[CentOS] Off-Topic: Travel Router and Firewall

Arun Khan knura9 at gmail.com
Fri Nov 25 02:43:35 UTC 2016


On Thu, Nov 24, 2016 at 11:57 AM, H <agents at meddatainc.com> wrote:
>
> I did visit both the OpenWRT lists and the TP-Link website. On the latter, I
> found four travel routers: WR810N 300 Mbps, powered from an outlet and 2
> RJ-45 ports, its predecessor WR710N 150 Mbps, WR802N 300 Mbps and powered
> via micro-USB port and 1 RJ-45 port, and finally WR702N 150 Mbps. If I read
> correctly, only the 8xx models have at least 8 Mb of flash memory required
> for OpenWRT so it's down to either WR810N or WR802N. Of note is that all
> routers are apparently sold in a US version where the firmware is locked and
> a European version where it is not, the latter easier to flash.

I have prototyped a similar setup with RasPi.  With a 4GB (or higher)
SD card, flash storage is not a limiting factor compared routers like
TP-Link.

I did try openWRT on Raspi but the driver (Realtek 8192 IIRC) for my
USB LAN was not stable.

Settled on Raspbian (all config files hand edited).    There is Pidora
(Fedora spin) also.

>
> OpenWRT seems like a good solution. However, I am not an expert on this and
> two questions remain:
>
> - Will OpenWRT allow me to using a computer, tablet or phone configure the
> access when the hotel (or similar) uses a web page where one has to enter
> userid and password?
>

I suggest NAT on the openWRT device's "WAN" interface and within it do
the "captive portal" auth  with the "host" network.
Your devices connected on the "LAN" (wired + WiFi) should route
through the openWRT device.

> - When the router is connected to the WAN using an Ethernet cable, am I
> correct that it is used in AP (Access Point) mode? And when the router is
> connected to the WAN using WiFi and the user devices access the router it is
> used in Bridge mode?
>
> Thank you for all the suggestions and comments so far!
>

Yes, you can make the WiFi interface act as an AP when the LAN
interface is the "WAN"  IIRC, in openWRT bridge mode of the "WAN"
interface is possible.  But then all devices on the "LAN" side will be
visible to the "host" network.

openWRT does have good documentation with practical use case setups.

HTH,
-- Arun Khan



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