OpenWrt on the Archer C7 v2

I use this router in my apartment in the university dormitory. I opted for the Archer C7 mainly for two reasons:
* OpenWrt capability, thus offering many cool functions (see NDP proxy below)
* AC-Fi in the 5 GHz frequency band. With us The 2.4 GHz band is so crowded with more than 20 wireless networks of neighboring dorm residents that the speed is there no longer acceptable.

But it is important to make sure that you really get the hardware version of the router v2. With the older version v1 no OpenWrt is possible and also to work with the original firmware is probably better the v2, as some Fehlerchen were ironed out.

The router looks visually very chic. The antennas were screwed quickly and in the original web interface you can very easily flash the OpenWrt firmware. A few minutes later, the router will reboot and can virtually everything of which you normally only can dream.

In the current version of OpenWrt (Barrier Breaker 14:07) However, not all possible directly via the web interface.
The radio0 interface, which represents the 5GHz channel is not configured properly in the web interface. I have solved the console:
cd / etc / config; mv wireless wireless.old; wifi detect> Wireless
This generates a new applicable wireless configuration. Now it transmits "= value UCI set wireless.radioX.option" with the desired settings (SSID, encryption, etc.), which can still be found in wireless.old. One must not HWMODE and overwrite htmode but!
Finally, once rm wireless.old; UCI commit; Run wifi and should then work.

The WLAN LEDs have to configure itself, which is self-explanatory, but the web interface.

Internet gives it in my apartment via the computer center of the University: By DHCP exactly one public IPv4 and via IPv6 autoconfiguration as many IPv6 addresses. A NAT router can easily supply several devices with internal IPv4 addresses, then IPv6 does not work anymore. However, a switch would allow IPv6 autoconfiguration, then can get an IPv4, only one device. Mir is both important as IPv6 traffic is currently not flowing into our Quotaberechnung (and Youtube can IPv6, as can be so neatly Quota save)
Here the NDP proxy function of OpenWrt comes into play: The NDP packets, which are needed for IPv6 can be easily passed through the router to the university network, so that IPv6 works. Unfortunately, that's not quite over web interface, but again helps the command line:
UCI set dhcp.lan.dhcpv6 = hybrid
UCI set dhcp.lan.ra = hybrid
UCI set dhcp.lan.ndp = hybrid
UCI set dhcp.wan6 = dhcp
UCI set dhcp.wan6.dhcpv6 = hybrid
UCI set dhcp.wan6.ra = hybrid
UCI set dhcp.wan6.ndp = hybrid
UCI set dhcp.wan6.master = 1
UCI commit
/etc/init.d/odhcpd restart
And ready - IPv4 + IPv6 on all devices in the same LAN.
(Note also [...])

Overall, I can say that it is a very successful piece of hardware. The Wi-Fi coverage is great, in terms of performance is nothing negative I noticed and the device in addition looks visually good.
The original firmware seems to offer the most necessary functions, but does not come naturally to the flexibility of OpenWrt ran. All the better that one here has a device with available drivers, so projects like OpenWrt be made possible. The support from the OpenWrt web interface could be better, but it may TP-Link as a hardware manufacturer of course, nothing. But I also think that each of themselves will flash a OpenWrt, can deal with the console should. And who needs something like proxy NDP but has no idea who asks just a friendly computer if he establishes that for a ;-)