My network runs behind a Ubiquiti UDM Pro for routing, firewall, and VLAN management. The UDM Pro's built-in WiFi isn't great for coverage in my place, so I added a dedicated access point running OpenWRT.
The setup is called a "dumb AP": the access point handles WiFi only, with no routing, NAT, or DHCP of its own. All of that stays on the UDM Pro.
Why OpenWRT
Commercial access point firmware is almost always a step behind on features, security patches, and driver quality. OpenWRT puts you on current Linux drivers and gives you full control over every setting, without waiting for the manufacturer to ship an update.
The hardware I went with: Linksys E8450 (also sold as Belkin RT3200). It's a WiFi 6 router with a MediaTek MT7622 chip that OpenWRT supports well. Cheap, fast, and the community has proper production-quality firmware for it.
Installing OpenWRT on the E8450
Steps:
- From the E8450 device page, follow the link to the UBI installer GitHub
- From the releases page, download both the signed recovery image and the sysupgrade image
- Flash the recovery image via the stock firmware's update page
- SSH into the router (default
[email protected], no password) and install LuCI:opkg update && opkg install luci
After this, you have a fully functional OpenWRT router. The next step is converting it to dumb AP mode.
The dumb AP configuration
The most important thing, which is barely mentioned in the official docs and is the source of most "it's not working" questions:
The cable from your upstream router goes into a LAN port, not the WAN port.
The WAN port stays unused. You're not routing, you're bridging. Plug the UDM Pro's downstream into any of the E8450's LAN ports.
Then in LuCI:
- Set a static IP for the AP within your network range (e.g.
192.168.1.2if your subnet is192.168.1.x) - Set the gateway to your UDM Pro's IP
- Set DNS to your DNS server (mine points at Pi-hole)
- Disable DHCP on the LAN interface, the UDM Pro handles DHCP
- Delete or ignore the WAN interface, it's unused
The AP now passes all traffic to the UDM Pro, which handles routing, DHCP, and DNS. Clients connected to the AP get IPs from the UDM Pro's pool. VLANs configured on the UDM Pro carry through to the AP correctly over the tagged trunk port.
WiFi configuration
The E8450 supports WiFi 6 (AX). In LuCI → Network → Wireless:
- Set country code to US (or your actual country, as this affects power limits and channel availability)
- 2.4GHz: AX+N mode for broad compatibility
- 5GHz: AX mode for max throughput
- Encryption: WPA2 minimum; WPA3 where your devices support it
I use the same SSIDs as the UDM Pro's built-in radios so devices can roam transparently between the AP and the router's own radio.
What I keep in the config backup
OpenWRT has a built-in backup/restore function. I keep config backups in the notes alongside the router settings:
backup-Routie-2025-06-07.tar.gz: main APbackup-Guestie-2025-06-07.tar.gz: guest AP (same setup, different SSID and VLAN)
After a firmware upgrade, restoring from backup gets the AP back to a working state in under a minute.
Why not Ubiquiti's own APs
I looked at UniFi APs for this. They're good hardware. But they require running UniFi Network Controller somewhere (either a Cloud Key, a Dream Machine, or a self-hosted instance) to manage. I already have a UDM Pro handling the network. Adding Controller management for the APs is more infrastructure overhead than a standalone OpenWRT AP.
The UDM Pro + OpenWRT AP combination is a bit of a hybrid, but it works cleanly: the UDM handles everything it's good at (firewall, routing, VLANs, threat management), and the OpenWRT AP handles WiFi with no additional management plane.