Advantages and disadvantages GL-inet software comparing to OpenWrt

Hello
I'm not sure to switch from GL-inet firmware to OpenWrt.
The first question is ... Is it safe software :
https://downloads.openwrt.org/releases/23.05.5/targets/mediatek/filogic/openwrt-23.05.5-mediatek-filogic-glinet_gl-mt6000-squashfs-sysupgrade.bin ?
Is it safe to flash this soft via sysupgrade ?
Can anyone have experience with this software? I'm really curious about yours opinions.
However, I'm aware that I will lose access to the router admin page and some exclusive features.
But definitely, I want to preserve the GLDDNS service. Rest of them, are they available in Luci or their equivalent?
Reason to switch :
I'm enthusiast and have a website: gallery.wojciech.lol and other private websites in the domain wojciech.lol ( stream from cameras ) and need a static website on the router when the server is down.
My lan server is: 192.168.1.5 and the router has ports 443 and 80 forwarded. I want to display a static HTML page with announcements.

Chat GPT gave me advice How to do, achieve this :frowning:

You can configure your OpenWRT router's Nginx web server to serve a static fallback page when the LAN server (your internal server) is down or not responding on ports 80 and 443. This can be achieved by using Nginx's proxy settings combined with a failover mechanism.

I described my problem in my previous post : No access to router admin page and got the answer: reset the firmware.
if GL-inet web interface is like "sandbox" and does not allow to use/add additional fallback web pages configuration, I think that it will be better to resign from GL-inet interface and use only Luci.
Luci is based on uhttpd . it requires access to CGi-bin scripts and I browsed for a solution and answer is "do not touch Luci configuration if you want have access to Luci ".
Is it true?
But when I remove GL-init admin page I will be able to install a pure NGNIX web server and customise it to my needs? I suppose i will have a problem with open ports ( uhtpd luci server running )
or is there any other solution which can reconcile my needs and existing web admin access systems?

You will loose all GL features. Including GLDDNS.
As soon as you switch to the plain OpenWrt installation, there is no real support here anymore because you changed the whole product. If you know what you are doing, great, if not: Don't do it. Or at least be prepared that you need to learn a lot. And by a lot I mean you need to understand the entire OpenWrt OS and how it works. luci is a UI, but not user-friendly like the GL UI. And some configuration might require config files and SSH instead of just some friendly UI.

If you are not familiar with OpenWrt (or at least Linux in general): Don't do it.

You might be able to install nginx full then, yep. But is it worth it? I doubt it.

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Thanks for quick respond but I disagree about your answer about losing GLDDNS service , its based ns scripts I even know which .. :wink:
And stop threat user as idiot I just want do something and looking for advice I' dont give up . Please if you know solution ... share or show where I cand find solution
but you are partial right . I need learn learn . it take time
is here paid support ? I may pay via paypal ?

Whatever you want to do by your own scripting, feel free. But don't think that it is supported. Maybe GLDDNS will use certs in the future and then it won't work anymore.

I highly disagree with your usage case: It's a router, not a full web server, and people should not try to run things on the router it was not made for. At least not if they are not already experienced. Routers are security devices - trying with them in production environment is dangerous.

It's not about idiot, but you have a lack of knowledge, and therefore it's just not recommend to do what you would like to do. If you knew what you were doing, you would not just run opkg commands to break nginx. And you would be able to use the internal nginx as well — because it's more or less a full version of nginx; and it's not a problem to run websites there. (They will vanish after firmware updates, however). ChatGPT does not replace knowledge.

So you should get more into nginx first (nginx documentation) and then into OpenWrt ([OpenWrt Wiki] Documentation)

2 Likes

The problem is that I checked configuration of NGNIX and think twice before I performed action . and some things sholud work , should , should .. but it not work and I,m facing with consquences .. and looking for advice .
Can you tell me is it possible to setup website failover coegisting with GL-Inet software or I must switch to openWRT ? simple question.
to restore GLDDNS
do I need copy :

  • /usr/lib/gl_ddns/dynamic_dns_updater.sh
  • /etc/config/gl_ddns
  • /etc/init.d/gl_ddns
    of course I'm aware that I need adjust it as a new service in OPenWRT environment, but qestion is Am I missed something ?

Between the gl software and plain openwrt:

With gl software:

  • setting up a repeater is really easy
  • setting up a vpn client or server is also much easier.
  • theres alot of options which work like a profile, if you compare it to OpenWrt you must do much more steps for the exact same effort, including ssh'ing to access stubby config.

The downside:

  • the plugins are often a little older than openwrts
  • when you become more technical you may want more or even go into vlans or have advanced split routing which is impossible with the gl software / well technically you can but then you are on your own bruteforcing against the changes, you will realize openwrt is much better then.

With OpenWrt:

  • you have much more freedom, you can make things as complex as you want.

  • often has the latest updates and changes also on wireless, although it is important to note: you cannot get openwrt help on gl firmware, they have no control what private changes/patches have changed the firmware.

  • you can use advanced split routing, you can google for openwrt pbr.

The downside:

  • sometimes big updates have a longer impact on stability and minimum flash size requirement, unfortunately that is also how the nature of open source sometimes act, on the bright side if you resort only to releases it will work out better, often the most trouble is dealt within the snapshots once when it goes bad it goes bad :yum:

  • things like repeater don't exists, it is called STA connection.

  • because you get so much freedom, you get also alot more options, sometimes too much which then can break something, for beginners it can be very overwhelming.

You might as well buy a small x86 box to be your gateway and then install whatever you want on it.

Freebsd, openbsd, netbsd, pfsense, opnsense, ddwrt, Openwrt, tomato64, even Debian and Gentoo can run as gateway routers.

You can use the MT6000 as an AP.

You're not stuck with GLDDNS, there's other options like https://freedns.afraid.org/ and https://desec.io/ to name two options

3 Likes

I have small pc as server but sometimes it's off I need separate website. And router works 24 hours. It's more convenient to have failover or even part of website. I don't want to register in free ddns server. My experience is : they are not reliable. I had used duckdns and many service issues. Decided to buy cheap domain and use it. Much more reliable . When router manufacturer provide ddns why do not use it? It should be reliable and exist as long as company exists

Ever thought about using a small SBC for your purpose? Like a RPi, or an Odroid C4. Much more flexible, hardly use any power, and you can pretty much do whatever you want.

Also, I'm not sure why you want to use a dynamic dns service if you've got your own domain.

1 Like

What IS website „failover“ in your experiment? In the other thread you said you want to show a website when WAN is down. This isn't possible due to many reasons and needs advanced scripting which makes it pretty useless.

Website failover mean When webserver on lan side is down. At cron I have shutdown command at 1 am. Server is turned on when return from work at 5pm when server turned off router should serve website "server_down. html" in future I plan add some emergency services but I don't want to allow access to router website mean luci or admin page which should be available only on lan interface.
I do not plan add php and database support but I know that it's possible. It should serve only pure html emergency due to security concerns

In that case just go with nginx and use the directive NGINX Reverse Proxy | NGINX Documentation + How To Configure Nginx to Use Custom Error Pages on Ubuntu 22.04 | DigitalOcean for a failover website based on error code 502

This is exactly what i have done with it. Wds ap, use other three band routers, older wifi 5 but three band, and create nice wifi roaming with them. It works much better then any "wifi mesh system" that I tried. And yeah i put on my gl-mt6000 custom openwrt firmware, not glinet.