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:

1. Press and hold the reset button until the power LED starts blinking (usually takes around 45 seconds)
2. Set your computer’s IP to anything but 192.168.0.1 in the 192.168.0.0/24 range.
3. Browse to 192.168.0.1, make sure you use Internet Explorer or Chromium here. From my experience Firefox doesn’t work.
4. Upload the openwrt-ar71xx-generic-dir-825-b1-squashfs-backup-loader.bin image
5. 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.
6. Power cycle your box and telnet to it on IP 192.168.1.1
7. 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:

1. Install the hostapd package:
2. opkg update
   opkg install wpad-mini kmod-ath9k
   
3. Then go to Network -> Wifi
4. 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 5GHz single band.
   On my device phy0 (radio0) is the 2.4GHz only and phy1 is the 5GHz radio
5. Enter your desired ESSID
6. As network choose lan
7. Mode: Access Point
8. Encryption: WPA2-PSK
9. Key: your WPA2 key
10. Save and apply.

Edit: I forgot to mention that you need to install kmod-ath9k (Thanks Jeroen)