Of all firmware’s I have tried in the past, Padavan by far has the snappiest web gui. Beyond that, it has all the bells and whistles that the other big name firmware’s have. If you are looking to extend the life of your ASUS router, take a look at Padavan you will probably be impressed. The indicators of WDS support here are the WDS mode setting and the MAC address entry boxes. Figure 1: ESR9850 wireless settings for WDS mode. When you set the router to Repeater Mode using the drop-down at the top left of the admin screen, the Wireless settings screen looks much different.
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Greetings MIUIGlobal Forum Fans! A year has passed since Xiaomi showed us the Mi WiFi Router 3. It's a beautifully designed, powerful and well-made device, which came to replace the Mi WiFi Router mini. It's basic build includes the same components as Mi WiFi Router mini, but it sports 4 antennas - 2 for 2G band and 2 for 5G band, this feature brings even more power to Mi Router 3. xiaomi-mi-wifi-router-3-white-002.jpg(228.6 KB, Downloads: 17) There are numerous threads about this sweet device and I suggest you reading some of them: [MIUI DEVICE TEAM] MI WiFi ROUTER 3 Unboxing and Review by @mitch002 Xiaomi Mi Wi-Fi Router 3 : A Complete Review by @SurajitSaha21 Mi Router 3 - Unboxing and Setting up the fastest Mi Router! by @FunkSpunk
Best thing about this router is it can be fully controlled via Mobile using an application. But some people find web-interface for management better. However, as this device is made for China, you can meet difficulties understanding what the web-interface says. For people who only want to see everything in English inside the web-interface there's also a workaround - Xiaomi has a firmware supporting English, which can be flashed via web-interface and transforms your router into an English-speaking device. It can be downloaded here: http://bigota.miwifi.com/xiaoqiang/rom/r3/miwifi_r3_firmware_62cf9_2.10.38_INT.bin. But what if you are an experienced user and want to get even more from your device? For most of the routers there are firmwares like DD-WRT, OpenWRT etc. As for Mi Router 3 there is also a custom made firmware, which is made by Andy Padavan (https://bitbucket.org/padavan/rt-n56u) and is originally targetted at Asus RT-N56U. But through the time he also made it available for other devices from different manufacturers. Its main purpose is extending your possibilities to control your router. Let's just see some of the included features: 1. Customizable and intuitive user Interface 2. Hardware offload support (WAN/LAN) 3. VPN server/client 4. USB applications: FTP server, Torrent client (Transmission), SMB Server, UPnP/DLNA Media Server, iTunes Media Server (Firefly) 5. Support for Entware or Optware Packages 6. Support for USB 3G/4G modems 7. ssh/telnet access 8. Extra DDNS services 9. Detailed network traffic graph 10. AiDisk (share your files over the internet) 11. SAMBA/FTP/Printer Share (via USB port) Because of the copyright limitations this firmware requires to be built by the end user and can't be downloaded 'ready-to-flash'. So the main purpose of my guide is to tell you how to compile and install it on your Mi Router 3. I am going to use the virtual machine way for building the final firmware. It's much easier to use it than seeking for the packages required for the build process. Let's begin. Be careful and follow this guide step by step. Keep in mind that flashing custom firmware may or may not damage your device. 1. Do a basic setup of your router via Mobile App (Mi Router app) or via Web interface (by going to 192.168.31.1). 2. Flash the Developer Firmware. To go further you'll need a Developer Firmware for acquiring ssh access. There's only one firmware version known to give such an opportunity. You can get it here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/r09dl0or4z2iyxh/miwifi_r3_all_55ac7_2.11.20.zip?dl=0. Download it, unpack to get a file called miwifi_r3_all_55ac7_2.11.20.bin and flash it via your router web interface. To do this go to 192.168.31.1, enter your password (you set it while doing a basic setup). 1_web_interface.png(41.16 KB, Downloads: 20) Then in the dropdown menu in the upper right corner select 'Firmware update' (it's the second link in that menu). 2_firmware_update_menu.png(88.17 KB, Downloads: 9) You will be taken to the page with your firmware info. Press the gray button on that page to open the dialog window with controls for file uploading. 3_firmware_update_page.png(45.04 KB, Downloads: 9) Press 'Choose file' button and find the firmware binary you have unpacked. Press the blue button inside the dialog window to start flashing. 4_flashing_firmware.png(38.42 KB, Downloads: 10) This process will take around 2-3 minutes and your router will be rebooted. After you get the developer firmware installed you are ready to go for compiling the Padavan firmware and installing it. 3. Prepare the virtual machine for the firmware compilation. Get the VMware Workstation Player here: http://www.vmware.com/go/downloadplayer/ by choosing the corresponding installer. It works for both Windows and Linux operating systems. Install and launch the VMware Workstation Player. Also download a virtual machine build from Yandex.disk: https://yadi.sk/d/6EpD2EpHmB82o. You can choose whichever image you want. As for me I was using VMWARE-PROMETHEUS-64-FULL.7z. After downloading virtual machine build unpack it somewhere on your HDD. When the VM build is unpacked, go back to VMware Workstation Player, press File -> Open, navigate to the unpacked VM directory and select the file named PROMETHEUS-64 inside that directory (by default only one supported file will be displayed in file chooser). 5_open_vm.png(85.58 KB, Downloads: 9) 6_open_vm2.png(81.5 KB, Downloads: 6) Afterwards you can configure your VM container to better suit your PC - RAM amount, CPU cores number etc. Launch the Virtual machine by pressing the Play button below the main menu and wait for it to boot. 4. Script configuration. When the VM finishes booting it automatically launches the script, which helps you build and install the firmware. First script launch will possibly be in Russian. It will ask you about the router model you want to build for. Select 'Mi-3' by pressing 3 on your keyboard and pressing Enter afterwards. 7_select_model.png(44.38 KB, Downloads: 10) Wait for a couple of seconds for the script to initialize. You will get a window like this: 8_after_model.png(50.72 KB, Downloads: 7) You can change the interface to English by pressing L (Shift+L) and pressing 2 followed by Enter after that. When you change the language and get back to the previously shown window press 0 to let the script acquire SSH access to your router. It will automatically do it. In case you get an error while SSH testing (the script will tell you if there is any) press 2 to edit connection parameters. Input root as SSH login and your Web interface password as an access password. Additionally, it can ask you for an IP address. If this happens just input the IP of your router's Web interface. If script shows no errors you can keep following the guide. 5. Build the toolchain. Prometheus doesn't come with toolchain pre-built, so you need to build it on your own. To do it press 3 in the main script window. It will automatically go through the build process. This is going take some time to finish building. Don't be in a hurry. When the toolchain is built you'll get a message asking you to press any key. Do it. 9_toolchain_built.png(60.65 KB, Downloads: 5) 6. Configure and build firmware. Inside the script's main window press 4 to enter firmware section. Here you should enable skins and build it first. Press 2 to enter skins selection and press buttons from 0 to 6 one by one until you see each of the skin rows containing green 'ON' text. Enter Q (Shift+Q) when finished. You will be taken to the firmware section again. 10_skins_selected.png(45.48 KB, Downloads: 4) Now press 3 to start building firmware. This is going to take some time. Wait for the building process to finish. You will see the firmware filename and a message to press any key to continue. 9.png(24.67 KB, Downloads: 6) Press that 'any key' :D and you will be taken to the firmware section again. Now that you have firmware built you are ready to start flashing it to your router. To do it press 4. When asked about making a backup I suggest you not to do it, because this function is there for updating Padavan firmware and official firmware you currently have installed leads to problems while backup creation. So press N and Enter. The script will start flashing your router and you'll get a question about router reboot when it's flashed successfully. 11.png(21.06 KB, Downloads: 10) Press Y followed by Enter and get ready to change the IP address on your PC. Now you can login to your newly flashed Padavan firmware and configure it the way you want. Default IP address: 192.168.1.1 Default password: admin 12.png(685.96 KB, Downloads: 24) Good luck in using another cool device from Xiaomi! Downloads for this guide:1. VMware Workstation Player: http://www.vmware.com/go/downloadplayer/ 2. PROMETHEUS virtual machine and script: https://yadi.sk/d/6EpD2EpHmB82o 3. Developer Firmware for Mi WiFi Router 3: https://www.dropbox.com/s/r09dl0or4z2iyxh/miwifi_r3_all_55ac7_2.11.20.zip?dl=0 Credits go to the respected original firmware and script maintainers. It's the enormous amount of work! So thank them if you ever encounter them. Padavan firmware at Bitbucket: https://bitbucket.org/padavan/rt-n56u Prometheus script website: http://prometheus.freize.net/ |