My almost bricked openwrt fiasco. - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: msuffidy
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: December 03, 2020, 03:40:44 am
content: Short synopsis is an openwrt with stupid packet rules may produce a bricked router.I got a $15 Asus RT-N56U gigabit router off the internet today. I needed it ideally to share an iphone usb network connection. So I looked at the ASUS stuff and just said, this SUCKS. I got it to use openwrt which I had downloaded. After a while I got it sharing through the internet wirelessly to the router, and then I said why not let's try to make the usb thing work.https://openwrt.org/docs/guide-user/network/wan/smartphone.usb.tetheringAnd it worked. So then I wanted to make it so the phone could access the wireless in the router so I could share stuff off my computer for it to download. I had an issue with the phone and the lan of some sort. I started messing with all sort of settings and then the internet stopped working for all the computers in the room. Also I mistook the WAN(wide area Network) for Wireless LAN, and it messed things up. So then I concluded inside the box the net was ok just it wasn't getting out. So eventually I set certain packet rules and I was no longer able to access the router by ethernet. I pressed the reset button and it seemed to start again, but the settings I think were the same. I would have to read more if there is a connection of any sort between openwrt and reset buttons.Anyway it was bricked at that point. Desperately I did the flash procedure: You press reset. You hold it in and plug it in. Release. A LED flashes slowly. You use tftp to ftp in the bin file. AND IT WAS BACK. Some more research and what really you have to do is consider which side of the WAN or LAN you are as a grouping, and then things forward properly. Fffew. I am sending this back through it now.Here is some photoshttps://www.facebook.com/matthew.suffidy.1/posts/185086006600259****Update***ok I admit I did it again messing with bridging and virtual channels. It seemed the switch in that case brought it back to the flash state and that is called a 'factory reset'. So the button seemed to work on some occasions and it was actually designed that way. I wanted to start from fresh and re flashed it. I still am a bit confused about virtual channels and bridging, but I just kept the bridging to a minimum eth0->vlan0+wlan0****Update***Actually I think it works more like this. A packet originating from the lan does not usually go out the wireless unless you bridge them. So the other way there is a place to say what wireless profiles access what interfaces. So that is the way it works backwards. I think the problem may be if you try to reverse bridge it makes an endless loop of more packets like two mirrors...

author: rcbuck
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: December 05, 2020, 11:02:34 pm
content: Connect a cable from a LAN port on your current router to the LAN port on the RT-N56U. Do not use the WAN port on the RT-N56U. The RT-N56U will then give out IP addresses from you local LAN so anything connecting via wireless will be able to see the devices on the local LAN.

author: msuffidy
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: December 24, 2020, 05:22:28 pm
content: Actually the way I set it up in the end was to make the iphone usb link the WAN and the physical WAN is not brought up. When it was locked up it was by making nonsensical TCP/IP settings that disallowed access through IP. Anyway it has been working GREAT for a month and I never log back into it now.