Did you choose the option to 'keep old settings' ... when you did the FW update to 15.05.1
(I only ask because some others said ...keeping the settings messed-up some other aspect of the install)
Yes. Force of habit; I couldn't be bothered with a factory restore and reconfiguring afterwards. Don't know if I should have done, but it doesn't appear to have broken anything.
I know the squashfs-sysupgrade.bin is the file to use, after changing the original factory FW ...
But what's the initramfs-uImage file for, shown in that same folder?
(Just curious)
Without reading the release notes, I'm not sure (or can't remember). I would hazard a guess that it might be the file to use for the first change from the manufacturer's firmware to OpenWRT. I put OpenWRT on my TM02 as soon as I bought it, which was a while ago.
What if I wanted to place this VPN TM02 before my main router?
In other words, have the Cable-Modem Ethernet go into the TM02 Ethernet, instead of my main router, and my main router linked to the TM02 thru WiFi.
It's certainly technically possible (configure eth0 as the WAN and wlan0 as the LAN), but I wouldn't recommend it. The TM02 is woefully underpowered and I suspect it would become a bottleneck. Your router's throughput should always be faster than the speed your ISP offers, not slower. Shunting packets around at high speed takes CPU power and RAM.
On top of this, if you're contemplating any sort of white-listing or filtering, or even a VPN server, then that takes even more CPU power and RAM. Your router is actually a little computer, albeit one which is optimised for network traffic, and, as with all computers, faster CPUs and more RAM is better. I'd be happy to use the TM02 as a VPN server if all I was doing was simple admin work in a text console, e.g. SSH or Telnet. I wouldn't want to use it for anything data-heavy, such as a graphical remote console, video streaming, or the like.
Lastly, WiFi is half-duplex, not full-duplex, is contended between all of your wireless devices, and you will never achieve the headline speed advertised by the manufacturer. This is especially noticeable when the wireless router has a slow CPU and not much RAM available.
This page - http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/tools/charts/router/view - gives some benchmark wired throughput figures for lots of different devices. Right down near the bottom of the list, with a pitiful 36.6Mbps, is the TP-Link TL-WR710N. The specs of this device are very similar to the HooToo TM02 - see https://wiki.openwrt.org/toh/hwdata/tp- … l-wr710n_1 and https://wiki.openwrt.org/toh/hwdata/hoo … tenano_v15 and compare the CPU speeds and RAM.
As a comparison, the GL-MT300N has a 580MHz CPU and 64MB RAM - http://www.gl-inet.com/mt300n/#14425660 … 448f7-2698 - and Amazon UK has it for 22 quid. I've ordered one out of curiosity; it should arrive some time next week.
-- would there still be a need to create a forwarding rule for the main house router, as you needed to do with your Buffalo router? Or does the forwarding rule now need to be placed on the TM02, or both routers?
The only reason I offered an instruction for a port-forwarding rule was because I was testing OpenVPN on an internal device on my network for the purpose of this thread - the TM02.
Normally I run OpenVPN directly on the Buffalo, I have only one port open to the outside world - UDP 1194 - and I don't have any port forwards configured. Once I connect to the VPN then I'm on my home LAN and can interact with all the devices on my network.
If you're planning on making the TM02 your public-facing router, then you also won't need any port forwarding configured, for the same reason. If all you want to do is browse the Internet as if you were at home, then you're done.
If your other computers are connected via Ethernet to the WRT54G then you can configure the WRT54G as an access point (or wireless bridge) instead of a router (assuming you can do so; I'm not familiar with the software on that device) and your other wired equipment should also be accessible to you over the VPN. If you can't configure the WRT54G as an access point/wireless bridge then you're into the realm of routing tables, which is beyond the scope of this thread.
I'm considering doing this setup, because I also want to create an IP White-List, on the TM02 to filter everything except my needed allowed ports and IP / URL's to enter, before it gets to my main router.
I've been getting hackers constantly trying to get into port 520, among others, and figured I can also block them from even getting into my computers if I block it with this TM02.
My main router doesn't support OpenWRT. ( WRT54G v8 )
My advice? Do one of two things:
* Ditch the WRT54G and buy a fast router which will run OpenWRT as well as a white-list/filter - https://wiki.openwrt.org/toh/views/toh_ … ilable_864 - install OpenVPN on it, and don't bother trying to daisy-chain multiple routers, or;
* Keep the WRT54G and buy/build a cheap computer and install Ubuntu or similar on it, and use that as your OpenVPN server. I recently installed OpenVPN on a Raspberry Pi 3 running Raspbian Jessie; it's a single-NIC device just like the TM02 or TL-MR3020, so lots of the principles were the same or similar.
Lastly, keep the TM02 as a cute little toy for experimentation and teaching yourself about OpenWRT, networking, and other related concepts.
One note from your additional info regarding the VPN config...
The original config listed in your TM02 post didn't have the option mute 20 line at the end...
as the new example you show at post #23
https://forum.openwrt.org/viewtopic.php … 06#p316706Does that line need to also be used, or you were just giving an example?
Fixed. I inadvertently missed that line out when copying the config file originally.
(Last edited by 600cc on 26 Mar 2016, 02:40)