{"id":590,"date":"2016-07-07T19:22:52","date_gmt":"2016-07-08T03:22:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jacksontech.net\/?p=590"},"modified":"2017-12-14T13:28:54","modified_gmt":"2017-12-14T21:28:54","slug":"openwrt-on-a-locked-down-tp-link-wr1043nd-v3-wireless-router","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jacksontech.net\/index.php\/2016\/07\/openwrt-on-a-locked-down-tp-link-wr1043nd-v3-wireless-router\/","title":{"rendered":"OpenWRT on a “locked down” TP-Link WR1043ND v3 wireless router"},"content":{"rendered":"

It turns out that the brouhaha over certain manufacturers’ reactions to the FCC ruling to prevent 3rd-party software from taking wireless routers out of their approved emissions range<\/a> is valid. I bought a TP-Link WR1043ND v3 router to compliment the existing v2 router I bought several years ago. I have a point-to-point setup with OpenWRT on both ends. It turns out that TP Link has indeed started locking down their routers to prevent third-party firmware installations. (I had hoped that buying the older V3 would get around this, but apparently not so.) Setting up OpenWRT is now a little bit (but not much) more difficult than it was on these routers.<\/p>\n

Fortunately, it seems that TP-Link has only locked down the web interface to prevent third-party firmware installation\u00a0and downgrading factory firmware<\/strong>. You’ll get an\u00a0error 18005<\/strong> if you try this. TFTP still works. In the end, the steps to flash were the following, based on the information at the OpenWRT wiki<\/a>. You’ll need a Linux machine with DNSMasq installed.<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Download the factory OpenWRT trunk image for the WR1043ND v3. Currently as of July 7, 2016: https:\/\/downloads.openwrt.org\/snapshots\/trunk\/ar71xx\/generic\/openwrt-ar71xx-generic-tl-wr1043nd-v3-squashfs-factory.bin<\/a><\/li>\n
  2. Rename the OpenWRT file to wr1043v3_tp_recovery.bin<\/li>\n
  3. Move the file to \/tmp<\/li>\n
  4. Set your NIC’s address to 192.168.0.66 and hook up the router, but don’t power it on yet.<\/li>\n
  5. Use DNSMasq as a quick tftp server with the following command: dnsmasq -d –enable-tftp –tftp-root=\/tmp<\/strong><\/li>\n
  6. In another terminal window, use tcpdump to view traffic on your NIC.<\/li>\n
  7. Hold down the router’s reset button and power it on.<\/li>\n
  8. Hold the reset button until tcpdump shows the file transfer.<\/li>\n
  9. Wait 5 minutes<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    The OpenWRT build doesn’t have the web GUI installed. Fortunately, that’s easy to fix:<\/p>\n

      \n
    1. Use SSH to log into root@192.168.1.1<\/strong><\/li>\n
    2. Hook the router’s WAN port to a LAN switch (to give it Internet access)<\/li>\n
    3. Run opkg update && opkg install luci on the router<\/li>\n
    4. Run reboot<\/strong> on the router<\/li>\n
    5. Visit 192.168.1.1 and enjoy<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      It turns out that the brouhaha over certain manufacturers’ reactions to the FCC ruling to prevent 3rd-party software from taking wireless routers out of their approved emissions range is valid. I bought a TP-Link WR1043ND v3 router to compliment the existing v2 router I bought several years ago. I have a point-to-point setup with OpenWRT … more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,5,3],"tags":[98,39,35,99,100,101],"class_list":["post-590","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-comptech","category-linux","category-networking","tag-fcc","tag-openwrt","tag-router","tag-tp-link","tag-wr1043nd","tag-wr1043ndv3"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jacksontech.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/590","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jacksontech.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jacksontech.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jacksontech.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jacksontech.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=590"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/jacksontech.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/590\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":718,"href":"https:\/\/jacksontech.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/590\/revisions\/718"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jacksontech.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=590"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jacksontech.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=590"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jacksontech.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=590"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}