Review: Turris Omnia, a FOSS wifi router, NAS and Server, based on a highly improved OpenWRT, with BTRFS!
Review: Turris Omnia, a FOSS wifi router, NAS and Server, based on a highly improved OpenWRT, with BTRFS!
I dont even know how to summarize that machine 😄 It is absolutely awesome. Turris [https://www.turris.com] is a company by the czech TLD registrar CZ.NIC [https://www.nic.cz/], which is ran as a nonprofit and invests a ton in open source network software. ## The Origin This talk summarizes it well:...
Edit to add: It appears that the “mt76” Wi-Fi 6 driver is open source:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_open-source_wireless_drivers#Status
Pardon my ignorance, but what Linux device driver(s) does one use for the Wi-Fi 6 11ax 4T4R Mini PCIe Module (AW7915-NP1)? I’ve been under the (hopefully false) impression that open source drivers don’t exist for Wi-Fi modules beyond the 802.11n (A.K.A. Wi-Fi 4) standard.
Edit to add:
Maybe the driver really is open source? I’m not familiar with Linux kernel/driver foo, so I’m not really sure, but this doesn’t look like a binary blob to me: https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/stable/linux.git/tree/drivers/net/wireless/mediatek/mt76/mt7915
The code seems to be under the ISC license, which I’ve never encountered before, but it seems to me an open source license.5Interesting find! Cant help you thougj
3
That seems a bit rough combining all those into one, can't upgrade anything separately.
I'm not sure on the security/safety of combining your gateway and NAS either.
5Having a router as a NAS is pretty standard.
But you are right, it may be less secure.
0
They look very cool but IMO a bit overpriced for the proposed hardware spec?
For the same price range you can get a full n100 16GB dual ethernet 2.5gbit with a 5x2.5gbit ethernet switch and wifi extender.
But yeah those aren't FOSS, so maybe that's their selling point?
4I haven't found (while cross reading ) details about why the "highly improved" didn't make it to upstream openwrt?
3They contribute upstream, another user here is running upstream OpenWRT.
I assume they just have a heavier WebUI and a more "bloated" configuration, which wouldnt suit OpenWRT
5Ah that would make sense, thanks!
3
I've got a question! Can I run a router on just any piece of hardware, say a pi? Or do routers need special hardware for low latency translation?
3I thought the same.
I suppose they use stuff like real-time-kernels.
Depending on your needs, a typical wifi router would need
- some ARM SOC (optional) with a CPU with at least 1 GHz speed
- 500MB RAM or so
- 4GB of storage or so
- PCIe (or m.2 or miniPCIe) slots to plug in
- 1 WAN ethernet port, 1Gb/s up to 10 Gb/s
- optionally a modem for fiber or whatever you use
- 1 or more LAN ethernet ports, a bit lower speed
- a wifi card (no idea why the Omnia has 2) with support for Wifi6
- a few antennas, 1 or 2 are enough, to plug into the wifi card
- power supply
- USB or some other form to flash updates locally
The software needs to run on there, being Linux based that should be absolutely no problem. But a RPi5 afaik still has no upstream Linux support, but it also way overpowered for that job.
I totally think about building my own router, but also enjoy the service of Turris, their advanced OS that requires these high specs, their package repo and custom OS features not present in upstream OpenWRT.
2
I don't know... At this point might as well use something not designed for embedded. Debian comes to mind. Or Alpine if you want something more minimalist.
1If you want to configure all that XD I dont want to.
You say OpenWRT is not designed for embedded computers? I cant imagine why not.
0No, I said OpenWRT is designed exactly for embedded, and the use case calls for anything but.
1