Use a TP-Link TL-WR710N Router as a Repeater with OpenWRT
The TL-WR710N offers five modes of operation:
- Router mode
- Client mode (connects ethernet devices to an existing wifi)
- Repeater mode (extends existing wifis)
- Access point mode (create a wifi hotspot from a wired connection)
- WISP Client
Unfortunately the firmware which is installed on the device is very instable and barely usable for my purpose. I could not get connectivity by using the software which is pre-installed although it would offer a nice interface for all the mentioned modes.
Open source software to the rescue! Fortunately there exists a OpenWRT version which can be easily installed and which empowers this little device quite a bit. Have a look at the OpenWRT homepage and ensure that you have a supported hardware version (in Austria you will most likely get the EU 1.2 version with 8MB flash memory and 32MB RAM). You can use the upgrade dialog in the original firmware in order to upload the OpenWRT firmware. Be careful during these steps and avoid power outage and upload errors. Once you installed the new firmware, just follow these steps in order to setup a range extender with OpenWRT.
Connect your laptop with an Ethernet cable to the TL-WR710N router.
Establish a telnet session. The default IP is 192.168.1.1
telnet 192.168.1.1
There is no standard password.
3) For security reasons you should use a SSH session. To do so, you need to set a new root password by issuing the following command in the telnet session.
passwd
You will be prompted to enter the new root password twice. After you set the password, the SSH daemon becomes active and telnet gets disabled. Exit the telnet session with
exit
- Connect via SSH by using the following command:
ssh root@192.168.1.1
In the next step you need to configure the network interfaces. We want to have one Ethernet port eth1, one loopback device lo and of course the wireless interface wlan0.
Use the vi editor and open this file
vi /etc/config/network
- Enter this interfaces into the opened file.
config interface 'wan'
option ifname 'wlan0'
option proto 'dhcp'
config interface 'loopback'
option ifname 'lo'
option proto 'static'
option ipaddr '127.0.0.1'
option netmask '255.0.0.0'
config interface 'lan'
option ifname 'eth1'
option force_link '1'
option type 'bridge'
option proto 'static'
option ipaddr '192.168.1.1'
option netmask '255.255.255.0'
option ip6assign '60'
Save and close with :wq
- Now we just need to configure the wireless connection. Use
vi /etc/config/wireless
to open the file.
8) Enter this wireless connection details below:
config wifi-iface
option device radio0
option network wan
option mode sta
option ssid 'WEAK-NETWORK-SSID'
option encryption psk2
# option encryption none
# option encryption wep
# option encryption psk
# option encryption psk2
option key 'PASSWORD'
config wifi-device radio0
option type mac80211
option channel 11
option hwmode 11g
option path 'platform/ar933x_wmac'
option htmode HT20
# REMOVE THIS LINE TO ENABLE WIFI:
# option disabled 1
# This is the bridged interface
config wifi-iface
option device radio0
option network lan
option mode ap
option ssid 'REPEATED-WIFI'
# option encryption none
option encryption psk2
option key 'mobileAP'
This wireless configuration contains the details how to connect and thereby extend an existing wireless network. In the configuration example above the name of this network is WEAK-NETWORK-SSID and the password for the PSK2 secured network is PASSWORD. Other encryption methods you could use are
# option encryption none
# option encryption wep
# option encryption psk
# option encryption psk2
The second interface REPEATED-WIFI is your new, repeated wifi network where you then connect your laptop or your mobile phone with.
- Reboot the router with this command
reboot
You should then see a second wifi with the name REPEATED-WIFI in the available networks list. As the small router still has a better range than some devices, you should have a nicer connection.
