I'm completely new in the world of OpenWRT. After reading a lot about OpenWRT, I'd like to give it a try. I'm planning two small projects, if possible. One of them involves my admittedly rather old AVM Fritz!Repeater 450E. It currently still has the original Fritz!OS firmware installed. I've read online that there's a working OpenWRT version available for it.
Could you please tell me which version of OpenWRT I can install on the device and which image file I need? I was told that the sysupgrade images files can only be used if I already have an older version of OpenWRT installed. So, where can I get a complete OpenWRT firmware image to flash from the AVM firmware to the OpenWRT firmware?
Generally speaking, is it even a good idea to convert the old Fritz!Repeater 450E to OpenWRT, or is it too old and underpowered for that?
What do you want to do with it? Do you just want to play with it, or do you want to use it as a repeater, bridged AP or ...?
This device is quite weak, so don't expect to much.
You will not gain much, if it is wired extender now you can install OpenWrt to get wpa3
If you want it as a single router for parents - make sure they dot get more than 100Mbps "internet" because of wifi4 , and eg it could do vlans like "firewall, but then forward speed is 200-300Mbps max.
First of all, thank you so much for your quick replies. My Fritz!Repeater 450E has been sitting in my cupboard for ages because I don't use it anymore. So I wanted to use it for my first attempts with OpenWRT. If I break the device in the process, it's less of a problem than if I break one of my active (and more expensive) devices.
My initial idea is to play around with it a bit. I want to learn how to get OpenWRT running on such a device, how the LuCI web interface works, how to configure OpenWRT, and so on.
To make it not completely pointless, my idea was to turn the repeater into a Wi-Fi access point. In other words, I would connect it to my Fritz!Box via LAN cable, and it would provide a kind of guest Wi-Fi network that can access the internet independently of my home network. Just an idea.
Thanks for the wiki page. I'm still not entirely clear on what this SysUpgrade Image is all about. Can I flash this directly over the AVM firmware, or do I first need to perform some kind of full update to OpenWRT using a different image file?
And another question: Which OpenWRT version should I use for this old device? The latest 25.12-rcXX or an older version?
PS D:\Temp\FritzRepeater_450E> ftp 192.168.178.1
Verbindung mit 192.168.178.1 wurde hergestellt.
220 ADAM2 FTP Server ready
530 not logged in
Benutzer (192.168.178.1:(none)): adam2
331 Password required for adam2
Kennwort:
230 User adam2 successfully logged in
ftp> binary
200 Type set to BINARY
ftp> debug
Debugging EIN .
ftp> passive
UngĂĽltiger Befehl
ftp> quote MEDIA FLSH
---> MEDIA FLSH
200 Media set to MEDIA_FLASH
ftp> put openwrt-24.10.5-ath79-generic-avm_fritz450e-squashfs-sysupgrade.bin mtd1
---> PORT 192,168,178,2,175,210
502 Command not implemented
---> STOR mtd1
425 can't open data connection
ftp>
Update: Since the failed attempt, the FritzRepeater 450E now always blinks twice after starting up, then pauses briefly, blinks twice again, and so on.
In the Fritz!Box web interface, I still see it as a mesh-enabled device, but it has the exact same IP address as the Fritz!Box, and I can no longer access the repeater's web interface.
Flashing the original AVM firmware using the recovery tool doesn't work. The tool can't find the repeater.
I haven’t used ftp for many years, but I see little wrong with instructions entered. Maybe change your ftp call to ftp -n -p 192.168.178.1 (disable password req’d and passive mode). Also make sure your sysupgrade file resides in your user home directory in future.
It’s probably also advisable to take down your host firewall safely as well.
Windows ftp does not support passive mode. You need something linke lftp or ncftp or very carefully work with filezilla (to avoid spyware and make sure actual protocol is passive ip4 without strange command extensions)
I tried flashing the FritzRepeater on my laptop running Linux Mint, and it worked. The trick is that you have to log in twice. Immediately after establishing the FTP connection, you're automatically prompted for your login credentials. Once you enter them, you can then send FTP commands to the repeater. However, flashing the new firmware doesn't work. I keep getting error messages. It only works after entering the login commands again, as described in the wiki.
~$ ftp 192.168.178.1
Connected to 192.168.178.1.
220 ADAM2 FTP Server ready
Name (192.168.178.1:mic): adam2
331 Password required for adam2
Password: adam2
230 User adam2 successfully logged in
ftp> quote USER adam2
---> USER adam2
331 Password required for adam2
ftp> quote PASS adam2
---> PASS adam2
230 User adam2 successfully logged in
ftp> binary
---> TYPE I
200 Type set to BINARY
ftp> debug
Debugging off (debug=0).
ftp> passive
Passive mode: on; fallback to active mode: on.
ftp> quote MEDIA FLSH
200 Media set to MEDIA_FLASH
ftp> put openwrt-24.10.5-ath79-generic-avm_fritz450e-squashfs-sysupgrade.bin mtd1
local: openwrt-24.10.5-ath79-generic-avm_fritz450e-squashfs-sysupgrade.bin remote: mtd1
227 Entering Passive Mode (192,168,178,1,12,26)
150 Opening BINARY data connection
100% |***********************************| 6400 KiB 257.77 KiB/s 00:00 ETA
226 Transfer complete
6553913 bytes sent in 00:24 (257.20 KiB/s)
ftp> quit
221 Thank you for using the FTP service on ADAM2
I then connected the repeater directly to the Fritz!Box via LAN cable. After restarting the repeater several times, my Fritz!Box finally assigned it a valid IP address. However, I can neither ping it nor open a web interface in my browser. The power LED on the repeater is constantly lit, and the LAN LED blinks, seemingly indicating data is being transmitted via the LAN cable. All other LEDs are off.
First step is to disable dhcp server to lan and flip it to static ip in new network or dhcp client. 2 dhcp s€rvers in same subn€t usually is wrong.
Does this mean in OpenWRT on my FritzRepeater now a DHCP is active by accident? How can I disable it now? I cannot access to the FritzRepeater by SSH nor by Web-Interface. How can I change this setting now?
Okay, after many failed attempts that repeatedly required me to reflash the OpenWRT firmware because the repeater became unreachable, I finally got it working and connected the repeater to my Fritz!Box as an access point. I'm writing to you right now from a Linux laptop connected to the repeater's Wi-Fi network, which is running OpenWRT. Cool.
Thank you. Finally it worked. The chellenge is to find all necesarry options in the WebGUI bevore you save the changes... otherwise the devices is not reachable anymore. But now it worked.
Is it possible to enable static blocking lists as a kind of firewall / filter for the devices connected by Wifi to the Repeater?
One more tip for anyone who wants to try this. If flashing OpenWRT via FTP doesn't work, don't log out from FTP immediately using quit. Simply re-enter all the commands in sequence, starting with logging in as adam2. You can do this several times. I sometimes needed up to three attempts before the flashing process actually started.
Sequence that needs to be repeated:
ftp> quote USER adam2
ftp> quote PASS adam2
ftp> binary
ftp> debug
ftp> passive
ftp> quote MEDIA FLSH
ftp> put openwrt-sysupgrade.bin mtd1
wifi clients use random macs for last 5 yrs or so. You can introduce radius/eap to distinguish them, normally you add something like guest network, though might not beam from fritz box....
I think for a guast wifi only on the FritzRepeater with OpenWRT I need something like a "tunnel" through my network to the internet. Maybe by using any kind of VPN or so...
