Flashing the Xiaomi WiFi-Mini with PandoraBox Third-Party Firmware and Configuring PPPoE Dial-Up

I had long coveted the offline-download function of the Xiaomi smart router, but recently I don't know what got into me — directly adding a torrent file or dragging one in just wouldn't work. Later I came across an article about Installing Transmission on MiWiFi and, following the article, successfully installed the software, but the download speed was not satisfactory. Moreover, according to Baidu, whether it's that software or the Xunlei plugin on MiWiFi (although the web says you can convert torrent files into magnet links and then add them for download, the speed is still very slow), both will cause the CPU to run at full load for a long time and overheat. While figuring out how to enable SSH on MiWiFi (go to www.miwifi.com, click "open", then enable the SSH tool), I happened to come across a post about flashing third-party firmware on the router. The post mentioned that third-party firmware could even customize the router's status. Out of curiosity, I spent an afternoon tinkering; the steps are as follows.

1. Download the third-party firmware

http://downloads.openwrt.org.cn/PandoraBox/Xiaomi-Mini-R1CM

I chose the stable version.

2. Enable SSH on the router

(I'm pasting two screenshots from the official MiWiFi site; the detailed steps are available by clicking "Enable SSH Tool")

(Images lost)

3. Upload the third-party firmware to the router's "/tmp" directory (assume the router address is 192.168.1.1)

scp -P ssh-port local-path-to-firmware root@192.168.1.1:/tmp

4. Flash the firmware (assume the firmware filename is PandoraBox.bin)

mtd -r write /tmp/PandoraBox.bin OS1

The tutorials online unanimously use mtd -r write /tmp/PandoraBox.bin firmware. I've tested that under the stock firmware, you need to change it to OS1; if you're flashing from a third-party system, change it to firmware.

5. Router configuration

After the firmware is flashed and the router reboots, by default it will enable two wireless networks starting with "PandoraBox". Connect to one of them, then in a browser enter 192.168.1.1 to access the router's web management interface. Below are screenshots of the dial-up configuration process. In short, go to Network → Interfaces, find "WAN", change the protocol to "PPPoE", enter the username and password, and keep the firewall at the default "WAN". Some sources online say to use concurrent dial-up, so I created "WAN1", "WAN2" and several other dial-up connections.

After making the above settings, restart the router, and you can happily surf the web.