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Topic: Buffalo WBMR-HP-G300H - Help please!

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Hi there,

Just purchased Buffalo WBMR-HP-G300H.

I am considering my options and would like to know what will benefit me the most.

DD-WRT or OpenWrt.

1) What I am after is firstly to know how to flash back to stock
2) Which ever one will have the same capabilities as the stock firmware + heaps of extras
3) One that will run all encapsulations PPPoE and PPPoA (PPPoA as this is what we use in NZ)
4) One that will have the built in offline torrenting function like the original firmware
5) One where I can actually control the QOS on my network (limit speeds/priority on devices).

Thanks in advance for your help and advice look forward to seeing some replies.

Cheers,

msp_411

bump (sorry about this just would like some info to get to work on this today after work not trying to be pushy).

Either with DD-WRT or OpenWRT you can't flash back to stock fw.
Both can run PPPoE and PPPoA, and both has QOS functions, but DD-WRT is more noob friendly from my point of view.

Latest DD-WRT builds are not very light especially for torrenting function, so I suggest you to go for OpenWRT+Aria2 dw manager.

mirko_47 wrote:

Either with DD-WRT or OpenWRT you can't flash back to stock fw.
Both can run PPPoE and PPPoA, and both has QOS functions, but DD-WRT is more noob friendly from my point of view.

Latest DD-WRT builds are not very light especially for torrenting function, so I suggest you to go for OpenWRT+Aria2 dw manager.

Thanks for the advice Mirko, I am a noob at this sort of thing have only ever flashed a router once but it was with DDWRT and video tut so it was idiot proofed for myself.

Are you able to give me the links to all the firmware I need to dl?

Aria2 is easy enough to find in google so no probs getting that myself I am just abit confused by the OpenWRT firmware choices (sorry if my question is worded wrong again I am super noob).

I also saw mention on another forum I believe that when DDWRT is placed onto this modem/router people have had a drop in speed will there be no speed issues/bugs if I jump to OpenWRT?

Just after the most stable build with the functions I'm after.

Thanks again.

(Last edited by msp_411 on 22 May 2015, 22:52)

I'll try to answer point by point:

.a: Assuming that you're convinced to flash OpenWRT, the best way to flash it is using DD-WRT.
So the fisrt thing to do is flash DD-WRT, and this is the easy part, to do that I suggest you to use this noob-proof tutorial:
https://youtu.be/5f-i64tdCgY
About the image to use:
I'm not really up to date with DD-WRT development so, to avoid being the guinea pig of a given betas, I suggest to do a quick search over DD-WRT forum, seeing if there's someone that already tried to flash a r2xxxx beta (this means that you've to whach in the thread marked as "New build --- 2xxxx --- 0x/xx/2015").
When you find a build that isn't bugged for your modem/router you can download it here:
ftp://ftp.dd-wrt.com/betas/2015/
[Remember that for the first installation you've to use the file marked as "buffalo_to_dd-wrt_MULTI.enc"]


Important: I've still to flash OpenWRT on my WBMR-HP-G300H, so I can't be sure about every single passages of this part below, I'm just reading it from the OpenWRT wiki

Once you've succesfully installed DD-WRT, you can flash OpenWRT via telnet using:

mtd -r

or

sysupgrade

command

As written into the wiki page: http://wiki.openwrt.org/toh/buffalo/wbmr-hp-g300h


.b: Since as I said, I've still to try an OpenWRT build for this modem/router I won't indicate any link for any image, so it will be better if you try to search opinions for someone which already try it.

The best thing that you can do is flash an image built by your own, but if this is your first time with OpenWRT, this isn't a good idea...

.c: If this is your first time with OpenWRT, I don't think that it will be so easy to setup Aria2, so once you've setup all the previous aspects correctly, I suggest you to read this guide: http://eko.one.pl/?p=openwrt-aria2 [use a translator, unless you know polish...] to setup also Aria2

.d: About the performance drop:
As I said, latest DD-WRT builds from my point of view aren't very light, so it highly probable that you can notice a perceptible performance drop in both modem and rounting capabilities.
I can't say anything on OpenWRT, since as I said I've still to try it, but I know that someone was able to find an updated driver for the modem: https://mega.co.nz/#!ptAE3DjC!kzPHFL4kr … QOXC09VtWM (extracted from a GPL of an equivalent TP-LINK modem)
So maybe OpenWRT will perform better with this driver.


In any case try to search and read infomation about updating procedure as much as you can before flashing anything.

Regards.

mirko_47 wrote:

I'll try to answer point by point:

.a: Assuming that you're convinced to flash OpenWRT, the best way to flash it is using DD-WRT.
So the fisrt thing to do is flash DD-WRT, and this is the easy part, to do that I suggest you to use this noob-proof tutorial:
https://youtu.be/5f-i64tdCgY
About the image to use:
I'm not really up to date with DD-WRT development so, to avoid being the guinea pig of a given betas, I suggest to do a quick search over DD-WRT forum, seeing if there's someone that already tried to flash a r2xxxx beta (this means that you've to whach in the thread marked as "New build --- 2xxxx --- 0x/xx/2015").
When you find a build that isn't bugged for your modem/router you can download it here:
ftp://ftp.dd-wrt.com/betas/2015/
[Remember that for the first installation you've to use the file marked as "buffalo_to_dd-wrt_MULTI.enc"]


Important: I've still to flash OpenWRT on my WBMR-HP-G300H, so I can't be sure about every single passages of this part below, I'm just reading it from the OpenWRT wiki

Once you've succesfully installed DD-WRT, you can flash OpenWRT via telnet using:

mtd -r

or

sysupgrade

command

As written into the wiki page: http://wiki.openwrt.org/toh/buffalo/wbmr-hp-g300h


.b: Since as I said, I've still to try an OpenWRT build for this modem/router I won't indicate any link for any image, so it will be better if you try to search opinions for someone which already try it.

The best thing that you can do is flash an image built by your own, but if this is your first time with OpenWRT, this isn't a good idea...

.c: If this is your first time with OpenWRT, I don't think that it will be so easy to setup Aria2, so once you've setup all the previous aspects correctly, I suggest you to read this guide: http://eko.one.pl/?p=openwrt-aria2 [use a translator, unless you know polish...] to setup also Aria2

.d: About the performance drop:
As I said, latest DD-WRT builds from my point of view aren't very light, so it highly probable that you can notice a perceptible performance drop in both modem and rounting capabilities.
I can't say anything on OpenWRT, since as I said I've still to try it, but I know that someone was able to find an updated driver for the modem: https://mega.co.nz/#!ptAE3DjC!kzPHFL4kr … QOXC09VtWM (extracted from a GPL of an equivalent TP-LINK modem)
So maybe OpenWRT will perform better with this driver.


In any case try to search and read infomation about updating procedure as much as you can before flashing anything.

Regards.

Sorry for another silly question but how do I input the commands do I need some other software to do this???

You don't need to quote the full posting you are referring to. You may shorten it to the relevant part.

msp_411 wrote:

Sorry for another silly question but how do I input the commands do I need some other software to do this???

google telnet ssh

If you're on windows: install putty

tmo26 wrote:

You don't need to quote the full posting you are referring to. You may shorten it to the relevant part.

msp_411 wrote:

Sorry for another silly question but how do I input the commands do I need some other software to do this???

google telnet ssh

If you're on windows: install putty

Thank you for your reply. If thats what I need I am pretty sure its already installed with WinSCP smile

Just need to hope someone with this modem/router can confirm how stable openwrt is on it or how I can go about having my modem/router function bittorrent while my computer is offline and save data to USB.

Since I think that the best image that you can flash is an image built by your own and tailored onto your needs I'll write down here the basic packages that you need to do this:

Into a Linux environment:
-open terminal
-then supposing to work in a folder placed into desktop (As you can see I'll use apt, so this  works with Ubuntu/Debian and their derivate only, if u're using something else, e.g. Fedora, replace the command with the proper ones):

sudo apt-get update 
sudo apt-get install build-essential subversion libncurses5-dev zlib1g-dev gawk git git-core ccache gcc-multilib flex gettext libssl-dev xsltproc quilt libxml-parser-perl python2.7-dev qemu-utils

cd /home/username/Desktop 
mkdir OpenWRT
cd OpenWRT

svn co svn://svn.openwrt.org/openwrt/trunk
cd trunk 

./scripts/feeds update -a
./scripts/feeds install -a

make defconfig
make prereq
make menuconfig        #select the package indicated into the next code space
make -j N        #where N=(number of thread that your CPU can manage)-1 

menuconfig selections:

Target System: Lantiq
Subtarget: XWAY
Target Profile: Buffalo WBMR-HP-G300H (A) - WBMR
Target Images: squashfs
Advanced  configuration options (for developer):
    [*] Show broken platforms/packages
    [*] Enable log files durig build process
    Target Options: -O2 -pipe -mno-branch-likely -mips32r2 -mtune=34kc -mdsp      

               Note: the first character after the dash is the letter O (of Optimization) and not the number zero.

    Toolchain Options: GCC compiler Version ---> 4.9.x with Linaro enhancements
Base system:
    <*>qos-scripts
    <*>zram-swap
Kernel modules:
    Block Devices:
        <*> kmod-block2mtd 
        -*- kmod-scsi-core
        <*> kmod-scsi-generic
    Filesystems:
       <*> kmod-fs-exfat
       <*>kmod-fs-ext4
       <*> kmod-fs-ntfs
    Network Devices:
       <*> kmod-ltq-adsl-ar9-fw-a
    USB Support
       -*- kmod-usb-core
       <*> kmod-usb-storage
       <*> kmod-usb-storage-extras
    Wireless Drivers:
       <*> kmod-ath9k  

LuCI
    Collections:
        <*> luci-ssl
    Modules:
        <*> luci-mod-admin-full
    Applications:
        <*> luci-app-qos

Network:
    File Transfer:
        <*> aria2
            Aria2 Configuration:
                SSL library (OpenSSL)
                [*] Enable bittorrent support
                [*] Enable metalink support
    <*> hostapd-mini
    <*> hostapd-utils

Important note:  Buffalo WBMR-HP-G300H (A) - WBMR && kmod-ltq-adsl-ar9-fw-a refers to Annex A version, so swich it to Annex Type X (where X can be A or B), according to the specs of your line.

Regards.

(Last edited by mirko_47 on 25 May 2015, 19:43)

Then to setup Aria2 Download manager, you can follow the procedure down here:

.1:Prepare you're USB drive with 2 partition, one for the data, and the other one for swapping (use GParted or something similar).
Then attach it to the modem/router and mount the data partition (if is the first one on the drive probably it will be marked as "sda1"), and configure properly the swap partition.

.2: prepare your data partition with the following folders/files sheme (this is the scheme that I use, so I will suggest you this; I think is quite clear and ordered, obviously if you don't like it you're free to use something else):
.2.1: create a folder marked "Aria2".
.2.2: enter into Aria2 folder, and create 3 new sub-folder labeled as "Bin", "Logs" and "Downloads".
.2.3: enter into "Conf" subfolder, and then create a file with name "Aria2" and extension ".conf"
.2.4: open the "Aria2.conf" file and enter the following text:

check-integrity=true
continue=true
daemon=true
disable-ipv6=true
disk-cache=16M
dir=/mnt/sda1/Aria2/Downloads/Done
dht-file-path=/mnt/sda1/Aria2/Bin/DHT.dat
log=/mnt/sda1/Aria2/Logs/Aria2.log
enable-dht6=false
enable-rpc=true
log-level=error
max-overall-upload-limit=100K
max-overall-download-limit=1M
rpc-allow-origin-all=true
rpc-listen-all=true
rpc-listen-port=6800
rpc-user=********
rpc-passwd=********
rpc-secret=********

    (note:  repace the *** with what you prefer, "rpc-secret" must be in this form: $text$)
    Every line correspond to an option, as I said u're free to change it according to your needs.
    Just have a watch here Aria2 Online Manual to undetstand how it works.
.2.5: enter into "Downloads" folder, create 2 new sub-folders labeled as "Done" and "Session"
.2.7: enter into "Incomplete" sub-folder, and create a file (that must be clear) named "Aria2.sav"

(note: it will be better if u do all the passages into the point 2 via SSH or something similar (WinSCP for Win/Filezilla for Linux) to avoid ownership problem of every single file/folder).

.3: add Aria2 to the startup entry:
    go to: system -> startup
    then enter:

aria2c --conf-path=/mnt/sda1/Aria2/Bin/Aria2.conf --input-file=/mnt/sda1/Aria2/Downloads/Session/Aria2.sav --save-session=/mnt/sda1/Aria2/Downloads/Session/Aria2.sav --save-session-interval=180
    

.4: Reboot the modem/router

To access in an easy way to Aria2 I suggest you to use this WebUI.
In "configuration.js" change  host with your router IP, uncomment the token, user id, and passwd and fill the space with what you previously set into Aria2.conf file

(Last edited by mirko_47 on 25 May 2015, 20:43)

mirko_47 wrote:

Then to setup Aria2 Download manager, you can follow the procedure down here:

.1:Prepare you're USB drive with 2 partition, one for the data, and the other one for swapping (use GParted or something similar).
Then attach it to the modem/router and mount the data partition (if is the first one on the drive probably it will be marked as "sda1"), and configure properly the swap partition.

.2: prepare your data partition with the following folders/files sheme (this is the scheme that I use, so I will suggest you this; I think is quite clear and ordered, obviously if you don't like it you're free to use something else):
.2.1: create a folder marked "Aria2".
.2.2: enter into Aria2 folder, and create 3 new sub-folder labeled as "Bin", "Logs" and "Downloads".
.2.3: enter into "Conf" subfolder, and then create a file with name "Aria2" and extension ".conf"
.2.4: open the "Aria2.conf" file and enter the following text:

check-integrity=true
continue=true
daemon=true
disable-ipv6=true
disk-cache=16M
dir=/mnt/sda1/Aria2/Downloads/Done
dht-file-path=/mnt/sda1/Aria2/Bin/DHT.dat
log=/mnt/sda1/Aria2/Logs/Aria2.log
enable-dht6=false
enable-rpc=true
log-level=error
max-overall-upload-limit=100K
max-overall-download-limit=1M
rpc-allow-origin-all=true
rpc-listen-all=true
rpc-listen-port=6800
rpc-user=********
rpc-passwd=********
rpc-secret=********

    (note:  repace the *** with what you prefer, "rpc-secret" must be in this form: $text$)
    Every line correspond to an option, as I said u're free to change it according to your needs.
    Just have a watch here Aria2 Online Manual to undetstand how it works.
.2.5: enter into "Downloads" folder, create 2 new sub-folders labeled as "Done" and "Session"
.2.7: enter into "Incomplete" sub-folder, and create a file (that must be clear) named "Aria2.sav"

(note: it will be better if u do all the passages into the point 2 via SSH or something similar (WinSCP for Win/Filezilla for Linux) to avoid ownership problem of every single file/folder).

.3: add Aria2 to the startup entry:
    go to: system -> startup
    then enter:

aria2c --conf-path=/mnt/sda1/Aria2/Bin/Aria2.conf --input-file=/mnt/sda1/Aria2/Downloads/Session/Aria2.sav --save-session=/mnt/sda1/Aria2/Downloads/Session/Aria2.sav --save-session-interval=180
    

.4: Reboot the modem/router

To access in an easy way to Aria2 I suggest you to use this WebUI.
In "configuration.js" change  host with your router IP, uncomment the token, user id, and passwd and fill the space with what you previously set into Aria2.conf file

Hi mirko_47 thanks again for the informative post I just want to ask you if you have a working build yourself for this router/modem? (I have seen posts on the DDWRT forum from a person with the same name is this you?)

If you have a working build are you able to share it?

Regards,

TB

Edit - Forgot to mention I am a noob so compiling etc I have no idea what I am doing and would like to try avoid flashing something that may end up messing my modem/router up or bricking to the point I can't revive it.

(Last edited by msp_411 on 26 May 2015, 05:03)

Please as tmo26 said, stop quoting the entire text of the previous posts.

Building OpenWrt is quite easy, few months ago I was into your same condition, so I recommend you to read as many guide/wiki/... as you can.

In any case, if you prefer I can build an image for you, but I can't test it on my modem/router before you try it on yours.
So in this way you will be the guinea pig...

(Last edited by mirko_47 on 26 May 2015, 20:29)

My apologies, yes if you could I would be really greatful.

Could I be cheeky and get the build you happen to be using aswell?

I would not mind trying both out.

What are the dl speeds like with the one you currently use mirko_47?

Thanks again.

Unfortunately soon I will be abroad, so in this moment I can't build any image.
Meanwhile I suggest you to try one of the precompiled image that you can find in the download section of openwrt.org (if I don't mistake in the wiki pages is described how to choose the right image), and in install the packages that you need via opkg.

Regarding the dw/up speeds, from my point of view, there's not a huge difference, however it isn't very easy to make a comparison between the different builds, since the dw/up speeds depends on the quality of the line (in fact I must say that since my line isn't very good, so I'm not in conditions to make a accurate comparison).
The only thing that I can say is that with latest build of DD-WRT aren't very light, in fact I measured a not so low CPU/RAM utilisation even when I was running non demanding tasks...

Ok thats no problem, just when you can would be really great.

Does anyone know how I would test the full speed capability of my modem/router without a fast internet connection?? if its even possible?

I'm sorry if I taken so long but I ran into several problems trying to compile it, however here you can find the image:
(Chaos Calmer r46133, Kernel 3.18.16)
https://drive.google.com/folderview?id= … sp=sharing
I wish to state that I will not assume any responsibility for the usage of the built image, so try it on your own risk.
Regards.

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