OpenWRT updates

It has been a while since I have written anything, but if you notice I have been updating the OpenWRT Attitude Adjustment Builds on TP-Link WR1043ND.

I have removed a lot of excess packages since so you can actually install the stuff you want. You can do extroot if there is still not enough.

Upgrading the firmware is actually a piece of cake, I do it in 5 minutes.
1) Make sure the backup utility in openwrt backs up the configuration you want.
2) Create archive using the backup utility
3) Flash and clear settings
4) Log in to router update time and disable unwanted startups
5) Upload the backup archive. Done!

Cheers.

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Celebrate IPv6 Day with OpenWRT

As of Attitude Adjustment and Trunk this article is no longer applicable to set up 6in4 please refer to the new guide on OpenWRT WikiPages.

6 June is World IPv6 day.
Major ISPs, home networking equipment manufacturers, and web companies around the world are coming together to permanently enable IPv6 for their products and services by 6 June 2012.
However not all Internet Service Provider support IPv6 for home users, however you can still get an IPv6 connection working by creating a IPv6 in IPv4 tunnel.
This is known as 6in4.
Your IPv6 packets will be encapsulated in IPv4 and sent via a Tunnel Broker via Hurricane Electric.
Hurricane Electric provides free tunnel brokers for end users. 
TP-Link WR1043ND originally does not support IPv6 however by using the firmware Image I have compiled and share, you can create a 6in4 tunnel to enable IPv6.
This is because I included 6in4 as well as radvd packages.
This post will show you how to create a IPv6 tunnel broker and setup the OpenWRT router to provide IPv6 connectivity to connected wifi devices.
 
First go to http://tunnelbroker.net/ to register & create a free account.
After signing up, log in.
You can create up to 5 tunnels.
You may want to choose a tunnel server closest to your country you live in.

After creating the tunnel click on Main Page then click on the tunnel link (boxed in red).

You will go to this page which contains all your tunnel configuration.

Click on Example Configuration and Select OpenWRT

Next Open Up OpenWRT LuCI Router Configuration Page and add a new Interface:

Name the new interface "henet"

Configure the interface:

Set Advance Settings:

Set Firewall Settings

Save and Apply.

In Altitude Adjustment a dnsmasq has a updated version called dnsmasq-dhcpv6.
If you want to use dnsmasq-dhcpv6 just add the 2 lines to your /etc/dnsmasq.conf

dhcp-range=2001:1234:5678:9101::,ra-names
enable-ra

The bold and underline octets refers to the HENET first 4 octets.
If you want to use radvd follow the guide below:

Now you need to configure Radvd to advertise the IPv6 Address to connected devices.
In OpenWRT choose Network -> Radvd



Follow the configuration below, remember to add 1 to the third octet, this is for a /64 IPv6 address only.
Click on the picture to zoom if you cannot see properly
 

Lastly click on interface -> lan
As above enter the same IPv6 address (35+1) in the IPv6 box

Remember to restart the interface and radvd.
You can now reconnect your wifi devices to the router.
It should be able to acquire IPv6 Addresses.
After that go to ipv6.google.com or www.kame.net/
For the webpages to display correctly your browser must be able to handle IPv6 as well.
Firefox, Internet Explorer and Chrome supports IPv6.

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OpenWRT Built for TP-Link WR1043ND

PLEASE READ THIS POST COMPLETELY TO PREVENT ISSUES WITH YOUR ROUTER

What this firmware does

This firmware aims to be an opensource replacement for the stock TP-Link firmware in the Wireless N Gigabit TL-WR1043ND Router.

The firmware aims to provide equivalent or better features compared stock firmware.

The firmware will also leave empty flash sectors for users to install addition packages for special features they require.
Unlike stock openwrt firmware, this is a firmware fully optimized for performance, optimization is targeted at the MIPS24Kc System On Chip, debugging features stripped and scripts are minified, compressed specifically for this Router platform.

It is advised to add a heatsink to the AR9132 SoC, it does get quite hot after flashing my custom OpenWT firmware during intensive processing.

Software Feature

1. Protoco Supported: Static/DHCP/Dual Stack/6in4/6to4/6rd/PPP/PPtP/PPPoE/3G UMTS/L2TP/Relay
2. LuCI GUI (Bootstrap) with Lighttpd Web Server
3. Dynamic DNS (Support HTTPS by skipping SSL Certificate checks)
4. QoS (Quality Of Service) Scripts
5. TinyProxy
6. UPnP (Universal Plug & Play)
7. SAMBA 3.6 (Windows File Sharing)
8. MultiWAN 
9. Harddisk Idle (Saves Power on attached External Harddisk when not in use)
10. Add User and Delete User accounts (no su function, use ssh root@youripaddress to get root while logged into router via SSH, this saves flash and achieves the same effect )
11. External Harddisk supporting only EXT2/3/4 FileSystem (NTFS is SLOW and FAT is unreliable, while the EXT Kernel Module allows support for all 3 versions of EXT Filesystem)
12. Vsftpd with SSL Support
13. MiniDLNA Media Sharing Server
14. Layer 7 Filtering
15. Transmission Bittorrent Capability GUI and CLI
16. Patched Realtek Switch Driver supporting (Port Priority/Port Mirroring/Jumbo Passthrough/BCStormFiltering/VLAN4K)
17. Reset to Defaults using the Reset Button GPIO
18. Full Wireless Support 64/128/152-bit WEP / WPA / WPA2,WPA-PSK / WPA2-PSK including Enterprise Radius Authentication
19. Ipset
20. Fdisk Partitioning Tool
21. Wake On LAN
22. USB Printer Server
23. Restore to OpenWRT default feature (just press and hold reset button)

Additional Optimizations

1. Expose more LuCI Options than Stock OpenWRT
2. Additional LuCI patching to improve GUI for touch devices
3. Optimized sysctl defaults
4. Compiler flags optimization
5. Additional packages are optimized for size
6. All Wireless Channels unlock (if US region is selected)
7. Max Transmit Power 24dbm
8. Tested NAT throughput > 250Mbps LAN to WAN using jperf
9. Minified CSS and Javascript 
10. Patched Switch Driver for additional functionality 
11. Remove additional debugging features from firmware

openwrt-ar71xx-tl-wr1043nd-v1-squashfs-factory.bin - For TP-Link WR1043ND that are NOT running OpenWRT

openwrt-ar71xx-tl-wr1043nd-v1-squashfs-sysupgrade.bin - For  TP-Link WR1043ND currently running OpenWRT

Before Flashing please read my previous posts about TP-Link WR1043ND to know what you are getting into. Consult the documentation @ OpenWRT Website or ask if you have any queries.

You can download and install additional packages through the OpenWRT repository (the package installer is built into LuCI) but it will occupy more space on the JJFS partitions.

Reboot After Disabling Unused Features For Better Performance

 

My custom firmware comes with loads of features, however OpenWRT by default enables all features so you might want to disable features you don't need.

This will boost the performance of services you need to run.
If you experience low performance due to insufficient memory, you might want to create and mount a swap partition.

DO NOT DISABLE IMPORTANT FUNCTIONS LIKE NETWORK!

If you cannot access the Router try holding down the reset button this will reset the Router back to default.
If you still cannot access the Router try serial ttl adapter.
(This cheap device can debrick all configuration lockups except the bootloader so don't touch the bootloader)

DO NOT UNINSTALL THE PACKAGES THAT ARE ALREADY THERE!

The image is built using squashfs so it is READ ONLY. If you try to uninstall it only removes the hardlinks, no space is saved. If you don't want a function just disable it.

USE TRANSMISSION ONLY WITH AN EXTERNALLY ATTACHED HARDDISK!

The Router only has 32MB of RAM, when you torrent, the files are over 1GB.

You need to configure Transmission in LuCI to write all data to the externally mounted harddisk!

By default Transmission writes to RAM because there is no harddisk.

-------------------------------Old Firmware & New Firmware Below-------------------------------

Make sure you have sufficient FREE RAM (Check using LuCI SystemInfo) before you Flash any firmware!

To free up memory for upgrading firmware, ssh into the router then type

sysctl -w vm.drop_caches=1

This will tell the kernel to drop page caches so memory is freed up for you to upgrade firmware. You need to free up memory because before the firmware is flashed to the flash memory, it has to be copied into the DRAM.
You can download the files here.

As I have posted I am shifting from Mediafire due to the issues I encountered as described in this post.

The new files will be available on my github below.
Attitude Adjustment TP-Link WR1043ND
Addition packages you can download and install into your OpenWRT Router to extend its capabilities.
Attitude Adjustment TP-Link WR1043ND Packages

If you want to build your own firmware, I have placed the files in the Git Repo below:
OpenWRT  TL-WDR4300
OpenWRT TL-WR1043ND
Please note that to minify the Javascript & CSS and fix LuCI naming run the scripts in the following order del.sh -> luci.sh -> closure.sh & yuicompressor.sh.
The path should be amended in the scripts according to where you place the buildroot.
If you want to add my changes to whatever router you have simply diff the files and take the changes you want.

It is recommended to reset the all the wireless client profiles to the router after an upgrade.

I achieved 300Mbps LAN to WAN over wire NAT on this firmware. To get the same results you need to
-Disable P2P Block
-Disable MSS Clamping in firewall
-Reboot

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Configuring Pure-FTPd with TLS on OpenWRT

This is a simple guide to configuring Pure-FTPd on OpenWRT which is available on the TP-Link WR1043ND OpenWRT Image I compiled.
Pure-FTPd is a secure FTP Server by www.pureftpd.org
Configuring OpenWRT is more like configuring a barebones Linux Terminal Server than many other commercial Routers. There is NO LuCI GUI for Pure-FTPd.
The reason why I chose Pure-Pure-FTPd is

• Offers Optional TLS Encryption on OpenWRT
• Not a very big FTP Server

First, you have to login via an SSH Client to your OpenWRT Router and get use to it if you are going to leverage on the Power and Flexibility on OpenWRT (If you custom compile OpenWRT without LuCI GUI you get to save even more flash memory!).

You can use any SSH Client, in Windows I recommend PuTTY while on Linux the built-in SSH will do. To learn how to login via CLI and edit files please go through the previous postings.

Pure-FTPd uses a few configuration files to set itself up.
Originally Pure-FTPd is designed to run without config files. Just run the binary with the correct switches it should set itself up but in OpenWRT it is designed to read the config file to set itself up.

To see the full switches on Pure-FTPd on OpenWRT simply cat the initialization scripts.

The initialization script is located in /etc/init.d/pure-ftpd

Run cat /etc/init.d/pure-ftpd  and you should see the following:

#!/bin/sh /etc/rc.common
# Copyright (C) 2006-2011 OpenWrt.org

START=50

# TODO: allow multiple instance to run with different pid-files

# XXX: pure-ftpd changes it's name to 'pure-ftpd (SERVER) ...'
SERVICE_MATCH_EXEC=
SERVICE_MATCH_NAME=1
SERVICE_USE_PID=1

append_bool() {
        local section="$1"
        local option="$2"
        local value="$3"
        local _val
        config_get_bool _val "$section" "$option" '0'
        [ "$_val" -gt 0 ] && append args "$3"
}

append_string() {
        local section="$1"
        local option="$2"
        local value="$3"
        local _val
        config_get _val "$section" "$option"
        [ -n "$_val" ] && append args "$3 $_val"
}

start_instance() {
        local section="$1"

        config_get_bool enabled "$section" 'enabled' '1'
        [ $enabled -gt 0 ] || return 1

        args=""
        append_string "$section" trustedgid "-a"
        append_string "$section" syslogfacility "-f"
        append_string "$section" fortunesfile "-F"
        append_string "$section" maxidletime "-I"
        append_string "$section" maxdiskusagepct "-k"
        append_string "$section" limitrecursion "-L"
        append_string "$section" anonymouscancreate "-M"
        append_string "$section" maxload "-m"
        append_string "$section" quota "-n"
        append_string "$section" altlog "-O"
        append_string "$section" passiveportrange "-p"
        append_string "$section" forcepassiveip "-P"
        append_string "$section" anonymousratio "-q"
        append_string "$section" userratio "-Q"
        append_string "$section" anonymousbandwidth "-t"
        append_string "$section" userbandwidth "-T"
        append_string "$section" minuid "-u"
        append_string "$section" trustedip "-V"
        append_string "$section" tls "-Y"
        append_string "$section" tlsciphersuite "-J"

        append_bool "$section" uploadscript "-o"
        append_bool "$section" natmode "-N"
        append_bool "$section" autorename "-r"
        append_bool "$section" nochmod "-R"
        append_bool "$section" antiwarez "-s"
        append_bool "$section" allowuserfxp "-w"
        append_bool "$section" allowanonymousfxp "-W"
        append_bool "$section" prohibitdotfileswrite "-x"
        append_bool "$section" prohibitdotfilesread "-X"
        append_bool "$section" allowdotfiles "-z"
        append_bool "$section" customerproof "-Z"
        append_bool "$section" anonymouscantupload "-i"
        append_bool "$section" createhomedir "-j"
        append_bool "$section" keepallfiles "-K"
        append_bool "$section" norename "-G"
        append_bool "$section" dontresolve "-H"
        append_bool "$section" verboselog "-d"
        append_bool "$section" displaydotfiles "-D"
        append_bool "$section" anonymousonly "-e"
        append_bool "$section" brokenclientscompatibility "-b"
        append_bool "$section" notruncate "-0"
        append_bool "$section" logpid "-1"
        append_bool "$section" ipv4only "-4"
        append_bool "$section" ipv6only "-6"

        append_string "$section" bind "-S"
        append_string "$section" login "-l"

        append_bool "$section" noanonymous "-E"
        append_bool "$section" chrooteveryone "-A"
        append_string "$section" maxclientsperip "-c"
        append_string "$section" maxclientsnumber "-C"
        append_string "$section" peruserlimits "-y"
        append_string "$section" umask "-U"

        append_string "$section" port "-S"
        append_string "$section" authentication "-l"

        service_start /usr/sbin/pure-ftpd -B $args
}

start() {
        config_load "pure-ftpd"
        config_foreach start_instance "pure-ftpd"
}

stop() {
        service_stop /usr/sbin/pure-ftpd
}

From what you can read you can tell the initialization scripts translates switches like "-k" into human readable config options and all the available switches are shown above.

To control Pure-FTPd the commands are as follow

Syntax: /etc/init.d/pure-ftpd [command]

Available commands:
        start   Start the service
        stop    Stop the service
        restart Restart the service
        reload  Reload configuration files (or restart if that fails)
        enable  Enable service autostart
        disable Disable service autostart

Eg: To start Pure-FTPd run
/etc/init.d/pure-ftpd start

It is that simple so CLI isn't really as difficult as most imagine.

Pure-FTPd also uses 2 database file as access-control lists they are located at
/etc/pureftpd.passwd 
(This is like your UNIX passwd file except it is for Pure-FTPd it contains user accounts, shell etc)
/etc/pureftpd.pdb
(It is Pure-FTPd database file I like to think of it as your UNIX shadow file)

First you add a system user and system group as a default account on UNIX that Pure-FTPd will create virtual user from.

addgroup pure_ftpd_grp #or any othername as you want

adduser -H -G pure_ftpd_grp pure_ftpd_user #adds user to previously created group - change groupname accordingly, afterwards you will be asked for password for user (-H indicates that I don't want to assign home directory - if you want to you need to change -H to -h /homedirectory)
For me I assign the home directory to the directory I want to be logging from FTP.
FTP will fail if the directory change permission is not correct so you need to set it to the right directory.

Next you add the virtual user to Pure-FTPd Access Control

pure-pw useradd FTP_LOGIN -u pure_ftpd_user -d /ftp_directory #change FTP_LOGIN, pure_ftpd_user and /ftp_directory as you wish (pure_ftpd_user is same as you created in previous step). I set the same directory as above.

To see the Pure-FTPd accounts use the commands

pure-pw useradd <login> [-f <passwd file>] -u <uid> [-g <gid>]
                -D/-d <home directory> [-c <gecos>]
                [-t <download bandwidth>] [-T <upload bandwidth>]
                [-n <max number of files>] [-N <max Mbytes>]
                [-q <upload ratio>] [-Q <download ratio>]
                [-r <allow client ip>/<mask>] [-R <deny client ip>/<mask>]
                [-i <allow local ip>/<mask>] [-I <deny local ip>/<mask>]
                [-y <max number of concurrent sessions>]
                [-z <hhmm>-<hhmm>] [-m]

pure-pw usermod <login> -f <passwd file> -u <uid> [-g <gid>]
                -D/-d <home directory> -[c <gecos>]
                [-t <download bandwidth>] [-T <upload bandwidth>]
                [-n <max number of files>] [-N <max Mbytes>]
                [-q <upload ratio>] [-Q <download ratio>]
                [-r <allow client ip>/<mask>] [-R <deny client ip>/<mask>]
                [-i <allow local ip>/<mask>] [-I <deny local ip>/<mask>]
                [-y <max number of concurrent sessions>]
                [-z <hhmm>-<hhmm>] [-m]

pure-pw userdel <login> [-f <passwd file>] [-m]

pure-pw passwd  <login> [-f <passwd file>] [-m]

pure-pw show    <login> [-f <passwd file>]

pure-pw mkdb    [<puredb database file> [-f <passwd file>]]
                [-F <puredb file>]

pure-pw list    [-f <passwd file>]

-d <home directory> : chroot user (recommended)
-D <home directory> : don't chroot user
-<option> '' : set this option to unlimited
-m : also update the /etc/pureftpd.pdb database
For a 1:10 ratio, use -q 1 -Q 10
To allow access only between 9 am and 6 pm, use -z 0900-1800

Every time you modify the FTP Accounts you need to run pure-pw mkdb to apply the changes.

Now we edit the Pure-FTPd config file at /etc/config/pure-ftpd

vi /etc/config/pure-ftpd

I will provide you a sample so you don't have to read about all the options and what are they used for.

config pure-ftpd

        option port             '21'
        option noanonymous      '1'
        option chrooteveryone   '1'
        option maxclientsperip  '20'
        option maxclientsnumber '40'
        option umask            '133:022'
        option authentication   'unix'
        option enabled          '1'
        option passiveportrange '1985:2000'
        option tls              '1'
        option daemonize        '1'
        option authentication   'puredb:/etc/pureftpd.pdb'
        option prohibitdotfileswrite '1'
        option prohibitdotfilesread '1'
        option userbandwidth '50:50'
#       option natmode '1'
#       option brokenclientscompatibility' '1'

Basically this runs pure-ftpd on Port 21 with passive ports from 1985-2000 with anonymous login disabled, tls set on optional (if client request it will provide if not just unencrypted communication).
The default directory is chrooted which means user cannot change from their default directory to /.
The # comments out lines, it should only be enabled if there are incompatibilities with the firewalls and clients. After you get good at FTP you might want to tweak the bandwidth and number of connections and other advance settings for more performance.

Next we will do TLS encryption

You have to generate a self-signed certification using OpenSSL, you should do it on the PC and copy the certificate to the router unless you are a masochist to want to do it on a 400MHZ MIPS Processor.

To generate the certificate run on your PC (with OpenSSL installed) run 

openssl req -x509 -days 365 -nodes -newkey rsa:1024 -keyout [Destination Directory]/pure-ftpd.pem -out [Destination Directory]/pure-ftpd.pem

You can use days to specify how long before the self-signed certificate expire.

This will create a certificate file called pure-ftpd.pem for TLS in the destination directory.

Note the destination directory has to be the SAME.

Pure-FTPd reads the TLS certificate in /etc/ssl/private so we make a directory there as is it is not created by default

mkdir -p /etc/ssl/private

Then we Upload the file to the router to the directory we created.You should have /etc/ssl/private/pure-ftpd.pem This is location where Pure-FTPd will try to find a certificate to use for TLS communication if any.

Then we change the file permission

chmod 600 /etc/ssl/private/pure-ftpd.pem

Finally we have to open the ports on the firewall to allow FTP communication.

Note there are 2 types of ports we need to open FTP Active Ports and Passive Ports.
We do it via LuCI GUI, go to Network -> Firewall -> Traffic Rules and Add the following Ruleset

Save and Apply.

Finally we restart Pure-FTPd so it will relaunch with the correct settings.
/etc/init.d/pureftpd restart

So now you need an FTP Client. On Web Browsers like Firefox there is a client built in by default.
To utilise TLS encryption you have to use better clients, I recommend FileZilla.
You specify TLS in the Connection Options.

  
You have to get a Dynamic DNS address to reverse lookup your Router's external IP Address.
There are free and paid options for home users free is usually good enough.
AFRAID @ http://freedns.afraid.org/ is a good Free Dynamic DNS Address Provider(Funny name though =) ).
It allows numerous domains for you to choose from.

Again DDNS Updating Scripts is built into my 3.25 Kernel Trunk Router's Image by default but I will not be writing about setting up Dynamic DNS records (I modified the DDNS scripts to support HTTPS (by skipping checks) default OpenWRT DDNS does not have that).

You should be able to login to your FTP Server from everywhere on Earth from the Internet in both Active and Passive Modes provided your workplace does not block FTP ports if so simply change port 21 to one of the unblock ports.

Hopefully my guide is simple enough for you to understand how to setup an FTP server on OpenWRT.

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Realtek Driver Mod

For a while there has been a Realtek Driver Mod for Realtek Audio Codec Only.
This Mod enables better Audio by utilizing the X-Fi Software.
I find this mod especially effective on laptops with very low power speakers like the Acer Aspire 3810 Timeline Laptops.

Pre-Requesites:

• Windows Vista/7 and above
• Local Administrative Permission on the System

The Mod requires the use of a Malware Vector to generate the crack that affects only Delphi Files so Delphi Developers should use with caution, it should not affect most other users. It is not a trojan/worm.
If you don't trust the software do not use it.

Step 1:
Download the Files and uninstall existing Realtek Sound Drivers if any.

Step 2:
Extract and Install the Modified Realtek Drivers (they are not WHQL) using the AsusSetup Executable.

Step 3:
Reboot

Step 4:
Extract and Install the X-Fi Software.

Step 5:
Reboot

Step 6:
Right Click on the Sound Blaster Panel icon on the System Tray,
choose Select Audio Device and Select SB-XFi MB2.

Step 7:
Reboot and enter Safe Mode by pressing F8 rapidly during reboot.

Step 8:
Extract the activator, find the .bat file, Right Click on it and Choose Run As Administrator.
Open the Folder C:\ProgramData\Creative\SoftwareLock
Check that the following files below are created:
CTD1JXF23A.kga
CTD5H2W3DK.kga
CTL42SW23M.kga
CTL52C6FE2.kga
CTLD14KLI5.kga
CTLD2JX234.kga
CTLE2C3BA1.kga
CTLP22SV21.kga
CTT78HSK12.kga
CTT92KD23N.kga

Step 9:
Delete all the zip files and folders you don't need(Clean Up), Reboot and Enjoy.

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Hacking TP-Link WR1043ND Part 4

To Tweak the OpenWRT for Pure Performance there is no other way than editing config files from Terminal so I hope you actually read Part 3 before.
There are 4 parts to Tweaking the Performance

1. Wireless Performance
2. Wired Performance
3. Web Performance
4. QoS (Quality Of Service)

Tweaking Wireless Performance:

Setting to Wireless N with G backward compatibility

The TP-Link WR1043ND Hardware has a 3 Transmit 3 Receive Radio that is only Single Band with 20/40MHZ  Frequency. It has Wireless B/G/N Capability.
To fully understand WiFi Standards you need to read up on IEEE 802.11 standards.
We start by tweaking the Radio.

Wireless N allows backward compatibility with B and G, you need to set it to 802.11g+n.
You can do this by logging into the Router via Putty using vi editor edit the file called "wireless" in /etc/config/, or do it in LuCI Web Interface(Router Config Page).

Adjusting Channel Width:

Next you need to make sure the Router is using 40MHZ Channel Width, this will allow greater throughput.
You can do this by logging into the Router via Putty using vi editor edit the file called "wireless" in /etc/config/

config 'wifi-device' 'radio0'
        option 'type' 'mac80211'
        option 'channel' '7'
        option 'macaddr' 'XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:XX'
        option 'hwmode' '11ng' #Wireless G and N Modes
        option 'htmode' 'HT40-' # Set to 2.4GHZ 40MHZ Fat Lower(-) Channel

        option 'noscan' '1' # Enable neighbour 'unfriendly' WiFi Settings

        option 'country' 'US'
        list 'ht_capab' 'SHORT-GI-40'
        list 'ht_capab' 'DSSS_CCK-40'
        option 'disabled' '0'

        option 'txpower' '24'

config 'wifi-iface'
        option 'device' 'radio0'
        option 'network' 'lan'
        option 'mode' 'ap'
        option 'ssid' 'Your_SSID_Here'
        option 'encryption' 'psk2'
        option 'key' 'your_secret_key_here'
       

Note that there are 2 htmodes, HT40+ and HT40- you set them based on the channel available. If you set it wrongly you have to log in to the router via Ethernet Cable and change it back.
By rights 'htmode' is not allowed if there are competing BSSID using that channel (the good neighbor regulation), but you can override that with 'noscan' option. There is also a distance optimization setting which I tested the best values at 20-25.

Below is a graph displaying the difference between 40MHZ Channel Width and 20MHZ Channel Width.
Note that you can define more than 1 Access Point on OpenWRT. You can configure a Second AP as Guest and Fire-walling it from your own LAN.

Higher TXPower (Transmit Power)

Transmit Power allows you to resize the cell. Max Value is 24 only works with US regulatory settings.
You can also try placing the Wireless Router at a higher position for better signal strength.

Tweaking Wired Performance:

Next you need to make sure the Router Ethernet Performance is adjusted by changing the sysctl variable this will allow greater throughput.
You can do this by logging into the Router via Putty using vi editor edit the file called "sysctl.conf" in /etc/

kernel.panic=3
# The following 3 lines helps to ensure Router will always have
# sufficient memory and will not crash during samba file copy
vm.vfs_cache_pressure=1000
vm.min_free_kbytes=4099
vm.swappiness=0
net.ipv4.conf.default.arp_ignore=1
net.ipv4.conf.all.arp_ignore=1
net.ipv4.ip_forward=1
net.ipv4.icmp_echo_ignore_broadcasts=0
net.ipv4.icmp_ignore_bogus_error_responses=1
net.ipv4.tcp_ecn=0
net.ipv4.tcp_fin_timeout=30
net.ipv4.tcp_keepalive_time=120
net.ipv4.tcp_syncookies=1
net.ipv4.tcp_timestamps=1
net.core.netdev_max_backlog=5000
net.netfilter.nf_conntrack_checksum=0
net.netfilter.nf_conntrack_max=32768
net.netfilter.nf_conntrack_tcp_timeout_established=3600
net.netfilter.nf_conntrack_udp_timeout=60
net.netfilter.nf_conntrack_udp_timeout_stream=180
# Use ipv6
net.ipv6.conf.all.forwarding=1

# disable bridge firewalling by default
#net.bridge.bridge-nf-call-arptables=0
#net.bridge.bridge-nf-call-ip6tables=0
#net.bridge.bridge-nf-call-iptables=0
# Increase TCP max buffer size setable using setsockopt()
# 2 MB might be enough for some very long end-to-end paths
net.core.rmem_max = 2097152
net.core.wmem_max = 2097152
# Increase Linux autotuning TCP buffer limits
# min, default, and max number of bytes to use
# (only change the 3rd value, and make it 2 MB or more)
net.ipv4.tcp_rmem = 4096 87380 2097152
net.ipv4.tcp_wmem = 4096 65536 2097152 

# The following 2 lines enable ipv6 privacy mode
net.ipv6.conf.all.use_tempaddr=2
net.ipv6.conf.default.use_tempaddr=2

All the TCP tweaks are derived from ESnet
Note: These tweaks are not found on OpenWRT How Tos, however I soon discovered that someone is working on bufferbloat hence the tweaks on buffersize should be approached with caution.


Also if you have a Windows File Share you want to tell the Router firewall not to monitor SAMBA Packets.
Windows Share also known as SAMBA in Linux uses the Port 445 so you need to tell OpenWRT to stop monitoring Packet Originating from LAN using Port 445.

Tweaking Web Performance:
Web Peformance typically require a lot of DNS Look up so you want to tell OpenWRT to use the Fastest DNS Server available.
You can do this by logging into the Router via Putty using vi editor edit the file called "dnsmasq.conf" in /etc/ or do it in the file /etc/config/dhcp
and add the fastest DNS Server closest to you.
Add the Line Below and change the IP of the server to YOUR fastest DNS Server. My Fastest DNS Servers may not be your Fastest DNS Server.

dhcp-option=6,165.21.83.88,8.8.8.8,208.67.222.222

Blue is a Singapore ISP DNS Server, Green is Google DNS Server, Red is OpenDNS Server.
There is no limit of the number of DNS Server you can set on OpenWRT

Quality of Service                    

What is Quality of Service?
Quality of Service makes it so that during torrenting, your webpages doesn't take a long time to load even though you are on a 1Mbps Connection.
It does this by prioritizing network traffic, putting webpage network packets in higher importance than torrent packets.
The step to installing QoS is logging into the Router via Putty then

opkg install luci-app-qos

You set the QoS by setting the Port the Network Originate from and the Priority. Or you can set layer 7 filter to detect torrent traffic. Note that Layer 7 filtering is processor intensive activity and might cause the routing performance of the router to drop.

Hopefully you learn a lot from this series of blog post and enjoy the high performance of your Modified Router running on OpenSource Software.
If you run a Windows Share Server when you place the laptop beside the router and do a copy you should be getting insane WiFi Speeds @ 150Mbps at 5m line of sight
Let the numbers speak for themselves!

In case you modified the wrong config files and got lock out the fail safe mode is here.

If you are interested I have a OpenWRT built for TL-WR1043ND that I use personally myself. It is optimized to my satisfaction for pure performance.
You can get it here.
If you actually tried my firmware you will find that all the tweaks I listed above have been already added to the firmware defaults so there is nothing additional to tweak.

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Hacking TP-Link WR1043ND Part 3

I will only be posting HOW-TO not found in OpenWRT Pages, if you need to config a particular setting please refer to the Well-Documented OpenWRT HOW-TOs here.
Useful Wiki on OpenWRT include

• Getting 3G Modem working
• VPN (not complete)
• Files and Settings
• NFS Network FileSharing

It is troublesome/pointless to rewrite well-documented resources.
Reading the How-To is a must have for all OpenWRT newbies!

First you need to set a Router Config Page Login Password.
Otherwise the SSH ports will not be open for you to configure and upload files to it.
Open Web Browser, Enter "192.168.1.1" in URL Bar.
Then follow the picture below:

From here onward is to demostrate how to login and use the Router like a Linux Terminal Computer.
It makes little sense not to leverage on the Compute Capabilities of Linux after using a more powerful third party firmware.
OpenWRT assumes users know Linux Terminal KungFu hence it is intimidating to those who don't.
Hopefully after reading this you will pick up some Terminal KungFu.
_______________________________________________
Upload Files to Router using SCP

______________________________
SSH (Login) into Router

Basic Linux Commands in OpenWRT

• "ls" - List Files in Existing Folder
• "dmesg" - Display System(Router) diagnostic message 
• "pwd" - Display Present Working Directory
• "opkg" - OpenWRT Package Installer 
• "opkg install package" to install a software call "package"
• "opkg remove package" to uninstall a software call "package"
• "opkg list-install" to list all installed software"
• "opkg update" to update list of package available in the OpenWRT Repository the router needs to be connected to the internet before you can update
• "opkg" to display all possible commands
• "wifi" to restart Wireless Radio
• "ifup/down" to start or stop a Particular Interface
• "ifup wan" to start WAN interface
• "ifdown wan" to stop WAN interface
• "ifup lan" to start LAN interface
• "ifdown lan" to stop LAN interface
• "cd" to change directory
• "cd .." to go up 1 level (Exit the folder)
• "cd /" to go to Root Directory 
• "cd /tmp/ to go to tmp directory (If you want to go to a specific directory type "cd /tm" then press Tab to auto complete the name of the folder useful if the name of the folder is very very long
• "vi" Text Editor
• eg. to Edit a file call "network" in folder "/etc/config/" type "vi /etc/config/network"
• The default mode in VI is view mode to display text files
• To enter/delete Text in vi press "i" to Enter insert mode and type to enter backspace to delete
• To delete a particular line of text in vi Press "Esc" go to the line using arrow then enter "dd" twice and the line disappears
• To save a file press "Esc" then ":w" (w stands for write)
• To exit VI press "Esc" then ":q" (q stands for quit)
• To exit without saving  press "Esc" then ":q!" (! stands for "I don't care just do it !)
• To exit with saving  press "Esc" then ":wq"
• "reboot" to restart Router
• "cp" - copy eg to copy a file called "network" from inside /tmp/ to /etc/config"      

"cp /tmp/network /etc/config/network"

• Syntax as follows: cp <source> <destination>
• "rm" - Delete a particular file
• "wget" -Download file from Internet (Must be connected to Internet first, make sure the file size doesn't exceed the the total memory of the router)

The list of commands is actually quite a chunk, you should read up on Linux Shell if you are interested.

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