Flashing

Here are brief instructions flashing TP-Link Archer MR600 v2 (EU) to OpenWRT. The PC used to flash is Debian-deriative Linux. You can use whatever TFTP to do this.

Unfortunately the MR600 stock firmware does not start TFTP recover without instructed from serial console. Thus, you have to connect your USB-TTL serial dongle as below:

Connect the router TX to your serial dongle RX, router RX to serial dongle TX and GND to GND. Set the serial speed to 115200 and disable the hardware flow control (if applicable).

Once you have the serial console you can continue to the flashing:

Install TFTP server tftpd-hpa:
```
sudo apt install tftpd-hpa
```
Get the “Firmware OpenWrt Install URL” from MR600 device page.

Copy the downloaded file to TFTP server (make sure the final filename is “test.bin”):

sudo mv openwrt-24.10.0-ramips-mt7621-tplink_mr600-v2-eu-initramfs-kernel.bin /srv/tftp/test.bin

Make sure the TFTP server can read the file
```
sudo chown tftp.tftp /srv/tftp/*
```
Power off the router and disconnect all ethernet cables except the one which is connected to your PC.
Set your ethernet IP to 192.168.0.5, netmask 255.255.255.0 (eth0 is my ethernet device):
```
sudo ifconfig eth0 192.168.0.5/24
```
Now you should be able to download the firmware file from your server:
```
curl -O tftp://192.168.0.5/test.bin
```
Make sure your serial console is now connected. Power the router up and press “t”, which should not give you the U-boot prompt:
```
4: System Enter Boot Command Line Interface.
U-Boot 1.1.3 (Feb 8 2021 - 16:37:49)
MT7621 #
```
Give command “tftpboot”. This should download the temporary kernel from your TFTP server.
```
MT7621 # tftpboot
```

Give command “bootm”. This should boot the downloaded image. Wait the kernel to boot and finally activate the device console. This should give you the OpenWrt logo and root command line:

## Booting image at 84000200 ...Now the OpenWrt kernel boots. Press enter to activate the device console:
BusyBox v1.36.1 (2025-02-03 23:09:37 UTC) built-in shell (ash)
  _______                     ________        __
 |       |.-----.-----.-----.|  |  |  |.----.|  |_
 |   -   ||  _  |  -__|     ||  |  |  ||   _||   _|
 |_______||   __|_____|__|__||________||__|  |____|
          |__| W I R E L E S S   F R E E D O M
-----------------------------------------------------
OpenWrt 24.10.0, r28427-6df0e3d02a
-----------------------------------------------------
=== WARNING! =====================================
There is no root password defined on this device!
Use the "passwd" command to set up a new password
in order to prevent unauthorized SSH logins.
--------------------------------------------------
root@OpenWrt:~#

Download the sysupgrade image. Again, you’ll find it from the device page.

wget https://downloads.openwrt.org/releases/24.10.0/targets/ramips/mt7621/openwrt-24.10.0-ramips-mt7621-tplink_mr600-v2-eu-squashfs-sysupgrade.bin

Copy the sysupgrade image to the router using scp.

scp openwrt-24.10.0-ramips-mt7621-tplink_mr600-v2-eu-squashfs-sysupgrade.bin root@192.168.1.1:/tmp/

If you cannot open the connection to the router, change your IP and netmask:
```
sudo ifconfig eth0 192.168.1.5/24
```
Finally, do the system upgrade by issuing the command in the router command line. You can do this by using the serial console or by connecting to the router via ssh (ssh root@192.168.1.1):
```
sysupgrade -v /tmp/sysupgrade.bin
```
After the router has rebooted you should be able to disconnect the ethernet cable and plug it in again. The router DHCP server should provide the IP settings to the PC.

Configuring

The default configuration has ethernet WAN port with three LAN ports. The configuration is straightforward:

Connect to the router using ethernet.
Log in to http://192.168.1.1 with empty password and set the root password.
Configure the wireless network (SSID and passkey) for 2,4 and 5 GHz.

References

Flashing

Here are brief instructions flashing TP-Link Archer MR200 v5 to OpenWRT. The PC used to flash is Debian-deriative Linux. You can use whatever TFTP to do this.

Install TFTP server tftpd-hpa:
sudo apt install tftpd-hpa

Get the latest firmware from OpenWRT firmware selector. At the time of writing 24.10.2 was the newest for MR200. You can find the correct firmware by using “mr200” as a search term. Download the “TFTP-RECOVERY” file.

Copy the downloaded file to TFTP server (make sure the final filename is “tp_recovery.bin”):
sudo mv openwrt-24.10.2-ramips-mt76x8-tplink_archer-mr200-v5-squashfs-tftp-recovery.bin /srv/tftp/tp_recovery.bin

Make sure the TFTP server can read the file
sudo chown tftp.tftp /srv/tftp/*

Power off the router and disconnect all ethernet cables except the one which is connected to your PC.

Set your ethernet IP to 192.168.0.225, netmask 255.255.255.0 (eth0 is my ethernet device):
sudo ifconfig eth0 192.168.0.225/24

Now you should be able to download the firmware file from your server:
curl -O tftp://192.168.0.225/tp_recovery.bin

Now power up the router while holding down WPS/Reset button for 10 seconds

After the router has rebooted you should be able to disconnect the ethernet cable and plug it in again. The router DHCP server should provide the IP settings to the PC.

Configuring

The default setup uses 4G modem as WAN interface. In my case I wanted to use the port 4 (WAN) as the WAN. Here is the procedure for this:

Connect to the router using ethernet.

Configure the wireless network (SSID and passkey) for 2,4 and 5 GHz.

Now disconnect from the ethernet and reconnect using wireless. This may not be required but helped me while I was trying different ethernet settings.

Open ssh connection to the router:
ssh root@192.168.1.1

Copy following content to /etc/config/network (may may scp the file or use the user-friendly editor “vi” to do the job):

config interface 'loopback'
    option device 'lo'
    option proto 'static'
    option ipaddr '127.0.0.1'
    option netmask '255.0.0.0'

config globals 'globals'
    option ula_prefix 'fdd2:a747:65fb::/48'

config device
    option name 'br-lan'
    option type 'bridge'
    list ports 'eth0.1'

config interface 'lan'
    option device 'br-lan'
    option proto 'static'
    option ipaddr '192.168.1.1'
    option netmask '255.255.255.0'
    option ip6assign '60'

config interface 'wan'
    option device 'eth0.2'
    option proto 'dhcp'

config switch
    option name 'switch0'
    option reset '1'
    option enable_vlan '1'

config switch_vlan
    option device 'switch0'
    option vlan '1'
    option ports '0 1 2 6t'

config switch_vlan
    option device 'switch0'
    option ports '3 6t'
    option vlan '2'

Restart networking:
/etc/init.d/network restart

Now the ports 1-3 should be part of LAN while the port 4 should be directed to your internet (WAN).

io

tech notes

Monthly Archives ⇒ August 2025

OpenWRT to TP-Link MR600 v2 (EU)

Flashing

Configuring

References

OpenWRT to TP-Link Archer MR200 v5

Flashing

Configuring

References