher links.
Re: (Score:2)
Some vendors are starting to do this in lower priced models. Ubiquiti is getting around to it this season, for instance. I'd been relegated to buying cheapie switches because otherwise I was stuck with 1g connections.
Re: (Score:2)
Yes. As it stands, this isn't a router unless you do WiFi and nothing else.
I would call this a gateway firewall which would have at least one real router behind it.
Re: (Score:2)
It's meant as a wireless access point, routers, firewalls and switches serve different purposes despite the prevalence of cheap all-in-one devices out there.
Re: (Score:2)
If you have a VLAN-able switch, you can use one port for all the traffic. 2.5G should be fine for 1G uplink, and most people have less.
But yeah, it's mostly a WiFi router. I wouldn't expect to see WiFi hardware on a "real" router.
Can a user switch firmware (Score:2)
Re:Can a user switch firmware (Score:4, Insightful)
I prefer DD-WRT firmware which includes a hosts file feature that can be used for adblocking
The OpenWRT hosts file can be replaced too, and is in the same location as all other hosts files on Linux: /etc/hosts
No GUI required. Works well for me.
OpenWRT seems to receive much better development than dd-wrt IMHO.
Re: (Score:1)
I'd argue the Linksys LN1301 (mx4300) already suites this purpose better than the "one". If you can find it for the same price or less I'd grab one. Comes with 2GB ram, 1 GB flash and was being sold cheap ($25) from woot and amazon because the deal the hardware was intended for fell through. Does mesh, has usb 3.0 etc.
Openwrt snapshots are available but it's not yet in the mainline source. I replaced a $90 asus router with one and have been very pleased.
Re: (Score:1)
Oh it has dual partitions for kernel which makes it easy to recover from an error.
https://www.reddit.com/r/openwrt/comments/1fgta78/guide_to_installing_openwrt_on_the_20_linksys/
How can I take ... (Score:1)
... a security device sold from china serious?
Re: How can I take ... (Score:2, Flamebait)
Easily. Just reboot yourself out of bigot mode, and then take a look at the source.
Re: (Score:3)
... a security device sold from china serious?
As opposed to all the things in your life Made in China that you’re forced to trust every day? You can’t seriously be assuming we’ll take you seriously with with your serious concerns.
Re: (Score:2)
Exactly. They are REQUIRED by Chinese law to do the bidding of the CCP.
Working AliExpress page (Score:1)
The AliExpress link supplied says not available, but the suggestions below include a valid page: https://www.aliexpress.com/ite... [aliexpress.com]
Today it's 112,84€, free shipping and EU duties included - AliExpress got their thing together a couple of years ago, when the EU overhauled the customs process, and I never had any trouble, packages just show up. I think it's only above a few hundred euros that you can/have to deal with customs yourself.
Re: Working AliExpress page (Score:2)
Unhackable marketing should stop. (Score:2)
(The One) ”Our device is unbrickable!”
(The Hacking Collective) ”Oh yeah? Let’s see how right you are.”
(Me, loading shotgun) “That brick, don’t look too bulletproof..”
Just stop with the un-marketing already. It’s become the fastest way to get your investors and product, bitched slapped by reality. Sure, Me was a silly retort and I love open solutions (takes me back to my WRT54GS mesh days), but I seriously expect a hacker to do the predictable thing
Re: (Score:2)
Just stop with the un-marketing already. It’s become the fastest way to get your investors and product, bitched slapped by reality. Sure, Me was a silly retort and I love open solutions (takes me back to my WRT54GS mesh days), but I seriously expect a hacker to do the predictable thing soon after an un-statement like that. Just for un-fucks sake. I promise you can sell this without being arrogant. Do that.
I think in this case, they were referring to it being open and supportable as long as the community has the will to do so, rather than being Bricked in the sense of assorted Sonos devices, Cricuts, Google Whatever, D-Link NAS's with unpatchable RCE exploits, etc.
Although in the age of it being acceptable for $100K vehicles to say "Software update failed. Towing instructions: ..." because they can't be bothered to implement some variant of the A/B partition scheme that's been standard on $17 Android phones
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
The main benefit of commercial routers (Score:3)
They're fast because they push into the backplane everything they can. Anything that can be done there is done there, making them faster than any OS.
However, Linux is GPL, so nothing stops someone putting the actual routing on an FPGA and having Linux just do the routing daemon and stuff too complex to be done quickly and easily in hardware (eg: QoS, tunnelling, IPSec, etc).
You can go something in between the two by doing kernel bypass on the network cards, so everything is done in userland, eliminating context switches, which will be far too frequent in a router.
Where does this system lie on the scale?
This is needed (Score:2)
Where to buy one? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
"forever unbrickable." (Score:2)
no wifi6 (Score:2)
not expensive so that's good but wish it came with wifi6e as a default. while the software looks great this won't sell them if it's slow or doesn't offer good range
seems... basic (Score:2)
basic not in a good way. 1.3Ghz dual core? implies really poor AQM. 2.5G WAN but 1G LAN? Who's got that need? WiFi6 while the market is moving into 6E/7. 1 LAN port.
There are a lot of much much more capable devices for less money on the market. OpenWRT is great in it's flexability, but this hardware doesn't seem to hit any interesting marks. Who's it for?
Not the first. GL.iNet runs OpenWRT. (Score:2)
All of GL.iNet's routers run OpenWRT. They've been shipping them for years. I've used several and they're great.
How does the hardware compare to 'retail'? (Score:2)
Last I saw home routers were bandwidth limited by hardware (CPU speed wasn't fast enough for 'everything' to be used at easily bought home internet speeds). And open devices are nice, but people won't buy them if they're much worse than closed/typical devices.
How does this one compare with similarly priced, typical devices? Even if you ignore how efficient the software is... What CPU speeds and number of cores do most $90 routers have? 2 x A53 doesn't sound all that capable. Heck my mid level phone fro
Ran that years ago (Score:2)
...On a commercial router. Got OFF it when I bought my next router. I run Linux, I'm fine with *well-managed* open source projects.
When, in the general/support mailing list, people talk about their "favorite builders" and "favorite builds", there's a massive problem.