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

[#1]

Thank you for posting.
I have made two backups.
One of them restored to VR9 prompt after U-BOOT. Before and when depressing the power on button, I hit the return key a few times to get this.
The other one restored but at the end of restoration failed to set U-BOOT to enable serial link. It tried the correct key but failed.

Trouble: neither of my nanddump files reboot into stock firmware after successful restoration.

Does it mean that I will permanently loss my Netowrk->Wireless (WiFi) functionality?

Below is screen log when running the "prepare" script:

Starting installation...
TRYING to decrypt u-boot env with key B1D3B4BD0970FCA9261E23C2170DB8E52407C71DAC06098678C0885BC7E68CCD
TRYING to decrypt u-boot env with key 86fd5557bab554172a97eaec65680745d4ec2efe723decb956a50bd9bc13e1a8
TRYING to decrypt u-boot env with key 3E4CA8114D15BFC653B2BF9519EF2B94200E30345503B125C1D0BE776698B950
WARNING: U-boot environment could not be decrypted! (the second key was the correct key)

'bootcmd' will be reset to default values.  When the HH5A starts up after
installing LEDE, the boot process will halt at the VR9# u-boot prompt.

To update 'bootcmd' variable refer to the guide on the web page hosting the
install image.

Erasing 128 Kibyte @ 0 -- 100 % complete
Press any key to continue...

REMOVING ubi volume OpenRG...

REMOVING ubi volume [-Censored-]...


Preparation completed!

Your attached USB media is mounted as a subdirectory at /tmp/mounts/

Moderator's note by Mike (Mav): Post released from Spam Filter.

[#2]

I've been running a Home Hub 5A with OpenWRT for a long time and now v20.02 is in beta test and I took a chance.

Upgrading my OpenWRT to v21.01.01-rc2 went well

I have not come across any problems, but OpenWRT has changed internally in ways which affect some settings and add-ons. The Home Hub 5A is an old enough design to be getting slow for faster connections but this has dropped some obsolete security standards and allows WPA-3.

It's a test version, but it's doing what I want. Some of the sources of a Home Hub 5A with OpenWRT already installed are already advertising this version. These packages are an OK option but I'd wait for the formal release of v20.02 

I have found this hardware/firmware to be reliable but it is a 2013 hardware design. The zeroth law applies: if it works don't fix it.

OpenWRT website 

[#3]

I took the plunge and updated OpenWrt 19.07.8 to 21.02.1 with no problems, I uploaded the .bin file via LuCI and it retained all my settings ok. I like the new dark theme.

I also gave up on using pihole as a DNS server because the SD card in a Pi can corrupt if there's a power cut, so now I just use a hosts file on the router to block ads; seems to do much the same job.

[#4]

I have had my 5a installed and working fine, almost since I came to PN, but around three weeks ago something weird happened....

One Saturday my connection began cutting on and off, by late evening it cut off and remained off. I swapped the 5a for my original PN router, which was also unable to connect, checked the phone which was still working, then waited until next morning to ring PN tech.

PN reconfigured something, gave me a new broadband password and off I went again, still using the PN router.

The problem with the PN router is it is limited to its range of internal IP's for the LAN, so I tried to reconfigure the 5a to new password. That didn't connect, so I then did a factory reset and started from scratch to reconfigure it. All seemed fine, until I got to trying to set up the wifi, where I was not able to set the wifi password - it kept on rejecting the wifi password I tried to set up, the box around the password showed as red. It refused to accept any password, no mater how simple, how complex. 

At which point I gave up on the 5a and reconfigured everything on my network from 10.???.???.???, to a range acceptable to the PN router.

My guess is that there was some sort of glitch on the line (FTTC), which damaged my 5a router and maybe the port or what ever at the box or exchange.

[#5]

Information updatre.

OvenWRT v21.02 and v19.07 have both updated to v21.02.2 and v19.07.9 which both involve security updates. There are differences between the two versions, and v21.02 can be problematic with different details.

You should be cautious transferring from v19.07 to v21.02 and using the factory reset is recommended. v21.02 makes some big internet changes, including to DSA code, which make for better operation but may be tripped up by copying configs.

Both these versions use the standard OpenWRT factory reset system, which has been very useful for me after problems. I can confirm this works, as in the linked instructions failsafe and factory reset. The relevant reset button is the recessed one on the back above the power socket.

[#6]

Hi, Can anyone advise me simply, how to go about updating my HH5A, from V19, to V21 please?

My BT HH5A stopped connecting a few years ago, I didn't spend much time investigating at the time, I just swapped back to my original PN Hub - so I'm not at all bothered, about loss of the configuration. 

I've updated other router firmware before, over the LAN, does OpenWRT update the same way please?

[#7]

https://openwrt.org/docs/guide-user/installation/generic.sysupgrade

According to the TOH https://openwrt.org/toh/start the latest supported build for the HH5A is 22.03.5

[#8]

Whilst I essentially use mine as a managed desktop switch at the moment, it does run the latest release (23.05.2).  I've updated the wiki to reflect that (albeit with the caveat that I've not personally checked the DSL modem).  If I remember correctly, it switched from using the OpenWRT in-house switch config to the newer upstream Linux kernel switch management a few releases ago (with v21 maybe?), so switch vlan config will need to be redone.

[#9]

Thanks, my router firmware is now updated to V22.03.5, and a much easier process, than I expected. I didn't realise the ability to update, was a built-in function, just like many other commercial routers.  

[#10]

I've recently moved to Openwrt, albeit not on a HH5, and I'm quite impressed. I acquired an Edgerouter ER-X and the Openwrt install was straightforward. As regards sysupgrade , I was dissappointed to discover it didn't retain any additional packages I'd installed but then I found https://openwrt.org/docs/guide-user/installation/attended.sysupgrade which works a treat!.

I'm now in the process of converting my previous router , a TPLink ER605, to Openwrt ( not quite as easy as the ER-X ) but its almost there...

[#11]

When choosing hardware to run OpenWRT it's key to pick one with components are supported by upstream Linux (i.e. how good a job the hardware vendors do working with the Linux community).  The component which is troublesome most often is the wifi radio.  Historically Atheros were doing a really good job, and the ath9k are very well supported, but this is now an old chipset, and since Qualcomm bought Atheros the newer ath10k which they developed (as well as other Qualcomm radios) aren't so good because they moved the development in-house and moved a lot of the functionality to closed-source firmware which runs on the radio (and has an ever-changing interface to Linux as well as various bugs).

Anything by Broadcom is terrible.

The best option at the moment are usually MediaTek based wifi radios (MediaTek employ the guy that wrote the ath9k driver).  You can spot well supported in the OpenWRT "Table of Hardware" by entering "MediaTek" in the filter box at the top of the "WLAN Hardware" column - https://openwrt.org/toh/views/toh_extended_all

[#12]

Having updated the firmware on my BT badged HH5, it still fails to connect, the back story is......

Long ago, it disconnected, I'm not sure whether the FTTC was lost, or the HH5A router suffered a failure, but I simply replaced it with my white Plusnet HH5, which I had kept as an original spare. That took a very long time, but it eventually connected, and has always maintained a perfect connection at full speed. When I have rebooted it since then, it has always taken a very long time to restore its connection, many minutes, such that the router itself complains it has a problem.

Could the excessively long time to restore the WAN, have some bearing on the BT HH5 with OpenWRT failure to connect? Are there some tests I can carry out? The LAN side works absolutely great, it just seems not to connect to the WAN.

[#13]

Could the excessively long time to restore the WAN, have some bearing on the BT HH5 with OpenWRT failure to connect? 

Depends what's taking the time, is it the DSL negotiation or the PPPoE ? The logs should give some idea although if its the PPPoE then you will need to enable debug logging to see very much

[#14]

You could try checking the OpenWRT debug logs, to see if it says anything about why the wan connection is failing (e.g. failure to train VDSL2 vs. authentication failures).

Otherwise, it might be best to switch back to the spare you have running the original Plusnet firmware, and open a fault ticket with Plusnet.