Van Tech Corner ： OpenWRT – NanoPi R5S Overview & Initial Setup
The NanoPi R5S is the successor of the NanoPi R4S. It is powered by the Rockchip RK3568B2 SoC with 4 cores and the clock can go up to 2GHz. The R5S has 2 models with 2GB and 4GB of LPDDR4x RAM. Regardless of the model, you will have 8GB onboard eMMC storage to install the OS.
What makes this router stand out is the 2 x 2.5G network ports (PCIe) and the M.2 NVME slot. While the R4S which can only be used in headless mode, the R5S is now having a HDMI port for video output. Besides, you will have two USB 3.2 Gen 1 ports to connect external devices.
The USB type C port had been upgraded to supports PD, 5V/9V/12V input.
The router is shipped with FriendlyWRT pre-installed. It is running OpenWRT version 22.03 RC2 and having kernel version 5.10.66
As I tested, Software Offloading had been enabled by default and it is causing problems with throughput & SQM. You may need to take a look at it or maybe update the firmware to a newer version and see if the problem is fixed.
Video timeframe:
00:00 – NanoPi R5S Overview & Features Highlight
01:13 – Metallic CNC Casing for NanoPi R5S
01:28 – NanoPi R5S I/O & Connector Overview
02:57 – Opening the R5S Case to access the M.2 NVME Slot
03:43 – NanoPi R5S PCB – Chipset & Interfaces
04:47 – Connect Ethernet cables & Power on the R5S
05:00 – Login to R5S LuCI Web Interface
06:04 – Setup Internet – PPPoE with VLAN
07:15 – Login to the R5S via SSH
07:55 – Fixing opkg update / Packages Update failed
08:45 – Speedtest with Software Offloading Enabled (Lower Throughput)
09:13 – Speedtest with Software Offloading Enabled (Higher Throughput)
09:52 – iperf3 Throughput Test (Router to PC – 2.5G LAN)
Resources:
– The NanoPi R5S – https://www.friendlyelec.com/index.php?route=product/product&path=69&product_id=287
– NanoPi R5S Wiki & Instruction – https://wiki.friendlyelec.com/wiki/index.php/NanoPi_R5S
Finally, special thanks to FriendlyElec/NanoPi team for sending me this device (for reviewing, without return). It was a great device with 2.5G Ethernet that supports OpenWRT (with some small software/OS problems). I hope it will be accepted by the community and we may have the device officially supported by openwrt.org.
Thanks for watching and see you in the next video!
openwrt