OpenWrt 19.07.x ath79 tiny LuCI

Hoping someone can help with this, no way I can be the only person looking for this combination.

I have a few old TL-WR841N/ND revision 11 routers that I'd love to reuse as VPN routers with openvpn, does anyone have a fairly new version with Luci and openvpn they could share? I know these 4MB devices are low on space but I'd happily sacrifice just about everything other than Luci, openvpn and whatever else is a requirement for those to work, don't even care if wifi works, can rip that out if it helps with space, I'd only ever use wired connections anyway (removing wifi probably a bit extreme for most admittedly).

Looking around I found an old file that installed LEDE 17.01.6 r3979 with built in openvpn but I was having some issues connecting to my VPN provider with it (all files are known good tested on other routers and exactly as they should be but getting "Cipher aes-128-cbc not supported" message which is rather odd - can connect fine from other newer routers using this exact same config file and using aes-128-cbc so thinking this must be some weirdness with old LEDE/OpenVPN 2.4.4), would be great to try a newer OpenVPN version from this router and get additional security update/bugfixes.

Would be great if there was a newer version than 17.01.6 r3979 with built in openvpn I could try on my TL-WR841N/ND revision 11?

I had a look at the image building guide but looks like a steep learning curve really and given how popular OpenVPN is and the quantity of old 4MB devices out there that can still do a job I'm expecting someone who already has an image building VM (and knows what they are doing) could likely create such an imagine in short order or likely there are newer versions than the 17.01.6 r3979 with built in openvpn I already found that exist already?

Would really appeciate some help with this, would be crazy to have to throw these TL-WR841N/ND revision 11 routers away.

Edit: found this 17.01.7 r4030 with built in openvpn as well but same problem when I tried it although it contains the same openvpn version so I guess that makes sense...

Edit 2: Resolved issue, for some bizzare reason certain settings must be in caps for this, immediately works fine when changed to caps, crazy since older and newer versions don't need this:
cipher AES-128-CBC
auth SHA1

Would still be great to get a newer version stripped back to just include web interface and openvpn to fit 4MB but less important now I have something that actually works.

thanks

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Did you see this one?

Hi, I did see it but download links were broken and was some talk I think of some problems but admittedly with things I’m not bothered about, wasn’t sure if links removed as unstable? Messaged them if have link but not been online for ages, anyone else have a copy of this 18.06.2 version and any feedback on stability specifically when using OpenVPN? Thanks

Hi, Is there any image that have opkg on it?, I have WR841N V10 with 16MB Flash. anyone can help me build with opkg?

@Ashus

Can you update the 19.07.xx branch to the latest version 19.07.09?
Would like to use it (tiny luci version) on my W841ND V9.

Best regards.

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Here you go:
https://openwrt.ashus.net/19.07.9-targets-ath79-tiny-luci/
I haven't tested it though, please let me know how it works.

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Thanks for keeping it up to date!
I tried 21.02 on TP-Link WR841 v9, but it's too heavy (Luci and even whole router hangs, speed only around 50MBit).
With 19.07.9 it's working fine :slight_smile:

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Interesting. I am running some 21.02.1 quite successfully on my TP-Link TL-WR841N/ND v9. I built it just the same way as my 19.07.7 before, see OpenWrt 19.07.x ath79 tiny LuCI - #121 by bers

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Interesting. I tried 21.02.2 image from Ashus.

I have made new final builds, 19.07.10 for this target and for ar71xx. Now including 802.11r support, relayd and WatchCat.

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Thank a lot. Where is the link?

Sorry for the noob question, but does the relayd package implies also luci-proto-relay gui included?

Yes, it is there, see config in selected folder.
CONFIG_PACKAGE_luci-proto-relay=y

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Hi Ashus,
only created an account in the forum just for say thank you very much for your work, time and shares keeping these little bastards up and running.
Based on what I found here and because I own a few WR841 v9..11 and read about this Mesh-Thing and B.A.T.M.A.N., I will now try to build an image just with reduced stuff.
Once again thank you for your work.

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Hey, that’s not the answer you were asking for, but I have a question to everyone here: why is newer version is better? It probably has new security things built-in? Something else?

I don’t intend to say it’s not needed. I just look for the router firmware for my TP-Link TL-WR-841N v9.2, which has 18.06.9 right now. Right now it’s used as a router, but I have another one — TP-Link AC750 Archer C20 v4, which I plan to update to 21.02.3, so it’ll become my primary one. So WR-841N is going to be a dumb WiFi Access Point (connected by LAN cable, as I already have it right where I plan to put the router) to make my network larger where Wi-Fi signal drops.

So I consider

  • either to leave it as it is on 18.06.9.
  • update it to this very on-topic version, 19.07.
  • or try 21.02.x

What would you guys say?

I am new to the community, though I was around for a while (a year or something). I know how to flash already, I know some settings in LuCi and I know how to ssh.

I haven't found any CVE for 18.06.9, but ... I still would not run four-years old software on a Wifi router that gave access to other devices connected to the network.

I am running 21.02.x just fine on my router (essentially the same as yours, see above), and I am planning to build and try 22.03.x once that's released. (Both require building firmware yourself at the moment.)

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Yes, there is the feeling of 4-years old software that could make a difference. The UI looks different across versions so copying configuration like that would be harder, but that shouldn't be a dealbreaker. Maybe there are some inconsistencies in hostapd configuration and you would like to make a dumb AP enabled with 802.11r fast transition (mesh).

Also I recently found out, that on some 4/32MB hardware, 21.02 is not stable enough, so if you want it rock stable and secure, I'd go for 19.07.10 - it isn't even that old, there have been some fixes backported for older devices and it was released in April 2022.

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fyi, I have tried the approach from OpenWrt 19.07.x ath79 tiny LuCI - #121 by bers with 22.03.0, and with the config https://openwrt.ashus.net/21.02.3-targets-ath79-tiny-luci/config which I have successfully used before, the image generation fails with errors such as

[mktplinkfw] *** error: images are too big by 378042 bytes

or

[mktplinkfw] *** error: images are too big by 466753 bytes

It does not seem too easy to fit 22.03 into 4 MB.

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Have you considered removing LuCI? I think it’s way too hardcore to use 22 version on hardware this old. So maybe SSH is the only way to go. If it’d fit without LuCI, I would use it. I use web interface, but I would learn how to do the things I need with SSH only.

Considered yes, but not tried myself. I don't feel proficient enough in Linux-based networking to do that, to be honest. I am well able to extend and clean up scripts that I compile from the commands generated by manipulations in LuCI (which is a great help), but as soon as something unexpected comes up (and I'd expect that when going from 20.x to 22.x), I usually resort to LuCI again (if only to check the of status of everything).