We start with a little bit of back story before going ahead to how we performed the firmware unlock.
Backstory
When I got my first high speed internet connection at my home, my options were limited. The only decent option was the DOCSIS supported Hathway internet. When everything was said and done, the eventual setup consisted of a coaxial cable connecting to a DOCSIS modem, and a LAN Cable form the modem to the free router that was provided - the router being D-Link DIR-615.
I had not intentions of using that router, and already had a higly performant router on the way. I had not used the router for quite some time when one day I decided to add it as an isolated network behind my primary router.
I was surprised to find that the internet facing IP addresses supported by the reouter were in a fixed range - I believe there were IPs owned by Hathway. So, when my primary router tried to give a 192.168.1.X IP to the router, the router refused, and I had forgotten about it for almost a decade.
Today I decided to give unlocking the router a try again, as my attempts when I got the router had failed, as there were not a lot of resources for this specific hadware version. Luckily, today, I got a hit, anf following the tutorial allowed me to unlock my router.
Major Highlights
- Download the firmware from: http://dlink.co.in/firmware/ftp.aspx
- After resetting the router, the login page has the password: "#@t#w@y". This is in contrast to the default firmware which has an empty password on reset.
- After login, you will not be able to naviagte to update firmware page from the UI, as that link has been removed in Hathway's modded firmware. You will need to go to the URL directly from your browser: http://192.168.0.1/upload.htm
- After updating the firmware, you should be able to login to the admin interface without a passwaord, and see your latest firmware version.
Learnings
Keep comming back to things you could not do once in a while - someone might have solved your problem already.
Other Findings
Sadly, due to chipset limitations, the T1 revision is not supported by OpenWRT or DD-WRT, so have to keep using the D-Link Firmware for now. It does contain the basic functionality, and also seems to have support for IPv6, which might come in handy in future.
Ref: https://openwrt.org/toh/d-link/dir-615