Motivation

I wanted to assign a DNS server to my network devices via DHCP to support a network-wide ad blocker. Google WiFi stock software does not provide a way to do this. You can point the upstream DNS server to your ad blocker, but you won’t get client-specific statistics.

Installation of OpenWrt

I made one router with WiFi and one “dumb AP”, with fast roaming between them.

I found these sites useful:

• OpenWrt instructions
• Somebody’s step-by-step guide
• Somebody’s notes
• How to set up a dumb AP
• Video on how to set up fast roaming

Results

Installation was pretty easy. The Google OnHub Recovery Utility UI says you need an 8GB flash drive. I used a 2 GB and it was fine. The first flash drive I used didn’t work so I tried a different one.

The new firmware is working fine. I set the DNS server via DHCP like I wanted. Fast WiFi handoff works great: as good as it did with the stock Google WiFi firmware.

The one feature I miss is long-term reporting of traffic statistics for visualization. All I really want right now is total bytes up and total bytes down per month. I found some ways to add this, but they look a bit involved to set up and I’ve had enough of this project for now. Maybe I’ll add it later.