I hear you, the goal is to make travel router out of my Pi.
I know. But if you like to compare things, better to compare DietPi with RPi OS instead of OpenWRT.
I installed quickly OpenWRT and configured a connection to my home WiFi, typing this post through the Pi router:
The speeds are now reflecting your linked report:
Running again the test, results:
I’ll setup a routed client with masquerade to emulate the same setup I did with RaspAP.
After that, I’ll install the default Raspberry Pi OS + RaspAP and report back what speeds I get. Then we will get real stats, for all 3 cases.
On default Raspberry Pi, I get worst results with RaspAP.
I’ll do one more test, with an additional USB WiFi. So far OpenWRT is the only OS performing adequately.
traffic between the travel router and the host locations wifi will be unsecure (aka someone can intercept packets), or do you want the travel router to VPN into another VPN service that has more speed than your home network?
Without some sort of encrypted tunnel between the travel router and whatever endpoint, there is a security risk.
I did a quick Google for VPN-Secured Travel Router I found a few, one with OpenWRT
How to Turn a Raspberry Pi Into a VPN-Secured Travel Router (makeuseof.com)
And the other with linux
How to use your Raspberry Pi as a VPN router - The Pi
Raspberry Pi VPN Travel Router (projects-raspberry.com)
Biggest thing is there must be two wifi cards, one to connect to the host location wifi signal, the other to be the AP for your devices
I agree, there is no way around that. Well, RaspAP has an option to use one WiFi card only, but I have a feeling that is why I deal with speed issues. I’ll use WireGuard to secure the traffic.
Yes, due to repeating of the signal on the single card, speeds will be cut in 1/2 at least, more so with overhead and possible interference (not to mention it coupled with a somewhat anemic processor the RPi has)
I purchased on AliExpress a ComFast CF-926AC (MT7612U chip with in-kernel 4.19+ drivers) and ComFast CF-953AX (MT7921AU chip with in-kernel 5.19+ drivers) for later upgrades. Based on my extensive research, these are excellent USB3 WiFi adapters to run under Debian, you don’t need to mess with firmware drivers. I will know for sure when I test them.
Right now Debian Bullseye runs on 5.15 kernel, soon to be upgraded to 5.19, hopefully next year:
$ uname -a
Linux atlas.lan 5.15.61-v8+ #1579 SMP PREEMPT Fri Aug 26 11:16:44 BST 2022 aarch64 GNU/Linux
I will report back the results in the beginning of November, when I receive the products. The idea is to use CF-926AC until the kernel is upgraded. Or I can end-up using both USB adapters on same Pi 4B, as built-in WiFi caps me at 100mbps.
Intereating that RaspAP option to be client and AP at the same time. I didn’t know this is possible. Of course speeds are limited for AP clients but quite a nice alternative to 2 WiFi adapters or even WiFi + Ethernet. Probably we can adapt this as DietPi WiFi Hotspot option as well 
.
Would such a setup satisfy people or cause more frustration?
I think it will useful to add RaspAP to DietPi. There is one small conflict with Pihole, but this can be easily fixed. Because current RaspAP setup deletes the hole /var/www/html directory, if you have Pihole installed, it will wipe-out the soft links. Something to keep in mind.
already on our wish list DietPi-Software | RaspAP: WiFi access point web interface · Issue #2813 · MichaIng/DietPi · GitHub
I received today the ComFast CF-953AX WiFi6 adapter. In order to use it with an ethernet cable, I had to also purchase a 90 degrees (up) USB3 connector:
Unfortunately is not detected (yet) because I need a kernel 5.19+. I’ll update the thread when I get the second model. If anyone knows a way to update the kernel, please let me know, so I can test ahead the WiFi6 adapter.
Nope, there is no RPI kernel 5.19 available as of now GitHub - raspberrypi/rpi-firmware at next
Even the next branch is still on 5.15. I guess you need to wait on RPi developer to work on it.
Yeah, probably available on next Debian release.
See if there is Ndiswrapper
How to Install a Wireless Card in Linux Using Windows Drivers (howtogeek.com)
(https://ndiswrapper.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Main_Page)
Also found this
COMFAST CF-953AX - chipset: mt7921au · Discussion #88 · morrownr/USB-WiFi · GitHub
I received the ComFast CF-926AC V2 adapter, it is larger and automatically detected by OS, no built-in Bluetooth:
# inxi -EN
Network: Device-1: MediaTek MT7612U 802.11a/b/g/n/ac Wireless Adapter type: USB driver: mt76x2u
Bluetooth: Message: No Bluetooth data was found.
wlan1 shows DOWN on a clean installation:
3: wlan0: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 1500 qdisc pfifo_fast state UP group default qlen 1000
link/ether e4:5f:01:a0:55:37 brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
inet 192.168.2.16/27 brd 192.168.2.31 scope global dynamic noprefixroute wlan0
valid_lft 82721sec preferred_lft 71921sec
inet6 fd40:63:9937:443b:2c87:3cfc:aec:6dce/64 scope global dynamic mngtmpaddr noprefixroute
valid_lft 1667sec preferred_lft 1667sec
inet6 fe80::672:c823:8d6d:765/64 scope link
valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever
11: wlan1: <NO-CARRIER,BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP> mtu 1500 qdisc noqueue state DOWN group default qlen 1000
link/ether e0:e1:a9:17:37:2f brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
ComFast CF-953AX not detected by OS, with built-in Bluetooth:
# inxi -EN
Network: Message: No ARM data found for this feature.
Bluetooth: Device-1: MediaTek Wireless_Device type: USB driver: btusb
Report: ID: hci1 state: down init running address: 00:00:00:00:00:00
Report-ID: hci0 state: up running bt-v: 3.0 address: E4:5F:01:A0:55:38
First thing is to learn how I can enable wlan1 in DietPi? I prefer to get instructions, since we are dealing with a customized Debian OS.
wlan1 would need to be configured manually. We don’t have a tool who could do that. But usually RaspAP should do that?
Alternative to RaspAP, once you setup wlan0 as Internet facing adapter, follow the WiFi Hotspot install steps in dietpi-software, tweaked for WiFi 4 and 5 (but 2.4 GHz):
apt install hostapd isc-dhcp-server iptables
systemctl unmask hostapd
# DHCP server settings
cat << '_EOF_' > /etc/dhcp/dhcpd.conf
ddns-update-style none;
default-lease-time 600;
max-lease-time 7200;
authoritative;
log-facility local7;
subnet 192.168.42.0 netmask 255.255.255.0 {
range 192.168.42.10 192.168.42.50;
option broadcast-address 192.168.42.255;
option routers 192.168.42.1;
option domain-name "local";
option domain-name-servers 9.9.9.9, 149.112.112.112;
}
_EOF_
echo 'INTERFACESv4="wlan1"' > /etc/default/isc-dhcp-server
# Network interface
cat << '_EOF_' > /etc/network/interfaces.d/wlan1.conf
allow-hotplug wlan1
iface wlan1 inet static
address 192.168.42.1/24
wireless-power off
# iptables NAT rules
up iptables-restore < /etc/iptables.ipv4.nat
up ip6tables-restore < /etc/iptables.ipv6.nat
_EOF_
ip a add 192.168.42.1 dev wlan1
# hostapd
cat << '_EOF_' > /etc/hostapd/hostapd.conf
interface=wlan1
driver=nl80211
ssid=yourSSID
hw_mode=g
ieee80211n=1
ieee80211ac=1
wmm_enabled=1
channel=0
macaddr_acl=0
auth_algs=1
ignore_broadcast_ssid=0
wpa=2
wpa_passphrase=yourPassword
wpa_key_mgmt=WPA-PSK
wpa_pairwise=TKIP
rsn_pairwise=CCMP
_EOF_
chmod 0600 /etc/hostapd/hostapd.conf
echo 'DAEMON_CONF="/etc/hostapd/hostapd.conf"' > /etc/default/hostapd
# iptables NAT rules
iptables -t nat -A POSTROUTING -s 192.168.42.0/24 -o wlan0 -j MASQUERADE
iptables -A FORWARD -i wlan0 -o wlan1 -m state --state RELATED,ESTABLISHED -j ACCEPT
iptables -A FORWARD -i wlan1 -o wlan0 -j ACCEPT
ip6tables -t nat -A POSTROUTING -o wlan0 -j MASQUERADE
ip6tables -A FORWARD -i wlan0 -o wlan1 -m state --state RELATED,ESTABLISHED -j ACCEPT
ip6tables -A FORWARD -i wlan1 -o wlan0 -j ACCEPT
# Save iptables rules, applied via /etc/network/interfaces
iptables-save > /etc/iptables.ipv4.nat
ip6tables-save > /etc/iptables.ipv6.nat
ifup wlan1
systemctl restart hostapd isc-dhcp-server
2 Likes