Understand more about my router

I understand how to use the basic of my travel router Beryl. It is time for me to get to know more about it. If you can help, I would appreciate your help.

VPN_InternetKillSwitch
What is “Internet Kill Switch”?

Applications_FileSharing
I know file sharing but just need clarification. It has the option to install. What exactly will be installed for:
“File Sharing”
“Multimedia File Sharing”

Applications_CaptivePortal
Most likely, I will not use this function but do you use it?

Applications_IGMP Snooping
Is this recommended to be ENABLED?

MoreSettings_Advanced
What is Luci and should I install it?

Thank You

If you are in a VPN and the connection will break (connection loss, attacker, …) How do you mage sure nobody will sniff/capture/read your traffic?
The Killswitch will make sure ‘No VPN, no Internet’.

There are two Filesharings.
The more easy one is DNLA. The media from the SD Card can be streamed on any DNLA capable client. Chromecast, SmartTV, … Works great.
The other one is providing a share, I Think via SMBv1. I never get ist working, bit I would never enable SMBv1 on one of my devices… I think about installing a FTP plugin (see Luci).

There are plenty of useful situations. If you have devices that needs to be in the LAN, but should not be in the Internet. If you have guests around and want to allow only some of them Internet… I’m not using it.

If you don’t know ist, leave ist to default. I would have to Google what is it for, too. The defaults in GL.iNet devices are good, in general. If you need to switch such option mostly depends on the other side of the network.

GL.iNet firmware is based on OpenWRT, an operating system for routers. It is Open Source, therefore easy to audit and a little tricky to handle.
GL.iNet is not only providing the Hardware in different form factor, from pocket size to home router. The also provide a simple interface, even my parents can handle, and a nice app.
But if you are interested in some more settings, maybe because you have a more advanced home network or just want to take a look under the hood, you are free to du so. Maybe you’d like just to install a FTP service for local filesharing, that is not provided by GL.iNet itself.

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Note that GL.iNet’s Kill Switch is intended to block traffic even if you do not Enable VPN at all, which is to force you to use VPN even to access Internet at all. This is different from commercial VPN providers’ definition of Kill Switch, which blocks traffic in case a VPN connection drops.

From @alzhao :

When you enabled vpn but connection drops, you will not have Internet. You will not have leak.

The “Internet killswitch” works if you do not Enable VPN at all. You are forcing to use VPN to access Internet.

Hope the above explains it.

In Firmware 4.0, “Kill Switch” has been changed to “Block Non-VPN Traffic”. If you do not run VPN on the router itself, then do not turn on “Kill Switch”.

I do not work for and I do not have formal association with GL.iNet

For file sharing it installs UPNP and allows access to the sd slot if it has one.

On my GL.iNet routers, the factory preinstalled Samba3 package supports both SMB1 and SMB2, so I only use SMB2. You can manually install the Samba4 package to support SMB2 and SMB3, which I believe is preinstalled in Firmware 4.0.