Hi , i have a WR841N V.14 from TP link , i looked at : https://openwrt.org/toh/hwdata/tp-link/tp-link_tl-wr841n_v14 and it is not recommended to flash this device due its low size flash bank , however i would like to build an image for this router but i do not find the image builder or basic firmware for it on that current webpage , all download links are down .
My objective is to build a minimal image and , i would like to know where can i download the image builder for this device .
It would be nice to see in future releases a minimal flash image for low rom devices with wifi , switch , dhcp and the minimal uci packages just for basic operation of the devices .
Even this is not possible with a modern and supported version of OpenWrt (24.10 or 23.05) because 4MB flash + 32MB RAM is not sufficient to even fit the kernel.
The device is extremely under resourced and should be replaced.
i was expecting to build it on a lower kernel version , for the purpose that i will give to this router a lower kernel like 19.07.10 would be perfect , i just hate tplink official images full of backdoors .
Anyway , did anyone tried this :
You are coming over half a decade -literally- too late.
Only 23.05.x and newer has security support, which is important; 19.07.x and friends haven't seen any security fixes in years (February 2021 in this case) and do contain known/ unfixed security issues, WAN, LAN and WLAN side. It is not safe to run old versions for any purpose. Nor are you going to mix and choose older components 'easily'.
I have some ideas in place , but i need the build code for this router on version 19.07 , this router will not be at front of the web or will connect directly to the web , so i do not know what kind of security problems i will have , in fact i have a 741 router here working for at least 6 years straight and never gave me any issue and the last time i updated his packages were probably 6 years ago , this device will be used in home and not on a company , and there is no way anyone remotely can exploit its vulnerably issues due to low kernel version. In fact a lower and more lightly version of kernel would be perfect for this case but i suspect that a lower kernel version may not have the drivers to make it work , i did not yet checked this part . However i really need the build package for it and the reason is that i need to place a script running on this router on the boot and i can only do it with openwrt in it or i have to open the router case and make some magic on the the tplink version of it witch i do not thrust anything . Despite what you all may think , even an older version of openwrt on this router is more safer than the current updated version of tplink in it .
If you insist on using this half-decade EOL'd version, you can at your own risk. Consider that you will not likely get any support here, though -- assume that you're on your own.
Before you even start, consider that this device was last officially built with the "ar71xx tiny" target for 18.06. This means you'd need to start with 19.07 using either the ar71xx tiny target or the ath79 tiny, the former of which would be more likely to be possible (but still may not even work).
eh... I don't disagree that the vendor firmware is extremely outdated and that OpenWrt gave this device many more years of service with up-to-date security, but once you've got many serious vulnerabilities stacked up since the firmware was EOL'd, you probably should consider them equally insecure. Imagine if your mom died from a disease that was ordained by her DNA, and your dad died of another one of these such diseases. Now imagine that you were so unlucky as to inherit both of those genetically certain diseases (i.e. you have the genes, you will develop the diseases). A medical breakthrough allows for treatment to prevent you from dying from the first -- awesome! But you're still going to die from the other. This is the game you play with old firmware that has known security vulnerabilities... once it's exploited, it doesn't matter if it was vulnerability "a" or "b", all that matters is that your network has been compromised.
Anyway, like I said above.... you've got your work cut out for you to make this work on 19.07... good luck!
Thank you , however on the vulnerabilities i think you over reacted a bit for the purpose i will give to this device , however i agree with you if an openwrt device is widely opened to the web .
Given that there are wan-, lan- and wlan side vulnerabilities, no.
Security is a constant process, using half a decade old abandoned code and sticking your fingers into your ears does not help to keep the botnets out. It's a business, ranging from "state sponsored" to fully criminal, renting their botnets to the highest bidder.
The router will be used as a repeater and i did not needed to build a new firmware from openwrt , i used the old snapshot from 19.07 , it was hard to find because it was not available on openwrt website , links were down , i uploaded it in case anyone needs it for this device . Openwrt 19.7 Snapshot for WR841N V14