Cron and open WRT on a GL-AR150 router

Technical Support for Routers
1

Hi,

I just received my GL-AR150 and I’m trying to switch off the wifi at certain times of the day (and if possible certain days of the week).

I already asked my question by email before buying it, and I got the answer that it was not possible with the standard GLiNET firmware but I could be done under open wrt, using “Cron”.

I opened the default web interface and saw an tab with “Cron” and some empty space where I could enter some text.

 

My first question is : is the AR150 using open wrt by default or should I install it myself (and how) ?

My second question is : how can I use the cron tab to set the wifi off at certain times ? (I saw somewhere on the internet that it was possible by adding command lines to certain files on the router… but I cannot figure out how)

 

Thank you very much, and all the best for this new year !

2

You already opened the web UI then that means it is OpenWRT already. You are using LUCI.

Here is a link for cron jobs in Openwrt: Cron and crontab [Old OpenWrt Wiki]

You will find how to config it to run command in some time of a day. It is quite strange syntax but it is not difficult.

The command to turn wifi on and off is

wifi on

wifi down

 

3

Hi thanks for your reply.

I’ve checked your links. On the first one for example, it is mentioned a “crontab file”. Where should I find this file ?

My interface is quite simple, I just have an empty text area :

Crontab

Is it the space where I am supposed to copy all the commands such as “wifi on” ?

Thanks for your help :slight_smile:

4

I think you have to write as to crond format.

For example from the docs

# Reboot at 4:30am every day
# Note: To avoid infinite reboot loop, wait 70 seconds
# and touch a file in /etc so clock will be set
# properly to 4:31 on reboot before cron starts.
30 4 * * * sleep 70 && touch /etc/banner && reboot
5

The crontab file can be found here: /etc/crontab

edit it with vi or nano (opkg update; opkg install nano) and adhere to the crond format explained here: https://wiki.openwrt.org/doc/howto/cron

So to disable your wifi at say 11pm every day and enable it again at 6am every day, you would insert this into crontab:

# Disable wifi at 11pm and enable at 6am every day
0 23 * * * uci set wireless.@wifi-device[0].disabled=1; uci commit wireless; wifi
0 6 * * * uci set wireless.@wifi-device[0].disabled=0; uci commit wireless; wifi

 

then save (Ctrl+x followed by ‘y’ in nano // esc followed by :wq and enter in vi) and reboot the device. Done!

6

thanks to you both, I pasted the command lines in the con “area” (cf. print screen above). I will check the next hour if it did work :slight_smile:

 

Out of curiosity, how do you access to the devices files /etc/crontab ? I just have access to the webpage unter 192.168.8.1…

When you talk about “vi” or “nano”, are these are the graphical interfaces (the print screen I made above ?)

And last question, is if possible to set a time at 23pm and 30min ? Or is it just “plain” hours ?

 

Thanks again for your help ! :slight_smile:

7

You access the crontab file via ssh using a console / terminal.

vi and nano or simply editor applications with which you can edit files in a terminal environment. Sort of like MS word, but solely with rudimentary functionality and just the resemblance of a minimal graphical interface.

I’m guessing you could just paste the lines I’ve posted on the webinterface; it’s just that I don’t really know it since I haven’t used it thus far.

Yea, you can set any time and date you want. Instead of “0 23 * * *” you would insert “30 23 * * *” for 11.30pm as the first number are minutes, the second number hours, the third number the day and so on.

8

I find the free tool WinSCP invaluable for editing Linux files from Windows. Just like editing in Notepad.
vi is for masochists.

Set it up like this
File protocol: SCP
Hostname: 192.168.x.1 (use your gateway or router GUI IPaddress) port: 22
username: (same as Luci/GUI) password: (same as Luci/GUI)

Use drop-down box next to the “SAVE” button and save the ID/password if you always have exclusive access to your Windows machine. I normally save the profile with the same name as the IP address. For example for the router gateway I have in one family household which is 192.168.7.1 for the gateway address, I save the profile names as 192.168.7.1 SCP, and that’s just to set it apart from something that could be running on the router that used another protocol like FTP, etc.