Re:OpenWrt 21.02.0 Released
by daneel_w on Saturday September 04, 2021 @09:19PM
(#28420901)
I've happily been running OpenWRT on a $30 Wi-Fi access point (Netgear EX3700) for 3 years now, after I ultimately got tired of the unideal situation with OpenBSD's Wi-Fi support/performance. I run the access point in bridged mode as a wireless VLAN extension for the unmanaged Ethernet switch it's plugged into. Never gone quirky on me despite months of uptime, and has no problems saturating 100 Mbit/s.
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I personally run an OpenWRT Wi-Fi access point and OpenBSD router. The max download speed I get from my ISP is 350Mbps and the router is able to handle that. But yes, WiFi on OpenBSD is something which is not really a good option right now.
Just checked on your model mentioned.
Seems to be a "Range Extender".
Does it still function as Router with OpenWRT?
Consumer network devices do routing in software (with a few exceptions), so the OEM's intentions for whether a device should be a router, access point, or range extender are meaningless when the software has been replaced with OpenWRT. At worst, you end up with a router that has an inconvenient number of interfaces.
A range extender may not have an Ethernet port labeled "WAN", but that doesn't prevent you from using one of its "LAN" ports for that purpose. Likewise, if you want to take a device sold as a router and use it only as an extra access point within your network, you can repurpose its WAN port as an extra LAN port, or go for more complex network configurations where you use the router's built-in switch as a VLAN-capable managed switch.
It's only a range extender by Netgear's firmware design. The actual device is a bog standard SoC with Wi-Fi + Ethernet, so OpenWRT can turn it into anything, incl. a wireless router directly connected to WAN if need be. In my case I don't run it as a router, but as a wireless-to-Ethernet bridge into the rest of my LAN.