Multi-AP. I don’t care about “mesh”, aka wireless uplink, personally, but I do care about the ability to do a competent multiple-AP deployment. Beyond just synchronizing configuration, I consider 802.11k, v and r to be table stakes. And I don’t mean “we use hostapd and you can, in theory, turn it on”. I mean actually deploying multiple instances, using an actual supported, documented and easy configuration, and ending up with a correctly configured network or three that actually work across APs near-optimally. And I should be able to configure and manage this all from one place. Heck, this should be the default configuration.

The fact that OpenWRT can’t do this is why I don’t use it any more. Otherwise I rather like OpenWRT.

There’s an open-source implementation of a WiFi alliance spec for Multi-AP called prpl that’s even based on OpenWRT. I’m sure it’s a mess and supports all manner of undesirable crap, but the good parts could be a good place to start.

About a month ago I would've said the automatic upgrades. But a few weeks ago I tried to upgrade, my custom setup couldnt be resolved by the image builder (probably old software installed). I decided to backup, export the uci commands too and do a clean install. Setting up was super easy from the uci commands and it turns out the rest of my setup was not essential.

Then I had to join a vlan for my new ISP. That was a tough one! Evenings of reading threads and going through documentation and there was no clear answer. In the end I asked an LLM and the instructions were so easy, it made me wonder how I missed it.

So I would join some other calls in here for common setups.

I'd like to see more collaboration between OpenWRT and SBC makers like Banana Pi. While I love FriendlyELEC and GLi.Net for creating fantastic OpenWRT hardware, I abhor the fact that I they use OpenWRT forks. As an OpenWRT user, I really want to just upload my config files and hit the ground running. Not interested in fooling around with the user interfaces of these 3rd party spinoffs.

I'd also like to see the Wiki examples supported by complete configurations. A lot of the routing examples don't show enough of what's actually required to make them work. Perhaps create complete configurations that can be applied to a virtualized OpenWRT instance?

Streamline configuring common things.

Just recenty I wanted to quickly create guest wifi on AP. After following a long guide from the official wiki, it didn't work. I probably missed something and could make it work, if I would invest some more time. But instead, I just enabled a hotspot on my phone.

Both AP and router are on OpenWRT.

I am an absolute niche but I'd love to see better x86 (well, x64) support

OpenWRT absolutely blows PFsense/OPNsense out the water in my experience. I don't need a bajillion different configuration options, I just want a tiny PC that can route packets effectively and maybe do a bit of port forwarding. But won't keel over and die when I download lots of "Linux ISO's" on my fiber internet connection

I dropped PFsense after the Wireguard debacle where they tried to force broken code into the FreeBSD kernel [1] OPNsense meanwhile ate its own EFI boot partition after a system upgrade and rendered itself unbootable. Not great!

OpenWRT on x64 feels more like a "test system" than something to run in production. Being able to upgrade-in-place until recently was "just dd the disk image to your target boot drive!" instead of having some way to properly install or upgrade the system

Despite this it also still limits itself to about 100MB for the rootfs partition. The SSD I've installed is some junk 60GB no-name brand, so I guess I'm safe as long as it can do wear-levelling. But when OpenWRT themselves have devices with gigabytes of eMMC flash supported it feels a bit restrictive for a default.

Due to being optimized for routers with tiny flash and memory everything is broken up into as many tiny pieces as possible as well. Want to run hostapd? There's about 4 different options for which hostapd you want. Want a web UI? Well install LuCI via opkg/apk. Nothing comes "batteries included" so much as it comes "individual lego pieces"

I love OpenWRT. It's built like an absolute tank and yet is simple enough to make even the most in-depth changes absolutely easy. If they were willing to push upward into more standard x86 kit they'd give PFsense and its contemporaries a serious challenge. SmoothWall, IPCop and all the others have long since died out for "free Linux router/firewall appliance"

[1] https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/03/buffer-overruns-lice...

API for central management of APs. And a server instance to do this.

Disappointing that "rust lol" is the top option in the poll, and none of the other options are about usability or utility.

No one gives a single shit what language the thing is written in. What users care about is how monstrously complex and difficult it is to use OpenWRT.

Anything more complex than changing SSID and password requires trawling through two different outdated wikis and years-old forum posts. That's if your search engine can even find something other than thousands of people asking the same question over the years.

OpenWRT needs to be usable and approachable. Any random person off the street should be able to walk up and configure their network. Even for highly technical users it's a struggle to do anything.

It does not matter one single bit whether there's rust in the codebase if it's never run because no one can figure out how to use it.

Rust is not a feature. It's an implementation detail that absolutely no one cares about and does not affect the user in any way. I'm really sick of this shit.

1. Simple Multi-WAN support in the UI. Take a look at the Fresh Tomato UI for a good example of how to do this.

2. Easy tailscale support. If my router goes wonky, I really want to be able to get to it, and there’s no guarantee that I can connect directly through my upstreams.

The core foundation of OpenWRT is very solid. It needs items that make using and maintaining OpenWRT devices easier. A way to have centralized management of multiple devices (why do I have to manually update my SSID on every AP?). Make it easy to update (like Attended Sysupgrade). Make common 'extras' easy: setup a Wireguard VPN server, connect your network/wifi to a WG VPN, use DNS over HTTPS.

I remember configuring my openwrt router wasn't fun. I'd say there's room for improvement with the UX, but it's possible it's already been improved and I don't know about it. I haven't bothered updating to the latest available versions simply because I remember the initial setup being so time consuming. I'm afraid I'll lose something with an update and have to go through the trouble again. It's my own conundrum.

I want to see de-coupled DNS and DHCP by default so I do not have to manually replace dnsmasq with odhcp and nsd.

I used to be a openwrt contributor. It was never anything fancy.

Automatic firmware updates would be my vote if i could vote.

I wish they had add "next gen firewall" to the list. Go compete with palo, fortinet, or sonicwall. Be able to have threatfeeds blocking. Having those extra features would be huge.

First thing I want to see is the ability to configure beyond the basic default settings.

Things that should not require configuring are Basic Common Criteria, WHONIX settings,

Configurable everything.

For now, I am cobbling something akin beyond Debian APT configuration:

https://github.com/egberts/easy-admin

Warning: Bash programming.

As a user, I would pay serious money for a router where I can freely use the eSIM of my choice.

Something vaguely equivalent to a liveCD boot mode? Every once in a few years I seem to take a leap with some device to see if I can convert it to OpenWRT or update it once I've done so but I'm always a bit stressed by uncertainty.

Make it less confusing to setup VLANs

Do new consumer routers still "need" aftermarket firmware?

I am surprised (hardware tokens based) luci 2fa is not on the list, I would think it is table stakes at this point.

Easy way to set it up to run as a wifi access point by default, not as a router.

Last time I tried it (~5 years ago) I think that I had trouble wrangling all the antennas to get them to cooperate on 5ghz. Maybe I'm wrong- it was awhile ago.

wrt3200acm