I heard that TP Link routers use OpenWrt in their stock firmware

For Developers
1

Is this true? Any reference to support that?

2

https://www.tp-link.com/us/support/gpl-code-center

3

Yeah. I just went there and downloaded the codes. Just wanna confirm, are those codes for each router all openwrt? Im not a developer, btw

4

You don't need to be a programmer to open the archive and look inside
Screenshot_2018-09-30_17-19-40

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5

I downloaded 841n n there wasn't any folder with openwrt

I downloaded 841n and there wasn't any folder saying openwrt.

6

No, they use open software, but not OpenWrt.

7

For sure? I recently bought a TP-Link RE205 repeater. Of course I want to use OpenWRT again;). So I inspected the device and the firmware. I would say that it is based on OpenWRT.

The extracted firmware gives some hints.

$ cat etc/openwrt_release
DISTRIB_ID="OpenWrt"
DISTRIB_RELEASE="Attitude Adjustment"
DISTRIB_REVISION="unknown"
DISTRIB_CODENAME="attitude_adjustment"
DISTRIB_TARGET="model_mtk_mt76xx/generic"
DISTRIB_DESCRIPTION="OpenWrt Attitude Adjustment 12.09-rc1"
DISTRIB_TAINTS="%t"
8

TP-Link firmware is based on SOC vendor's SDKs which are in most cases based on OpenWrt.
This is true at least for QCA and MTK.

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9

Even if an OEM uses firmware based on OpenWrt, that doesn't necessarily mean that you can run the open-source OpenWrt on the device, as @pepe2k alludes to with the mention of SDKs (which are often proprietary and tied to a specific kernel).

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10

Looks like I was wrong...

11

Did you manage to install OpenWRT on TL-RE205? I recently bought one.

12

I had to hack into the original firmware. That was very simple, but I do not know if the release of an exploit in this forum is allowed. Afterwards I tried to build a firmware for Openwrt with the gained information. I did something wrong, the device did not boot anymore. I brought it back.

Sorry, I was hoping to give something back to the Openwrt community.

13

I will note that IQrouter from Evenroute uses a customized OpenWrt build, specifically to produce a ready-for-consumer SQM installation. (You can buy 'em on Amazon. I've used them - they work well). They use a TP-Link Archer C7 as the actual hardware - perhaps that's where you heard that "TP-Link uses OpenWrt".