The HooToo Tripmate HT-TM05 is another great travel router, like the Ravpower but just without an SD slot. Once again we can use the TFTP method to upload the firmware as I have spoken about in detail here. The installation of OpenWrt is painless and adds a lot of functionality to the HooToo router. My favourite thing to do is have it set up to connect to my VPN then I know wherever I go I have a secure connection. You can also install a USB cellular stick for internet connection on the go!
In the video, I suggest the version from the OpenWrt official page, but in fact, newer versions such as the gl-mt300n found here have been confirmed to work too so keep that in mind. With any version of OpenWrt, it’s best to update it after a fresh install. To do so you can login via SSH:
#Change the IP if you’ve changed it from the default
Now we need to get the latest infomation on our installed software:
opkg update
If you have any issues with the previous step ensure you have an internet connection and that it’s not being firewalled. Next, we issue the upgrade command to install the newer versions:
opkg upgrade
This may take a few minutes to complete, once done it’s not completely necessary but its good practice to reboot:
reboot
Your router is now up to date!
The opkg tool used above and be really useful, although you can achieve this in luci from the software tab, you can use opkg to install software as well, it’s very much like apt for ubuntu. To install a software package:
opkg install package-name
#Where package name is the name of the software you wish to install, don’t forget pressing tab can help to auto-complete the name if you don’t know the full name of the package.