RT-N66U - Vodafone Mobile Wi-Fi R205 integration

[sofianito]

Hi,

I got my RT-N66U two days back and I am trying to figure out how to connect it to internet through my Vodafone Mobile Wi-Fi R205. The latter could either be used as a Wi-Fi Access Point or USB dongle. According to the documentation, the USB dongle mode works only on Windows and Mac, i.e. no drivers for linux!

Wi-Fi AP mode supports up to 9 devices and has a range of 10 meters. So my only choice I guess is to use RT-N66U as a wireless client. From what I could test, neither AsusWRT original firmware nor Merlin support repeater mode. I have tried Tomato Shibby but I didn't have success with wireless client mode. I am gonna try Toastman version and see if it supports client mode...

Questions:
Is it possible to use DD-WRT firmware without upgrading CFE to 1.0.1.3? According to its wiki, I could use r18946 or r19342. I found there is even a newer version (r19519) in their FTP site.

Also, could I use Fractal release r20202 (dd-wrt.v24-20202_NEWD_2_K2.6_mini-RT-N66.trx + dd-wrt.v24-20202_NEWD_2_K2.6_mega-RT-N66.trx) without having to upgrade CFE?

Last but not least question : If I upgrade CFE to 1.0.1.3 and use Fractal firmware dd-wrt.v24-20363_NEWD_2_K2.6_mega-RT-N66_64K.trx, will I be able to:
1) Flash and use later on AsusWRT Merlin or TomatoUSB Shibby/Toastman without bricking the router?

2) Will I be able to downgrade later on to CFE 1.0.1.2? If so, what is the safe downgrade procedure?

Thanks in advance!

 

[sofianito]

I flashed toastman (tomato-K26USB-NVRAM64K-1.28.0501.2MIPSR2Toastman-RT-N-VLAN-VPN-NOCAT.trx), but same as Shibby, wireless client didn't work.

I configured my old WRT54G v2.2 as a repeater with DD-WRT, and it worked well with R205.

I am willing to install DD-WRT on my RT-N66U to test repeater mode, but I want to be sure I will not brick my router or overflow the 32k NVRAM if I do not upgrade CFE. Could a knowledgeable user please answer the questions I've sent in my last post?

Cheers.

 

[sofianito]

I finally upgraded CFE to 1.0.1.3 and firmware to Fractal dd-wrt.v24-20363_NEWD_2_K2.6_mega-RT-N66_64K.trx. Unfortunately I didn't backup the generated cfe.old, but before running the script I did a backup through the command:

cat /dev/mtd0ro > cfe.orig

and did a secure copy to my laptop.

Digging into the cfe_update.sh script, I found out that the backup is done through command:

cat /dev/mtd0 > cfe.old

Shall I consider my backup as valid?


Regarding the wireless repeater mode, it worked fine in the 2.4Ghz band (wl0), but it didn't work in the 5Ghz band (wl1). The WAN interface couldn't get a dynamic IP, and the new virtual wireless AP was not broadcasted. Did I miss something?

Cheers.