OpenWRT on the D-Link DIR-825
by Felix Kaechele on Dec.24, 2009, under Fedora Planet, Linux
Warning: This only works for Rev. B1 of the DIR-825. Rev. A1 will not work.
Since support for the D-Link DIR-825 Rev. B1 found it’s way into OpenWRT about 3 weeks ago I started playing around with it.
Here’s a little how-to on installing OpenWRT on the DIR-825. Basically it’s pretty easy. For those of you who just want to get started, I recommend the OpenWRT snapshots.
Here is what I did:
- Press and hold the reset button until the power LED starts blinking (usually takes around 45 seconds)
- Set your computer’s IP to anything but 192.168.0.1 in the 192.168.0.0/24 range.
- Browse to 192.168.0.1, make sure you use Internet Explorer or Chromium here. From my experience Firefox doesn’t work.
- Upload the openwrt-ar71xx-dir-825-b1-squashfs-backup-loader.bin image
- Don’t be scared if the flash stops while progress is still under 100% and the box goes offline. That usually means the flash is done anyway.
- Power cycle your box and telnet to it on IP 192.168.1.1
- Don’t forget to set a password with passwd
Enjoy!
Restoring the original firmware works similarily: Follow steps 1 to 3 and in step 4 select the original D-Link .bin image instead.
By the way: If you prefer JFFS2 over SquashFS you can view the other images at http://downloads.openwrt.org/snapshots/trunk/ar71xx/
Edit:
Because I got some comments on not being able to bring the wifi up here’s a little guide to do that:
- Install the hostapd package:
- opkg update
opkg install hostapd kmod-ath9k
- Then go to Network -> Wifi
- Press Edit for the Radio controller you want to set up.
Note: The DIR-825 has two Radios: One 2.4GHz single band and one 2.4/5GHz dual band.
On my device phy0 (radio0) is the 2.4GHz only and phy1 is the dual-band radio - Enter your desired ESSID
- As network choose lan
- Mode: Access Point
- Encryption: WPA2-PSK
- Key: your WPA2 key
- Save and apply.
Edit: I forgot to mention that you need to install kmod-ath9k (Thanks Jeroen)
December 24th, 2009 on 12:42 pm
Works great! At least its routing…
(I try’d the method using the standard D-Link firmware upload page, that does not work)
The only problem is that when i browse to 192.168.1.1 it redirects to /luci and gives me a ‘not found’ the luci packages look installed, will need some diggin into this.
December 24th, 2009 on 1:42 pm
You can install luci by entering:
- opkg update
- opkg install luci-admin-full
December 28th, 2009 on 11:44 pm
Ok I was successful in putting on the openWRT firmware but I can’t get the Wireless to work on my Dlink DIR-825. Does wireless work with the openWRT on a DIR-825? How do I restore the original BIN from dlink? I downloaded the original BIN just not sure how to restore it.
December 29th, 2009 on 12:52 pm
Thanks for the guide.
I was able to flash openWrt in my 825 (curiously only with firefox, neither chrome or ie worked for me) but now I can’t get the wifi working. When I go to wifi in luci I have no device to choose and if I do ‘wifi detect’ I get no output as well…
December 29th, 2009 on 1:41 pm
I added the part on how to enable the wireless.
December 30th, 2009 on 2:47 am
It doesn’t work for me. The firmware upload page says “Upload Failed”. I suspect it is because of my Rev. B1 having Version 2.00WW firmware (contrary to NA or EU firmware). Do you have any clue?
January 1st, 2010 on 3:26 pm
I tried it on a 825 with 2.01EU firmware. It works perfectly so far. Thanks a lot!
I flashed it with Firefox. While it doesn’t show the progress, it did work correctly.
For the wireless, after step 1, I also did ‘opkg install kmod-ath9k’ on the terminal and did a reboot from the web interface (which is silently assumed to be installed by step 2, this might need some clarification).
I got these hints from this discussion:
http://forums.dlink.com/index.php?topic=9920.0
January 8th, 2010 on 11:17 pm
Thanks for this guide!
I had a problem by accessing the LAN over WLAN and after some research I found out that the firewall blocked this by default. Maybe this information will be helpful for someone else…
Another question I have: Does anyone got an USB stick or HDD working with the DIR-825? I think I’ve loaded all the required modules but it seems like no device is detected (checked with dmesg).
January 11th, 2010 on 8:29 pm
I got lan-lan communication working by adding this to /etc/config/firewall
config ‘forwarding’
option ’src’ ‘lan’
option ‘dest’ ‘lan’
January 12th, 2010 on 2:10 am
I also successfully installed OpenWRT on my Dir 825 B (with 2.02NA firmware). I’d never used OpenWRT before (but have experience with other linxues).
Originally I was unable to get the firmware to install at all using these instructions, then I re-flashed my router using the 2.02NA firmware from the DLink website and I was then able to install OpenWRT without any trouble.
I haven’t been able to get the WiFi LEDs to work, and I have had some weird behavior from my PC when changing the wireless settings (usually requiring me to reboot to see the network again). But other than that I’m happy to finally have this router usable!
Thanks for these instructions, seeing that someone else got it to work without breaking anything gave me the encouragement I needed to give it a try.
January 25th, 2010 on 3:08 pm
Anyone tried new version yet and will this have GUI ?
openwrt-ar71xx-dir-825-b1-jffs2-backup-loader.bin 24-Jan-2010 12:50 3080222
openwrt-ar71xx-dir-825-b1-jffs2.bin 24-Jan-2010 12:50 3080196
openwrt-ar71xx-dir-825-b1-squashfs-backup-loade..> 24-Jan-2010 12:50 2424862
openwrt-ar71xx-dir-825-b1-squashfs.bin 24-Jan-2010 12:51 2424836