Running OpenWRT on the Plusnet Hub One (& BT Home Hub 5a)

[#1]

I'm recently having problems with my connection and, like always, the finger gets pointed at the open source customised hardware

I'm having problems with intermittent really slow pings (easily exceeding 10000ms) that come and go. Rebooting the router appears to sort it for a while. But it was working beautifully for months and nothing has been changed.

Can anyone suggest any tests I can perform without pulling the router out. I'd prefer to avoid doing that because it runs my DNS and I have lots of config that a stock router won't have.

I've tried eliminating things, like I have shut down my ipv6 tunnel, switched off sqm and stuff like that. I thought it was a DNS issue but I have tried several (opendns, google, plusnet) and the problem persists. I believe it's at the IP level or beneath that due to the irratic pings. 

Anyone with any troubleshooting suggestions I'd appreciate it. I hope it isn't due to the LEDE/OpenWrt (which is 17.01.4).

Much appreciated.

[#2]

Have you tried a low-level packet monitor which logs your TCP/IP data to a log file?

This would reveal retransmissions etc.

[#3]

Hi Starfry,

Just wondering, how do we upgrade?

Can this be done within the router now or do we have to flash?

Thanks

R

[#4]

Regarding my internet problems, it would appear that YAMon, a bandwidth monitoring application for LEDE/OpenWrt, is what is killing my connection. For some reason when I have YAMon running for a while my pings run into the thousands of milliseconds. Shutting down YAMon resolves the issue immediately.

So it wasn't the fault of the custom firmware, which makes me happy. Now I just have to find a solution to the YAMon issue.

[#5]

@RRM, Looking at my git log, the last update that I performed, to 17.01.4, was on November 23rd 2017. The notes I made at the time are as follows

Upgrading

NOTE all custom-installed packages need to be reinstalled after an update!

• Custom installed packages and their own configuration will not be preserved

Upgrading the firmware on a running LEDE router is a matter of

$ sysupgrade http://location_of_firmware_file

I download to my desktop and run an ad-hoc webserver (python -m http.server ) which listens on port 8000. I then log in to the router and do

$ cd /tmp
$ wget http://desktop:8000/lede-17.01.4-lantiq-xrx200-BTHOMEHUBV5A-squashfs-sysupgrade.bin
$ sysupgrade lede-17.01.4-lantiq-xrx200-BTHOMEHUBV5A-squashfs-sysupgrade.bin

The SSH session will disconnect while the router reboots. Wait a little while (until ping replies) and then log in with ssh again. The banner should confirm the upgrade:

 Reboot (17.01.4, r3560-79f57e422d)

Now reinstall all custom packages (as documented in /etc/config/setup).

-------------------------------------

FYI that file `/sys/config/setup` is a file that I curate myself. It contains all of the commands that I need to run to configure the vanilla LEDE (now OpenWRT again) to have my own configs applied. It isn't a script, more of a compendium of commands from which I cherry-pick. But, liking cherries, I pick most of them

[#6]

I am thinking to buy an BT HH5A with LEDE 17.01.04 already installed. The seller is prepared to send it with 18.06.00, if I would prefer. Are there any downsides to the later version please?

[#7]

Me personally, I’m yet to get VPN passthrough to work on this new version. Other than that, it’s quite nice, with LuCi’s front page showing more info and Adblock offering more settings

[#8]

Is this as daunting as it looks, or is it easier once you get underway? The USB to TTL lead arrived today.

I have just substituted the Hub One with a BT Home Hub 5b (and squeezed the last few bps out of my upstream to almost hit the cap) 9690/40000 it's taken the Hub One two days to go from 8500/34500 to 8600/39400. 

But I quite like the look of OpenWRT, used to run TomatoWRT on an old Linksys 54g and it squeezed much more performance and life out of an old dog.

Time to teach this new dog new tricks. 

The only limit I see is the WiFi seems to have a limit at 50-odd Mbps, not that it will be a problem at my speed cap. Plus it looks like you can actually turn the hub lights off! Win!

[#9]

---

@steviejay wrote:

Plus it looks like you can actually turn the hub lights off! Win!

---

No you can't. The last version where I could get rid of the lights was 17.01.2. Ever since then, I can dim the annoying blue light but not turn it off altogether, so it's my night light now. Maybe someone can advise?

[#10]

fwiw, main power light is turned off on my HH5a.  Works for 17.01.2, 17.01.4 and 17.01.5.

These are my settings in LuCI -> System -> LED Configuration

Name: Power
LED Name: bthomehubv5a:blue:power
Default state:  unticked
Trigger: none

The broadband and wireless LEDs can be turned off by just deleting the corresponding entries.

[#11]

My BT HH5A, with OpenWRT arrived yesterday, since when I have been struggling to get it to connect to my PN (for the moment) copper service. My swap to fibre has been delayed.

I began my setting up without any guides or help, set the wireless up, the wired LAN and set it on my LAN's IP. All of which worked as expected and quite easy. Then I tried to set up the WAN side of things and failed miserably, which I have succeeded in doing with other routers lots of times, but failed miserably with this HH5A.

I then turned to Bob's guide, to see if I might fair better with it's help.  Nope, still not connecting. Bob suggests it needs IPv6 to be disabled - done that. I tried a full power cycle. It flashes the b led several times, pauses, then flashes the b led some more. 

I could be wrong, but it seems to be reporting it is seeing a WAN IP in its status, but no actual connection -

Device: pppoa-wan
Uptime: 0h 11m 44s
MAC: 00:00:00:00:00:00
RX: 83.51 KB (421 Pkts.)
TX: 36.04 KB (452 Pkts.)
IPv4: 143.159.110.24/32

Has anyone got any suggestions please?

I would like to get this all configured on my copper adsl, then it should be simple switch over when the fibre comes on.

[#12]

Is that ADSL or Fibre?

[#13]

Both DSL, ADSL at the moment though, which is working fine via my Netgear router.

[#14]

143.159.110.24 is indeed a valid PN WAN side IP address.

ie. HH5a is successfully connected to Plusnet for 11 minutes.

(I presume you deleted the 'ATM Bridges' section otherwise it would not have acquired a WAN IP.).

You mentioned setting up your LAN's IP...  What exactly did you mean by this?  I think your issue may be LAN side....?

Retrieve and post a copy of the /etc/config/network configuration file (remove your PN username & password).  If you use Microsoft Windows, you can use WinSCP and Notepad++. (See section 10 of the installation guide)

Otherwise, I suggest factory resetting the hub and start from a clean slate. ie. keep it simple for now.

ie. Factory reset, plug a computer into LAN socket, log into hub and follow the installation guide to configure the ADSL to connect to Plusnet. Confirm computer has internet access.

ps. Plusnet does not support IPv6, so you can also delete the 'WAN6' interface shown in LuCI -> Network -> Interfaces to see if that helps.

[#15]

I will reply in greater depth later, but for now. I have a series of 44.xxx.xxx.xxx IP's allocated to me for decades, so I make point of using them for my local network. 

I am confused by the 'b' LED, I understood it was supposed to be lit when the WAN is connected? It is just flashing several times a pause, then another series.....

Yes, I deleted the bridges, or rather it was already deleted on arrival of the router. .