I recently came across the ultra portable GL-inet routers. Yes, there are plenty of low cost routers supporting OpenWRT, but GL.iNet GL — AR150 has several advantages compared to devices like famous TP-Link WR703N. The AR150 is a tiny 802.11BGN 150 Mbps Wi-Fi router smaller than a cigarette pack. While both WR703N and AR150 are based on Atheros AR9931, GL.iNet router has more memory and storage (64MB RAM + 16MB Flash vs 32MB RAM + 4MB Flash), two Ethernet ports instead of just one, external antenna connector, and 6 GPIOs, the serial pins, and power signals (5V, 3.3V and GND) are all easily accessible via though holes or headers. It costs just above $25 US and can be hacked with trunk OpenWrt. Gl.iNet 150 can be purchased on Dealextreme and it used to be listed on Gearbest or Taobao, but is now out of stock.
Gl/iNET AR150 specifications:
- Wi-Fi SoC — Atheros AR9331 MIPS processor @ 400 MHz
- System Memory — 64MB RAM
- Storage — 16MB Flash
- Connectivity — 2x 10/100 Mbit Ethernet ports, 802.11 b/g/n Wi-FI up to 150Mbps
- USB — 1x USB 2.0 port, 1x micro USB port for power
- Debugging — Serial console via UART header (GND, Tx, Rx)
- Expansion — 6 GPIOs, 5V, 3.3V, and GND.
- Misc — Reset button, LED indicator
- Power — 5V (micro USB)
OpenWrt is an embedded operating system based on Linux, primarily used on embedded devices to route network traffic. After installing OpenWRT your AR150 will support USB webcams (MJPG or YUV), and USB mass storage with FAT32, EXFAT, EXT-2/3/4, and NTFS file, support GPIO for home automation and much more!
AR150 are now part of mainline OpenWRT. You can also follow news and access short tutorials for the board on OpenWrt wiki, and check out the AR150 page.
The AR150 already runs on OpenWrt, this is a customised version by GLiNet, to install OpenWrt DD Trunk
Reset router to factory defaults if it has been previously configured.Browse to http://192.168.8.1/Upgrade.aspUpload .bin file to router ( Download https://downloads.openwrt.org/snapshots/trunk/ar71xx/generic/openwrt-ar71xx-generic-gl-ar150-squashfs-sysupgrade.bin )Wait for it to rebootTelnet to 192.168.8.1 and set a root password, or browse to http://192.168.8.1 if LuCI is installed.
And There’s Still More To Come! One of the first things hackers noticed was that the hardware was the AR150 is almost the same as the famous wifi pine apple nano and someone had already ported the firmware to work on the AR150.
Wifi Pineapple is a WiFi honeypot that allows users to carry out man-in-the-middle attacks, wireless network surveys, wireless network cracking and more. At the heart of the pineapple lies an attack method called Karma. Connected clients’ traffic go through the attacker which makes the attacker capable of pulling a number of tricks. Instead of buying a pineapple you could just buy an AR150 and create your own DIY pineapple by installing the firmware. Pineapple TETRA, on the other hand, is a whole new animal.
Updating the firmware is as simple as uploading Wifi Pineapple firmware for for GL.iNet GL-AR150 build from github.
I am still learning to use all the functionalities of my new PineApple NANO clone and will be posting more about soon.
Update (December 2017): So even though the maintainer of the repo had to delete the firmware from pineapple nano off his github. It can still be gotten if you look at the right commits for his profile
https://github.com/kow/glinetpineapple/tree/ebb19d6fd728020710ba9d9087ba2269109b0081
