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[Alex Atkin UK]

When I had that happen it was because Plusnet had a PPP gateway down - they run them in round robin pairs so it's pot luck which you get at the point of auth. It would either take 50+ attempts to auth or a reboot (or two) to get on. See what your PPPoE logs look like on the device behind the ECI modem, or on it if that's how your setup is laid out.

No its actual sync that is failing, I suspect a G.INP bug or OpenWRT issue.  Once it comes up, its fine and even if it drops so far it comes back fine, its just after initial power up.

[jaimbo]

Has anyone had any luck updating jsamuels 15.05 build to something newer like 19.07 or even 21.02? Or a similarly configured custom build with out the box support for bridge mode?

Upgraded mine to 19.07.7

Off to learn the new switch interface

Code: [Select]

config switch_vlan
        option device 'switch0'
        option vlan '1'
        option ports '2 4 6t'
looking at https://openwrt.org/toh/bt/homehub_v5a

lan port1 is tagged 2, lan port2 is tagged4, cpu is 6t.

meritez, any builds you can share?

[Alex Atkin UK]

This device is NOT RECOMMENDED for future use with OpenWrt due to low flash/ram.

[jaimbo]

This device is NOT RECOMMENDED for future use with OpenWrt due to low flash/ram.

I believe that the 8MB flash is large enough for the 21.02 build and surely using the device purely as a bridge mode modem would result in lower memory usage than using it as a full router? Probably could remove some unused packages to make a modem only image specifically for bridge mode as well.

I think the main changes in jsamuels 15.05 builds are just the preconfigured configs for bridge mode, improved stats and the included config for Munin?

[jsamuel]

This device is NOT RECOMMENDED for future use with OpenWrt due to low flash/ram.

I agree.
Newer versions are quite bloated compared to CC, I've tried and it's rather sluggish. But CC seems stable enough so I haven't bothered to slim it down and release an update

[Alex Atkin UK]

I agree.
Newer versions are quite bloated compared to CC, I've tried and it's rather sluggish. But CC seems stable enough so I haven't bothered to slim it down and release an update

Plus there actually is still an official image anyway https://firmware-selector.openwrt.org/?version=21.02.0&target=lantiq%2Fxrx200&id=arcadyan_vg3503j  The problem is you can't flash from 15.05 to newer firmwares without doing it from serial again which is a pain.

Plus the HomeHub5a are quite cheap and get you the same chipset that does comfortably handle current releases.  Of course the drawback is they can't be wall mounted.

I went back to my ECI for a while as I thought my Plusnet Hub had died, but it turns out that line is just a bit odd as it doesn't always sync on first boot.

But overall, I notice no actual difference in performance between the ECI on 15.05 and the HH5A on 21.02, other than the UI responds quicker on the HH5A and there's space to install other software.

[meritez]

Has anyone had any luck updating jsamuels 15.05 build to something newer like 19.07 or even 21.02? Or a similarly configured custom build with out the box support for bridge mode?

meritez, any builds you can share?

I've had no luck updating jsamuels build as every device using this build is given the same MAC address, which gives further complications.

If you're willing to attach a serial cable and fix the bootloader issue, 19.07.8 runs fine and a custom bridge mode image can be built using the openwrt imagebuilder for lantiq which is suitable for ADSL and VDSL.

I'm ignoring 21.02 until the DSA merge that replaces switchconfig is introduced.

To run openwrt comfortably, it's going to be worth removing the web interface going forward as there's no need in bridge mode.

[jaimbo]

I've had no luck updating jsamuels build as every device using this build is given the same MAC address, which gives further complications.

If you're willing to attach a serial cable and fix the bootloader issue, 19.07.8 runs fine and a custom bridge mode image can be built using the openwrt imagebuilder for lantiq which is suitable for ADSL and VDSL.

I'm ignoring 21.02 until the DSA merge that replaces switchconfig is introduced.

To run openwrt comfortably, it's going to be worth removing the web interface going forward as there's no need in bridge mode.

Yeah totally happy to attach the serial cable and go through the reflash. How would I go about building an image using the imagebuilder that is pre configured for bridge mode? I need to include the "network" file pre configured in the image right?

[meritez]

@jaimbo welcome to Kitz forum by the way.

I used the following as a guide : https://github.com/rcannizzaro/openwrt-netgear-dm200-bridge

The above is for a Netgear dm200 stripped down to bridge mode, also a lantiq chipset, only differences are 64mb ram and a single ethernet port.

In the if you change the profile in the Build.sh from netgear_dm200 to arcadyan_vg3503j it builds and is flashable to the eci

Code: [Select]

make image FILES=files/ PROFILE=arcadyan_vg3503j PACKAGES="-dsl-vrx200-firmware-xdsl-a -dsl-vrx200-firmware-xdsl-b-patch luci-mod-admin-full luci-app-statistics collectd-mod-uptime luci-proto-ipv6 luci-proto-ppp luci-theme-bootstrap uhttpd"
That's what I'm working with, there's also network files to adjust.

[jaimbo]

@jaimbo welcome to Kitz forum by the way.

I used the following as a guide : https://github.com/rcannizzaro/openwrt-netgear-dm200-bridge

The above is for a Netgear dm200 stripped down to bridge mode, also a lantiq chipset, only differences are 64mb ram and a single ethernet port.

In the if you change the profile in the Build.sh from netgear_dm200 to arcadyan_vg3503j it builds and is flashable to the eci

Code: [Select]

make image FILES=files/ PROFILE=arcadyan_vg3503j PACKAGES="-dsl-vrx200-firmware-xdsl-a -dsl-vrx200-firmware-xdsl-b-patch luci-mod-admin-full luci-app-statistics collectd-mod-uptime luci-proto-ipv6 luci-proto-ppp luci-theme-bootstrap uhttpd"
That's what I'm working with, there's also network files to adjust.

Thanks for the welcome

So I tried as you suggested, used the files in that github repo, slightly modified to change the IP addresses of the network file to match my IP ranges so I could access the UI etc. (Changed "option ipaddr" for "config interface mgmt" to an IP within my range)

Managed to flash using the instructions here: https://git.openwrt.org/?p=openwrt/openwrt.git;a=commitdiff;h=17094e9e642ffca19c6b6681766d2bcbb8e6e565 (though the instructions in that post are slightly wrong, the command "erase 0xb0020000 $(filesize)" should actually be "erase 0xb0020000 +$(filesize)", but figured that out and got there in the end)

Could see the OpenWrt boot process through the serial console and it looked okay to me. LAN1 stopped working, LAN2 appeared to be working, but no matter what I tried, I couldn't connect to LUCI and just leaving everything plugged in as it should be, the line never seemed to connect (Also either the power LED or DSL LED was flashing green at the time)

Anything you can think that I am missing? Back on jsamuels build for the time being, but would like to give a newer builld another try!

[Alex Atkin UK]

Other than being bloated, is there any reason not to use the official OpenWRT images?

[jsamuel]

Other than being bloated, is there any reason not to use the official OpenWRT images?

they're often just generic autobuilds with mismatching firmware and never actually checked by a person. If it worked properly I'd be surprised.

[Alex Atkin UK]

they're often just generic autobuilds with mismatching firmware and never actually checked by a person. If it worked properly I'd be surprised.

Might have to give it a try seeing as I'm not using it right now.  Just not 100% where my USB serial adapter is.

[jaimbo]

Took another crack at things today with a fresh head and managed to get a 19.07.8 build with out of the box bridge mode working. Seems to be working well and my "Max. Attainable Data Rate (ATTNDR)" has gone up from about 79-81Mb ish to currently 91Mb, but my rate is still at 66Mb. I don't fully understand exactly what this implies but it still seems to be an improvement over the previous build.



Will see how stable things are over the next few days, but I am hopefull!

Will also do some more digging on default included packages etc. and see if I can trim some packages to save some space/RAM. Happy to share the image and instructions to flash if anyone wants them

[Alex Atkin UK]

Took another crack at things today with a fresh head and managed to get a 19.07.8 build with out of the box bridge mode working. Seems to be working well and my "Max. Attainable Data Rate (ATTNDR)" has gone up from about 79-81Mb ish to currently 91Mb, but my rate is still at 66Mb. I don't fully understand exactly what this implies but it still seems to be an improvement over the previous build.



Will see how stable things are over the next few days, but I am hopefull!

Will also do some more digging on default included packages etc. and see if I can trim some packages to save some space/RAM. Happy to share the image and instructions to flash if anyone wants them

Did you perhaps accidentally set the SNRm offset?  The attainable seems to be based on the modems target SNRm as I can make it REALLY high by setting unrealistic offsets (my lines seem to both be banded so it has zero impact on anything).

Actually I tell a lie, my worse line is banded slightly faster than it can do on 6dB SNRm so I do get some gain.  This is with a -3dB offset so targeting 3dBm.

Attain Data Rate:   75.582 Mb/s / 18.493 Mb/s
Actual Data Rate:   66.919 Mb/s / 18.797 Mb/s
Noise Margin:      5.2dB / 6.0dB