Month: June 2014

OpenWRT DIR615

I have a wonky DIR615-G2 that came standard with my UniFi subscription. It would randomly reboot and even fail to boot from time to time. Even trying to re-flash the firmware using the Emergency mode is iffy.

So, I figured out a way to at least get it to boot OpenWRT in a clean way. Essentially, I had to flash it with a DD-WRT image because the stock OpenWRT image does not work. Then, the standard method is to upgrade it to OpenWRT. However, that fails too.

So, I had to work out my own way, which does not require SSH running.

Essentially:

  1. Boot the router into emergency mode.
  2. Flash it with the stock DD-WRT firmware.
  3. Reboot the device.
  4. Telnet to the router.
    telnet 192.168.1.1
  5. Transfer the OpenWRT upgrade image using netcat
    nc -l -p 1234 > /tmp/dir620.bin
  6. Erase the nvram
    erase nvram
  7. Erase the flash
    mtd erase linux
  8. Flash the upgrade
    mtd -r write /tmp/dir620.bin linux
  9. Reboot the device.

ddwrtopenwrtdir615

NAT64 and DNS64

I have been investigating options for moving my network to a pure IPv6 stack. The main issue here is ensuring that there is still connectivity to the IPv4 Internet after the move. The best options that I have found that support this configuration is the NAT64/DNS64 stack.

Setting this up was a bit of a head-ache as the documentation was lacking for Tayga on Linux as a NAT64 router. That said, I had to follow the example strictly and I was able to replicate things on my OpenWRT 12.09 router.

Setting up the DNS64 settings was much easier and things worked after that. I was able to ping and connect to the IPv4 world on my pure IPv6 network. Unfortunately, I had trouble connecting to the IPv6 Internet instead. Thing is that my Internet connection is still pure IPv4.

So, I’m now investigating the possibility of running a DNS server that will not forward AAAA record lookups but things do not look good. There doesn’t seem to be any DNS server built with that feature. Looks like I’m going to have to roll my own.

I might have to look at the feasibility of modifying the TOTD source, once I can find it though.