How to Flash OPENWRT Firmware on Your Router

We all know that mobile operating systems are divided into three main categories, namely: the IOS operating system led by Apple the Windows Phone 7 (abbreviated as WP7) system led by Nokia and the Android system led by Xiaomi Today, we will talk about the OPENWRT system. It is well known that Xiaomi phones run on the MIUI V5 system, which is a secondary development based on the Android system, and the Android system itself is developed based on the Linux system, so the kernel of Xiaomi’s MIUI system is also customized based on the Linux system. Today, we will not discuss the MIUI system, but rather the Xiaomi Router that was publicly tested on November 20, 2013. I believe everyone has seen the overall configuration of the Xiaomi Router, right? Do you want one?! It has a built-in Broadcom 4709 1GHZ main processor, 256M of DDR3 high-speed flash memory, a built-in 12V turbo fan for cooling the main processor, and a built-in 1T hard drive, along with a 180 yuan Thunder annual card, ensuring you can download movies. Additionally, the router supports NFC, allowing you to connect to the internet quickly by simply tapping your Xiaomi 2A or Xiaomi 3 phone on the router without entering a password, making it easy and simple.What do you usually use a router for? Is it to keep it on all night as a server, or to download movies? Now I tell you, the router can be flashed, and it can be modified to run a third-party system. Do you have any friends interested? Since I only have a TP-LINK WR340G+ wireless router and no other routers, and this router does not support flashing OPENWRT, all the following images are sourced from the internet:To flash the OPENWRT system, your router must support it. If your router does not support it, please do not flash it to avoid turning it into a brick. Additionally, the main chip of the router must be a Broadcom chip; other chips currently do not support flashing. Some TP-LINK routers do not support this firmware either. Now let’s get to the main topic:First, you need to have a wireless router. I chose the Netgear WNDR3800 dual-band wireless router, which is dual-band at 600MHZ, with 2.4GHZ + 5GHZ. As we all know, the 2.4GHZ band is already very crowded; the 5GHZ band has been newly opened, and the Xiaomi 2A has already supported the 5GHZ frequency, and now the Xiaomi 3 also supports this new frequency.In order to unleash the router’s performance to the fullest, I specifically downloaded the firmware for this router from the OP forum, waiting to upgrade the firmware (a little tip: when upgrading third-party firmware on the router, pay special attention to the router’s chip model, flash size, and memory size to avoid subsequent firmware not being able to write normally). Here is an image of a typical router’s setup interface:Here is another image of the internal structure:Enter the firmware update section, place the downloaded XXX.bin firmware on your desktop, open the TFTP server, locate the firmware you just copied to the desktop, open it after finding the path. At this point, disconnect all devices except for the computer and router you are updating, ensuring the computer and router are correctly connected. Click update, and do not move the computer or router during the update period to avoid turning the router into a brick. Power must not be interrupted during the update; once power is cut, your router will turn into a brick, and you will be left crying. However, even if the router becomes a brick, it can be revived; there are posts available for reviving bricks. After a few minutes, the router will automatically restart, and the update will be complete.Alright, let’s continue with the previous configuration. After successfully flashing the OPENWRT system, enter the familiar OPENWRT interface, which integrates many functions such as DDNS, transmission offline download, hard drive mounting, SAMBA sharing, and so on.The main interface of the OPENWRT system has already overclocked the CPU to 800MHZ:These integrated functions are sufficient for beginners to use:Next, I will detail a few commonly used functions: DDNS, hard drive mounting, transmission offline download, SAMBA sharing, and so on. First step, change the interface:The previous interface was too cute; let’s switch to a traditional interface:Hmm, the traditional interface is more intuitive.Basic WAN port and wireless settings can be found and adjusted in there. If the interface is in English, please download the Chinese resource package.DDNS Dynamic Domain Name:DDNS allows you to remotely monitor your home cameras and remotely establish offline download tasks on the router. First, you need to apply for an account on a dynamic domain provider’s website. I believe everyone has already applied for a free account on the Peanut Shell website; just apply for a free domain, for example, if I applied for a free domain called xxx.f3322.org, all subsequent remote operations and access will use this free domain.Then enter the DDNS settings interface of the router, fill in the corresponding dynamic domain information, and finally restart the router for the dynamic domain to take effect.Configure common port forwarding to allow external access through the WAN port to the internal port of the router. Simply put, it’s mapping the internal network to the external network, and vice versa.8088 is the remote WEB access port, 21 is the FTP port, 8081 is the camera port, and the remaining 91413 and 91414 correspond to the offline download and monitoring port, respectively.Hard Drive Mounting:Using a 3.5-inch 750G hybrid hard drive (the 2T hard drive in the picture is just a sample; the actual configuration method is the same) for downloading and NAS storage, the hard drive format must be EXT4; NTFS and FAT formats are not supported on Linux systems.Offline Download:After the hard drive is mounted, you can open TR to start downloading. Open the settings interface:Then access the download interface via http://192.168.1.1:9091/transmission/web or remotely via http://xxx.f3322.org:9091/transmission/web, as shown in the image:SAMBA Sharing:Once the router has the hard drive mounted, you can download various high-definition videos offline. Do you need to pull the hard drive out and plug it into the computer? Of course not; just use SAMBA to establish file sharing.Once set up, both mobile devices and wired devices at home can directly access the contents of the shared hard drive on the local area network, accessing it via \\192.168.1.1\ for internal network access and \\xxx.f3322.org\ for external network access.Here is the image:FTP Settings:Enter the FTP settings interface of the firmware, enable the FTP function, and set the login permissions according to your needs. As shown in the image:After setting up, you can upload and download the contents of the router-mounted hard drive remotely using FTP software, as shown in the image:That concludes the tutorial on flashing and configuring the router.