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[Ragnarok]

https://wiki.openwrt.org/toh/bt/homehub_v5a
https://community.plus.net/t5/Tech-Help-Software-Hardware-etc/Running-OpenWRT-on-the-Plusnet-Hub-One-amp-BT-Home-Hub-5a/td-p/1302968

I've just ordered one up to have a play, never actually thought the BT home hub 5 would actually be useful, good for use as a cheep modem for a decent router or a cheep wifi AP .

[skyeci]

whilst having had a go at flashing the OR ECI modem with openwrt and got it working, would you know if you can use a bt home hub or the plus net as a router only? - also would need to know if it supports option 60/61 (for sky) happy to have a go at this if it can just be a router and not a modem/router..

cheers in advance
 

[Dray]

Doesn't look like a problem http://www.skyuser.co.uk/forum/sky-broadband-fibre-help/50483-generic-open-wrt-sky-fibre-mer-guide.html

[Ragnarok]

whilst having had a go at flashing the OR ECI modem with openwrt and got it working, would you know if you can use a bt home hub or the plus net as a router only? - also would need to know if it supports option 60/61 (for sky) happy to have a go at this if it can just be a router and not a modem/router..

cheers in advance

Open wrt should make all reasonable configs for the hardware possible modem/router/modem+router/access point+network switch , open it up for other isp's. option 60/61 should be possible but don't know how to do it in open wrt.  The bt home hub will have to be a home hub 5 type A or a plusnet one hub.

[skyeci]

thanks for the reply's - my concern is can you make the device that was designed primarily as  modem/router purely a router only and ignore the modem aspect. I wonder if you flash the openwrt on to the device will it be able to lose the modem aspect? - I purely want it to route and not be a vdsl modem
thanks

[Dray]

The device was designed as a modem/router or a router to use for example with FTTP. There isn't a problem with not using the modem part and just using it as a router.

[skyeci]

nice. thanks for that - I might just give that a go. Cheers

[bill888]

More info here on this forum about OpenWRT for HH5A
http://openwrt.ebilan.co.uk/viewforum.php?f=7

I don't think I've come across any information for how to configure OpenWRT on HH5A into a simple bridge modem.

OpenWRT/LEDE on HH5A can be configured as a router only, by enabling the ethernet WAN port.  It has been verified for PPPoE and DHCP-client modes.  In theory, it should also work for Sky MER option 60/61.

There is also  new discussion about the overall performance of OpenWRT/LEDE on the HH5A. Part of the problem is SMP is disabled on xrx200 for openwrt/LEDE because of an ethernet driver issue which can affect devices with multiple NICs such as the HH5A.
http://openwrt.ebilan.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=149

[ejs]

I think OpenWRT/LEDE may be missing the ppacmd program and associated drivers the control the for the Lantiq "Protocol Processor Engine", which offloads some of the networking tasks away from the CPU with the OEM firmware. I'm also not sure if OpenWRT/LEDE contains the Lantiq switch_utility program for controlling the Ethernet switch. The source code for those components is available, but it'll probably require some work to make it compatible with more recent kernels.

[jimbof]

As Bill says, as of now the LEDE tree doesn't have SMP enabled due to a bug with dual ethernet interfaces (WAN & LAN).  If you aren't using the WAN ethernet port (ie using the internal VDSL modem) then you can run the SMP kernel (you need to revert a commit and build the image, or get an image from someone which has it reverted, or built out of Felix's staging tree).  I am running this and it works well, as I am using the internal VDSL modem, ethernet and wifi 2.4/5GHz capabilities, but not the WAN port.

Without SMP you won't be able to saturate 80 / 20 VDSL over 2.4GHz / 5GHz wifi - that will chew though all the CPU.
With SMP you will have some CPU spare, but flat-out 5GHz performance is still down on stock firmware (I see 180Mbit vs over 300Mbit with stock). 

@ejs is right I believe, I don't think either of those functions are in LEDE at the moment which no doubt contributes to the performance differences.  @ejs - do you know where I can get the sources of those utils?  Am interested to see what makes them tick.

Still, even without it makes a very nice and cheap combined dual band VDSL N/AC wifi router with a reasonable amount of RAM and Flash, and breaks the shackles of operator supplied firmware.  I last picked up a couple of HH5A's for £15 each, which is a complete bargain in the scheme of things.

Below are a couple of tests I've run.  Nice to be able to run TBB ping monitor on this box at last

[ejs]

Most of the Lantiq drivers can be found in the OEM GPL source code releases for Lantiq models. The TP-Link 8970v1 sources have a relatively old copy, probably because it runs kernel 2.6.32, some of the FritzBox sources have slightly later ones. I found a thermal sensor driver in some FritzBox sources and managed to build it and load it into my 8970, apparently it runs at around 55-60 degrees C. The Netgear DM200 source code may have even more recent Lantiq source code, although it also has added support for later Lantiq chips (the DM200 apparently has the Lantiq VRX220, which is newer than the VRX268/288). I assume it could be built for the VRX268, because the Lantiq code is usually arranged with a few directories for various different chips, typically AR9, AR10 and VR9.

The ifxmips_ppa drivers actually end up as three different sets of drivers, only one of which is loaded at a time, I think depending on the WAN mode, one for PPPoA over DSL, perhaps another for PPPoE over DSL and another for WAN over an Ethernet port.

The source code for the ppacmd utility itself is often absent, but I appear to have found a copy in the source code for the ECI AlphaNetworks 1B Openreach modem.

[jimbof]

Thanks for the info I saw a patch today on the mailing list for LEDE for the thermal sensor in HH5A and a couple of other devices.

I see what you mean now, I found one of the interface startup scripts for acceleration and no acceleration for the various interfaces here:

https://github.com/uwehermann/easybox-904-xdsl-firmware/blob/master/package/infineon-utilities/feeds/ifx_base_files/target-ltqcpe-vr9-base-files/files/ramdisk_copy/flash/BSP-Test-VR9/bringup_xdsl_mode.sh

Looks like it might be a fun project to see if this could be used under LEDE / openwrt.

[jimbof]

I am sure the average kitizen doesn't need it, but here is a quick video I did showing how to open the HH5A damage-free. Enjoy.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XhE_QpLFvpM[/youtube]

[alefello]

Hi

What is the current status of OpenWRT/LEDE for the HH5A? I used the HH5A until a month ago, lastest trunk compiled by myself with SMP enabled and WAN port configured but not visible in LUCI (I didn't patched all the source code to enable it); unfortunately I had wifi reliability issues and sporadic switch problems. I also tried not to use WAN port (and delete the specific configuration) but the problems remained, so I left the device because of time problems. Anyway I trust in this device and now I have some time to work on it again, so my question is: there are news? WiFi and eth switch are now reliable even if SMP is enabled?

Thank you

[cliver]

Hi all, having recently migrated to BT but not using the supplied home hub I thought I'd give this a go and try it out. However, my board didn't seem to be the same as in the pictures in the guides (see attached pictures). According to the label it's a "BT Smart Hub -Type A"
Is this a different model and is it possible to a. Get the ttl interface going and b. Flash openwrt on it?
Thanks for any guidance.


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