Gargoyle on Ubiquiti Nano HD?

Report problems and success stories with Gargoyle on various hardware platforms.

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emmexx
Posts: 25
Joined: Thu Sep 29, 2016 6:01 am

Gargoyle on Ubiquiti Nano HD?

Post by emmexx »

Did anybody try to install Gargoyle on the Ubiquiti Unifi Nano HD?
This AP is listed on the supported hardware page of OpenWRT.
I'd like to use it in a very simple environment with a Wifi Client + AP configuration. I want to use my phone hotspot for the wan connection and the Nano HD as an AP/router/firewall for my laptop and for 5 or 6 simple devices (LED lights controllers, a couple of smart plugs).

The hardware should be:
...dual-core Mediatek MT7621AT MIPS CPU clocked at 880MHz, 128MB SDRAM DDR3 (Winbond W632GG6MB-15) and 32MB of NOR flash memory (MXIC MX25L25635FMI-106); for the WiFi, the wireless access point relies on the Mediatek MT7603EN for the 2.4GHz band (802.11b/g/n) performance and on the Mediatek MT7615N for the 5GHz band (802.11ac) WiFi performance.
https://www.mbreviews.com/ubiquiti-uap- ... vs-nanohd/

Thank you
maxx

Lantis
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Location: Australia

Re: Gargoyle on Ubiquiti Nano HD?

Post by Lantis »

It’s available for download as of v1.14 as well.
https://lantisproject.com/downloads/gargoylebuilds for the latest releases
Please be respectful when posting. I do this in my free time on a volunteer basis.

emmexx
Posts: 25
Joined: Thu Sep 29, 2016 6:01 am

Re: Gargoyle on Ubiquiti Nano HD?

Post by emmexx »

Lantis wrote:
Tue Jan 16, 2024 4:44 am
It’s available for download as of v1.14 as well.
Are there any gargoyle-specific installation docs on this AP or should I follow the one's available on openwrt?

In the download section there are 2 files, gargoyle_1.14.0-ramips-mt7621-ubnt_unifi-nanohd-initramfs-kernel.bin and gargoyle_1.14.0-ramips-mt7621-ubnt_unifi-nanohd-squashfs-sysupgrade.bin. I can't find any docs describing the difference between the 2, as I understand the initramfs file is used for development and special purposes and the other is the one to be used, am I correct?

p.s. I don't know why, I never ever received any email notification when somebody replies.

ektus
Posts: 244
Joined: Sun Aug 11, 2013 2:26 am
Location: Germany

Re: Gargoyle on Ubiquiti Nano HD?

Post by ektus »

The file with "sysupgrade" in the name is for upgrading a router that's already running a Gargoyle or OpenWRT. The other one should be the one needed for flashing from stock to Gargoyle.

Lantis
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Joined: Mon Jan 05, 2015 5:33 am
Location: Australia

Re: Gargoyle on Ubiquiti Nano HD?

Post by Lantis »

Always start with the OpenWrt guide for installation. For your device there is no specific wiki page, but it does have a tech data page
https://openwrt.org/toh/hwdata/ubiquiti ... ifi_nanohd

For installation instructions it refers to the git commit
https://git.openwrt.org/?p=openwrt/open ... 25835a34f5

Cross checking on google, it looks like the instructions are good but a change in the latest OEM firmware makes it difficult.
https://forum.openwrt.org/t/installing- ... lantis1008
This forum thread has anecdotes of success and failure.

If I was you, I would follow that forum thread to get plain OpenWrt running, then sysupgrade normally to Gargoyle from there.
https://lantisproject.com/downloads/gargoylebuilds for the latest releases
Please be respectful when posting. I do this in my free time on a volunteer basis.

Lantis
Moderator
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Joined: Mon Jan 05, 2015 5:33 am
Location: Australia

Re: Gargoyle on Ubiquiti Nano HD?

Post by Lantis »

As for lack of email reply, I think there is an issue with the forum sending emails at the moment. I’ve asked Eric to look into it but have not heard anything back as yet.
https://lantisproject.com/downloads/gargoylebuilds for the latest releases
Please be respectful when posting. I do this in my free time on a volunteer basis.

emmexx
Posts: 25
Joined: Thu Sep 29, 2016 6:01 am

Re: Gargoyle on Ubiquiti Nano HD?

Post by emmexx »

Lantis wrote:
Tue Jan 16, 2024 7:31 pm
If I was you, I would follow that forum thread to get plain OpenWrt running, then sysupgrade normally to Gargoyle from there.
I hadn't thought of that, thank you.
I had read the threads you posted but wasn't sure what to do.

Thanks to everyone, help here is always very useful.

emmexx
Posts: 25
Joined: Thu Sep 29, 2016 6:01 am

Re: Gargoyle on Ubiquiti Nano HD?

Post by emmexx »

Gargoyle installation was a success after a little bit of trial and error.
I summarize here what I did.
  • I reverted the Nano HD firmware to Unifi version 3.9.27 (the link to the file is on the openwrt thread posted by Lantis).
    I had some trouble copying the file to the AP but eventually I did it. You can use scp or the fish protocol.
    If the AP is brand new, user and password are ubnt/ubnt, if you managed it with the unifi controller, you should search in the autenthication configuration of the controller what are the username and the password. The controller assigns the same user and pwd to every device it manages.
    I accessed the AP using ssh and flashed the firmware with a command like

    Code: Select all

    fwupdate.real -m BZ.mt7621.v3.9.27.8537.180317.1220.bin
  • With the new firmware in place I had to factory reset the AP to be able to connect with ssh.
  • I copied openwrt sysupgrade file openwrt-21.02.0-ramips-mt7621-ubnt_unifi-nanohd-squashfs-sysupgrade.bin using scp.
    I had to use some special option to connect to the AP using ssh and scp:

    Code: Select all

    scp -oHostKeyAlgorithms=+ssh-rsa -O openwrt-21.02.0-ramips-mt7621-ubnt_unifi-nanohd-squashfs-sysupgrade.bin ubnt@192.168.10.11:/tmp
    and

    Code: Select all

    ssh -oHostKeyAlgorithms=+ssh-rsa ubnt@192.168.10.11
    (The IP address could be different, the AP is a DHCP client when it starts)
  • I followed David Bauer instructions to install openwrt:
    https://git.openwrt.org/?p=openwrt/open ... 25835a34f5
  • After openwrt installation I accessed the AP with a browser as per openwrt instructions:
    https://openwrt.org/docs/guide-quick-st ... ough_login
  • In the menu item to upgrade opewrt I selected the gargoyle sysupgrade file downloaded from this site:
    gargoyle_1.14.0-ramips-mt7621-ubnt_unif ... pgrade.bin
  • After the successful installation I accessed 192.168.1.1 via ssh and set a password.
  • I browsed to 192.168.1.1 and configured Gargoyle.
There are some minor glitches that I'm trying to solve, e.g. the 5 Ghz AP connection is not listed in my laptop connections and the 2.4 Ghz is listed randomly, I had to force the parameters of the connection as if it has a hidden SSID.

If somebody has some question, I can try to remember what I did and answer here. I don't receive the forum notifications, so be patient.

emmexx
Posts: 25
Joined: Thu Sep 29, 2016 6:01 am

Re: Gargoyle on Ubiquiti Nano HD?

Post by emmexx »

Not sure If I can ask here or in a new thread.

I made some speed test using librespeed.org from my laptop and from my phone hotspot (that I use as WAN for Gargoyle).
The results are not what I was expecting.

Phone
  • ping = 46 ms
  • jitter = 12 ms
  • download = 39 Mbps
  • upload = 3 Mbps


laptop -> gargoyle -> phone
  • ping = 72 ms
  • jitter = 70 ms
  • download = 7 Mbps
  • upload = 3 Mbps

laptop -> phone
  • ping = 75 ms
  • jitter = 103 ms
  • download = 37 Mbps
  • upload = 2 Mbps
I was expecting that laptop -> gargoyle -> phone speed had to be slower than maximum because the wifi band is shared between the AP and the WAN wifi client, but not 1/5 slower.

What should I check? Is there a tutorial?

pythonic
Posts: 248
Joined: Mon Mar 11, 2019 5:47 am
Location: Australia

Re: Gargoyle on Ubiquiti Nano HD?

Post by pythonic »

There's some info you didn't give which would be helpful:
- what band, channel and bandwidth is your phone hotspot on?
- what band, channel and bandwidth is your router's WAN set to?
- what band, channel and bandwidth is the WiFi LAN set to?
- what does your laptop report about both the phone and router connections?
- did you enable Gargoyle's QoS? if so what settings?

If you can find a way to connect your laptop to the router via ethernet it would also be useful to check the speeds that way.

It would also be useful to sysupgrade back to OpenWrt and check the performance of the router running OpenWrt (both 22.03 as used by Gargoyle 1.14 and 23.05, possibly even 21.02). I would expect the same performance when using the same basic configuration with matching versions as I'm not aware of Gargoyle changing any core networking behaviour if QoS is not enabled. There are some performance options that OpenWrt supports that Gargoyle doesn't give easy access to (e.g. hardware and software flow offloading, receive packet steering) although for a 40Mbps connection I don't think you would be hitting the limits they help.

BTW the 5GHz radio apparently doesn't work with 160MHz channels at all due to limitations in the silicon, only 80MHz or smaller; you also need to set the regulatory domain for both radios to your country (Gargoyle normally sets this based on the initial config screen but it can be accessed in the Connection->Advanced page; OpenWrt does this differently).

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