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openwrt-ppe-nss

OpenWrt main with hardware offload for Qualcomm IPQ807x and IPQ60xx routers in the qualcommax target, such as the Xiaomi AX3600, Redmi AX6, Linksys MX4300 and MR7350, Dynalink DL-WRX36 and GL.iNet GL-AX1800.

The default branch, ppe-nss, runs OpenWrt's upstream qca_edma and qca_ppe ethernet and DSA drivers on kernel 6.18. It uses only in-kernel offload interfaces. There is no ECM, no NSS qdisc and no vendor NSS host driver.

Two engines do the work:

• The PPE, the packet engine in the SoC's switch, forwards wired traffic. qca_ppe programs it from the fw4 flowtable, switchdev and tc.
• The NSS cores run the Wi-Fi data path. nss-wifi-drv, a small host driver, boots the NSS firmware and hands it the ath11k rings.

What is offloaded

Traffic	Engine	Kernel interface
Routed IPv4/IPv6, NAT, PPPoE, 802.1Q VLAN	PPE	fw4 flowtable (flow_offloading_hw)
Bridging, VLAN filtering, multicast snooping	PPE	switchdev
SQM shaping and queue classes	PPE	tc qdisc and flower offload, DCB
Wi-Fi data path of the SoC radios	NSS	nss-wifi-drv, ath11k
Routed and bridged flows with a Wi-Fi end	NSS	fw4 flowtable, bridge conntrack
Routed multicast to Wi-Fi	NSS	kernel multicast routing (MFC)
Routed flows over a cellular modem (raw-IP device)	NSS	fw4 flowtable

Pages

• Installing and Upgrading: which image to take, first install, moving from the old edma-nss images.
• Hardware Support: boards, image groups and test status.
• Wired Offload: the PPE, how to turn it on and how to check it.
• Wi-Fi Offload: the NSS Wi-Fi path, how to turn it off, and mesh.
• SQM and QoS: hw_ppe.qos and the PPE QoS classifiers.
• Multicast and IPTV: snooping, routed multicast, multicast to Wi-Fi.
• Building: building the images yourself.
• Reporting Bugs: what to collect before you report.
• Limitations: what is not offloaded or not tested.
• FAQ: questions from the forum thread.

Branches

Branch	Contents
ppe-nss	The default. ppe-flow-offload plus nss-wifi-drv and the ath11k patches for the NSS Wi-Fi path.
ppe-flow-offload	OpenWrt main plus the PPE flowtable, tc and switchdev offload (openwrt/openwrt#24806). No NSS.
nss-edma-rework	Archived. The vendor NSS stack (qca-nss-drv, ECM, NSS qdiscs). Final state: tag archive/nss-edma-rework-final.

The only package taken from the nss-packages feed (branch edma-nss) is nss-firmware. Prebuilt images come from Qualcommax_NSS_Builder.

The pages for the archived vendor stack were removed. They remain in the wiki history.