The Personal Telco Project uses OpenWrt heavily in devices it uses to build wifi infrastructure around Portland, almost always building the firmware from source, adapted to the particular purpose. The purpose might be a standardized node, a mesh networking node, or it might be a highly adapted solution to something like a data logger application.

This play day is intended to help spread the knowledge of how Personal Telco constructs these firmwares and, more generally, the finer points of how to build OpenWrt for any particular purpose you might have. And, if you find we do it in an idiotic way, you can suggest improvements. ;-)

This is a hands-on event. Bring yourself, your curiosity, and a linux box you can build on (or a way to connect over the network to one, like me).

You can bring a device too, but this is primarily a software-focused event. If there is enough time, we could start looking at flashing problems. If there is enough interest, we could have a follow up Play Day that focuses on those issues, a kind of Linux Clinic for your router.

Come on out and have some fun!

There are many commercial wifi access point (AP) controller setups, ie a single management interface to control multiple APs. Until recently there wasn't a FLOSS method of doing this. OpenWISP (https://openwisp.org/) is a modular and programmable Open Source Network Management System for OpenWrt. In this presentation we will go over the simple installation and setup process, including connection to multiple OpenWrt access points.

Bio:

Eldo Varghese is a constant nomad that has settled in Portland as of 3 years ago. Recently turned 40 and looking for more community in his old age. Currently works in an SRE/Devops role at a small non-profit academic journal (https://plos.org). Involved in Linux community in some fashion since 2007, and have used OpenWrt for the past 15 years.

A quick overview of the build system for OpenWrt on supported devices, followed by a demonstration of installation and configuration. If you have a device you'd like help installing OpenWrt on, bring it along, perhaps we'll have time to address it. At a minimum there will be a Watchguard Firebox M300.

Russell Senior has been building OpenWrt from source for a variety of purposes since about 2006 and has considerable knowledge about the ins and outs and what-have-yous.

For background, you can watch a presentation he gave at Open Source Bridge in 2014:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZOsRAxToyiM

(some of the information in that talk from a decade ago is stale, so beware)