"Stability: There have been observations of poor stability with ddwrt on r7000 (observed with builds from June 2022). Various users reported kernel crashes and reboots within a week or two of uptime. It is possible that the issue is with SFE/CTF, but without them gigabit speeds are impossible. Until ddwrt stability improves there are 3 solutions:
1) Load older (pre 2022) builds until a stable build is found.
2) Disable CTF/SFE and observe stability (uptime of 1 month + without crashes is considered stable). This is only advisable with connections up to 500 Megabit, faster connections may get throttled.
3) Load alternate firmware. FreshTomato, as of build 2022.3 supports CTF (Advanced -> Miscellaneous) and has been tested to have multi month uptime without any issues. This is likely due to FreshTomato utilizing same linux kernel as Netgear, which is more compatible with CTF."
Is this still accurate?
I have searched the forum and all I am finding on these alleged crashes are a bunch of threads from people who have updated firmware, NOT done a factory reset after updating, then reporting "bunch of crashes" which then disappear after factory reset.
I've run the March 2022 firmware on the R7000 with FA/CTF enabled no issues I can tell but I haven't done a lot of testing. Kernel version seems to be same as from a year earlier but then seems to be changing in later builds.
The warning seems a bit speculative and does NOT list what the author thinks is the affected kernels, does not list any forum discussion, and just sort of hand-waves to say "use a pre 2022 build" even though several months of 2022 use the same exact kernel as used in 2021. It also makes a very odd claim:
"This is likely due to FreshTomato utilizing same linux kernel as Netgear, which is more compatible with CTF."
What exactly does "the same linux kernel as Netgear" even mean?
I have 2 R7000's and 1 R7000p on my test bench and I'd like to take a look at this but before spending more time on it, I want to know if this is a known bug or issue that has already been discussed and I'm just missing the thread.
Joined: 18 Mar 2014 Posts: 12834 Location: Netherlands
Posted: Mon Oct 31, 2022 7:05 Post subject:
The R7000 is Broadcom Northstar just like a lot of other very popular routers.
If there would be problems with this platform I would expect the forum to explode.
My Netgear R6400 v2 has been up for weeks running recent builds.
My R7000 is running also with CTF+FA enabled but is used as a test bed, so seldom runs longer than a week and is lightly used but has no problems, I just upgraded to alpha build 50755.
About CTF+FA and Kernel modules, Fresh Tomato and Netgear stock are stuck on Kernel 2.6, DDWRT upgraded to Kernel 4.4 already some time ago
I regularly look in the build threads and have not seen anything out of the ordinary.
Joined: 18 Mar 2014 Posts: 12834 Location: Netherlands
Posted: Mon Oct 31, 2022 18:08 Post subject:
Is this his (Duxa's) writing in the wiki?:
Quote:
3) Load alternate firmware. FreshTomato, as of build 2022.3 supports CTF (Advanced -> Miscellaneous) and has been tested to have multi month uptime without any issues. This is likely due to FreshTomato utilizing same linux kernel as Netgear, which is more compatible with CTF.
Joined: 31 Jul 2021 Posts: 2146 Location: All over YOUR webs
Posted: Mon Oct 31, 2022 18:50 Post subject: Re: Is the warning on the R7000 crashes for June 2022 correc
tedm wrote:
What exactly does "the same linux kernel as Netgear" even mean?
Means kernel 2.6, But as already said the person who made the edits knows not the technical aspects as does no one else who hasn't read the closed source code, which is very few people have, unless you binwalk the modules and know what the hell you're reading.
CTF and all related crap bypass some key parts if netfilter kernel crap, as long as newer kernels netfilter remains valid for newer kernels and braocodms patches to netfilter exist then it should work in theory. I cant really say with any certainly since I only have tested regular CTF (for a laugh and because it improves br0 performance and thus any wifi interfaces under it) and never had any such crashes.
My router is pretty much identical to the r7000 as its a RT-AC68U except the netgear CFE is different the hw however is tit for tat.
The included ctf.o / ctf.ko in stock / FreshTomato is compiled with an older Linux 2.6 uClibc toolchain (FT actually now has a patched uClibc toolchain to build the firmware images), whereas the module included in DD-WRT is compiled against the currently-used Linux 4.4.302-st25 kernel with a musl toolchain, most likely. _________________ "Life is but a fleeting moment, a vapor that vanishes quickly; All is vanity"
Contribute To DD-WRT Pogo - A minimal level of ability is expected and needed... DD-WRT Releases 2023 (PolitePol)
DD-WRT Releases 2023 (RSS Everything)
----------------------
Linux User #377467 counter.li.org / linuxcounter.net
Thanks, I made a quick update to the R7000 installation wiki referring to this thread.
I won't have time to do uptime testing until December but I'll do it then and post more updates to the install wiki for the r7000
FreshTomato does have some support for certain older MIPS devices that dd-wrt does not support so for that reason I have used it on some devices.
It does appear that K26 support is waning in the latest dd-wrt versions, I noticed for example all later year K26 builds this year are mini only. This is a concern with older linksys "ashtray" routers, for example. I use those for client bridges since the client bridge code disappeared for most devices some time ago.
Joined: 18 Mar 2014 Posts: 12834 Location: Netherlands
Posted: Thu Nov 03, 2022 6:48 Post subject:
tedm wrote:
Thanks, I made a quick update to the R7000 installation wiki referring to this thread.
I won't have time to do uptime testing until December but I'll do it then and post more updates to the install wiki for the r7000
FreshTomato does have some support for certain older MIPS devices that dd-wrt does not support so for that reason I have used it on some devices.
It does appear that K26 support is waning in the latest dd-wrt versions, I noticed for example all later year K26 builds this year are mini only. This is a concern with older linksys "ashtray" routers, for example. I use those for client bridges since the client bridge code disappeared for most devices some time ago.
There certainly is still support for K2.6 but there are not many users upgrading to newer builds and reporting in the build threads if they do and signal problems they are addressed.
About 2 months ago a user of an Linksys E1000 reported DNSMasq problems after an upgrade of DNSmasq.
It turned out DNSMasq was no longer backwards compatible with K2.6 and BS spend most of a day backporting and fixing this. _________________ Routers:Netgear R7000, R6400v1, R6400v2, EA6900 (XvortexCFE), E2000, E1200v1, WRT54GS v1.
Install guide R6400v2, R6700v3,XR300:https://forum.dd-wrt.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=316399 Install guide R7800/XR500:https://forum.dd-wrt.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=320614 Forum Guide Lines (important read):https://forum.dd-wrt.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=324087
Joined: 08 May 2018 Posts: 14125 Location: Texas, USA
Posted: Thu Nov 03, 2022 15:51 Post subject:
tedm wrote:
Thanks, I made a quick update to the R7000 installation wiki referring to this thread.
I won't have time to do uptime testing until December but I'll do it then and post more updates to the install wiki for the r7000
Thanks for adding that. Keep in mind, whatever you do may or may not make it to final revision of that device wiki. All device wikis will be standardized at some point.
tedm wrote:
FreshTomato does have some support for certain older MIPS devices that dd-wrt does not support so for that reason I have used it on some devices.
DD-WRT Official and FreshTomato Official don't support (Broadcom) devices supported "unofficially", and as Forrest would say, "That's all I'm gonna say about tha-at." I've actually added a branch specifically to re-support K24 firmware images in FreshTomato for MIPSR1. That was a shitload of work, so was fixing the K24 toolchain.
tedm wrote:
It does appear that K26 support is waning in the latest dd-wrt versions, I noticed for example all later year K26 builds this year are mini only. This is a concern with older linksys "ashtray" routers, for example. I use those for client bridges since the client bridge code disappeared for most devices some time ago.