TL-WR841N-OpenWRT

The builds in this repository are only for v9 of the TL-WR841N(D) with 16MB SPI/64MB RAM. Builds for other versions will possibly be added.

Installation

Prerequisites

• You have upgraded your wr841n with 64MB RAM and 16MB SPI with a guide like this
• You have installed the latest official version 18.06 of OpenWRT OR a previous OpenWRT release from this repo

Steps

• Download the latest release from Releases
• Its recommend to verify the download with the provided checksum
• Go to your router web interface and upload the sysupgrade binary
• Warning for users comming from 18.06 (latest official release): Settings can NOT be kept because of the switch from ar71xx to ath79. Keeping the settings will lead to a boot loop and a recovery method will be necessary

Information

These packages were compiled to save you some time. Build system config can be found in diffconfig. Basically it's the following:

• OpenWRT tiny ath79 target
• LuCI web interface
• Support for ed25519 ssh keys
• Quad9 as default DNS resolver - this can be changed in settings!

Please note that the binaries have been tested, but there is no warranty. You are installing these packages at your own risk!

OpenWRT License can be found here.

Change DNS Server

If you want to change to a different DNS forwarder, just got to Network->DHCP and DNS->Forwards and paste your own DNS servers.

If you want to use the DNS server advertised by WAN, got to Network->DHCP and DNS->Forwards and remove all DNS entries. Afterward switch to Resolv & Hosts Files and remove the tick from Ignore resolv file.

Wireguard benchmarks

For all who are interested in running wireguard on this old Router, here are some results from this awesome wg bench script:

Routers details:
{
        "kernel": "5.10.201",
        "hostname": "OpenWrt",
        "system": "Qualcomm Atheros QCA9533 ver 1 rev 1",
        "model": "TP-Link TL-WR841N/ND v9",
        "board_name": "tplink,tl-wr841-v9",
        "rootfs_type": "squashfs",
        "release": {
                "distribution": "OpenWrt",
                "version": "22.03.6",
                "revision": "r20265-f85a79bcb4",
                "target": "ath79/tiny",
                "description": "OpenWrt 22.03.6 r20265-f85a79bcb4"
        }
}
Connecting to host 169.254.200.2, port 4242
[  5] local 169.254.200.1 port 33388 connected to 169.254.200.2 port 4242
[ ID] Interval           Transfer     Bitrate         Retr  Cwnd
[  5]   0.00-1.00   sec  2.29 MBytes  19.2 Mbits/sec    0    102 KBytes       
[  5]   1.00-2.00   sec  2.27 MBytes  19.0 Mbits/sec    0    132 KBytes       
[  5]   2.00-3.00   sec  2.27 MBytes  19.0 Mbits/sec    0    142 KBytes       
[  5]   3.00-4.00   sec  2.21 MBytes  18.5 Mbits/sec    0    142 KBytes       
[  5]   4.00-5.00   sec  2.27 MBytes  19.0 Mbits/sec    0    163 KBytes       
[  5]   5.00-6.00   sec  2.21 MBytes  18.5 Mbits/sec    0    163 KBytes       
[  5]   6.00-7.00   sec  2.33 MBytes  19.5 Mbits/sec    0    163 KBytes       
[  5]   7.00-8.00   sec  2.15 MBytes  18.0 Mbits/sec    0    163 KBytes       
[  5]   8.00-9.00   sec  2.33 MBytes  19.5 Mbits/sec    0    273 KBytes       
[  5]   9.00-10.00  sec  2.51 MBytes  21.1 Mbits/sec    0    273 KBytes       
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
[ ID] Interval           Transfer     Bitrate         Retr
[  5]   0.00-10.00  sec  22.8 MBytes  19.2 Mbits/sec    0             sender
[  5]   0.00-10.05  sec  22.5 MBytes  18.8 Mbits/sec                  receiver

iperf Done.