FCC compliance with open source: Running OpenWrt in a VM on top of the L4Re microhypervisor
Channel: Adjy Leak
Date: 13/10/2016

In 2014, the FCC created a rule that ordered Wifi router manufacturers to prevent misconfiguration of, and tampering with, the router's Wifi configuration. This controversial rule raised many concerns, including with respect to its compatibility with open-source router OSes such as OpenWrt.

This environment prompted the prpl Foundation to sponsor a venturesome experiment: What would it take to put OpenWrt into a virtual machine on a typical Wifi-router platform, isolating it from the Wifi driver and configuration to comply with FCC's rules? The prpl Foundation set out to combine its OpenWrt expertise with its Security engineering subgroup. prpl member Kernkonzept was just about to release its new MIPS port of its L4Re microhypervisor as the first open-source hypervisor for MIPS' new VZ virtualization extensions. As MIPS has been the dominant architecture for Wifi router devices, this appeared to be a good fit.

In this talk, we'll take you along for the ride that ensued. We'll demonstrate OpenWrt running in a virtual machine on top of the L4Re microhypervisor, and show you that good, the bad, and the ugly. We will also highlight other use cases for router virtualization besides the FCC's.

Michael Hohmuth, Kernkonzept
OpenWrt Summit 2016 - Berlin