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Tag: ttl

  • Flashing om1p with stock openwrt

    I have many open-mesh OM1P units laying around from failed wireless projects. Needless to say I’m not a big fan of open-mesh and have some other projects in mind for this hardware. It was a painful process but well worth it. Now I have nice little OpenWRT units for any hacking pleasure.

    I have made a concise synopsis of the openwrt wiki page for flashing proper firmware on the OM1p/Fon/Fonera/Accton/etc. Please visit http://wiki.openwrt.org/toh/fon/fonera#openwrt for more detail.

    Begin with serial access
    serial-ttl-om1p
    You will need a TTL serial to usb or similar like this https://www.adafruit.com/products/284

    Consult the openwrt wiki for pinout of om1p

    Use minicom or screen to access it.

    We need a tftp server (don’t worry its super easy if your using Debian :-).
    I tried with http (apache) and it doesn’t work.

    apt-get install atftpd

    cd /srv/tftp/
    wget http://downloads.openwrt.org/backfire/10.03.1/atheros/openwrt-atheros-vmlinux.lzma
    wget http://downloads.openwrt.org/backfire/10.03.1/atheros/openwrt-atheros-root.squashfs

    (don’t install anything newer than 10.03.1, this little thing is old)

    stop network manager so we can assign static ip:
    /etc/init.d/network-manager stop
    assign static ip:
    ip address add 192.168.0.2/24 dev eth0

    connect to the usb serial:
    screen /dev/ttyUSB0 9600

    a few seconds into the boot you will see the following:

    Board: ap51 
RAM: 0x80000000-0x82000000, [0x8003f640-0x80fe1000] available
FLASH: 0xa8000000 - 0xa87f0000, 128 blocks of 0x00010000 bytes each.
== Executing boot script in 3.000 seconds - enter ^C to abort

    You have 3 seconds to press ctrl+c to interrupt the boot process and enter into redboot boot loader

    On the om1p, in RedBoot, run the following commands.

    Set the ip of redboot and the tftp server:
    (Don’t forget to connect them with ethernet cable.)

    RedBoot> ip_address -h 192.168.0.2 -l 192.168.0.1/24

    IP: 192.168.0.1/255.255.255.0, Gateway: 0.0.0.0
Default server: 192.168.0.2

    download linux onto the om1p:
    RedBoot> load -r -b %{FREEMEMLO} openwrt-atheros-vmlinux.lzma

    Using default protocol (TFTP)
Raw file loaded 0x8003f800-0x8011f7ff, assumed entry at 0x8003f800

    initialize the current flash partition, this will erase openmesh firmware, yay!:
    RedBoot> fis init

    About to initialize [format] FLASH image system - continue (y/n)? y
*** Initialize FLASH Image System
... Erase from 0xa87e0000-0xa87f0000: .
... Program from 0x80ff0000-0x81000000 at 0xa87e0000: .

    Now flash the kernel image to memory:
    RedBoot> fis create -e 0x80041000 -r 0x80041000 vmlinux.bin.l7

    ... Erase from 0xa8030000-0xa8110000: ..............
... Program from 0x8003f800-0x8011f800 at 0xa8030000: ..............
... Erase from 0xa87e0000-0xa87f0000: .
... Program from 0x80ff0000-0x81000000 at 0xa87e0000: .

    Now load the rootfs:
    RedBoot> load -r -b %{FREEMEMLO} openwrt-atheros-root.squashfs

    Using default protocol (TFTP)
Raw file loaded 0x8003f800-0x8021f7ff, assumed entry at 0x8003f800

    And then flash the rootfs:
    RedBoot> fis create rootfs

    ... Erase from 0xa8110000-0xa82f0000: ..............................
... Program from 0x8003f800-0x8021f800 at 0xa8110000: ..............................
... Erase from 0xa87e0000-0xa87f0000: .
... Program from 0x80ff0000-0x81000000 at 0xa87e0000: .

    Reboot the om1p:
    RedBoot> reset

    You will see OpenWRT booting and creating filesystems and such.

    ...
jffs2_scan_eraseblock(): End of filesystem marker found at 0x0
jffs2_build_filesystem(): unlocking the mtd device... done.
jffs2_build_filesystem(): erasing all blocks after the end marker... done.
mini_fo: using base directory: /
mini_fo: using storage directory: /overlay
BusyBox v1.15.3 (2011-11-24 02:38:24 CET) built-in shell (ash)
Enter 'help' for a list of built-in commands.
  _______                     ________        __
 |       |.-----.-----.-----.|  |  |  |.----.|  |_
 |   -   ||  _  |  -__|     ||  |  |  ||   _||   _|
 |_______||   __|_____|__|__||________||__|  |____|
          |__| W I R E L E S S   F R E E D O M
 Backfire (10.03.1, r29592) ------------------------
  * 1/3 shot Kahlua    In a shot glass, layer Kahlua 
  * 1/3 shot Bailey's  on the bottom, then Bailey's, 
  * 1/3 shot Vodka     then Vodka.
 ---------------------------------------------------
root@OpenWrt:/#

    Now we need to set a heartbeat for the hardware watchdog otherwise the om1p reboots every 5 minutes.

    vi /etc/config/om1pwatchdog

    #!/bin/sh
gpioctl dirout 3 ; gpioctl clear 3
sleep 1
gpioctl set 3

    Make it executable:
    chmod 755 /etc/config/om1pwatchdog

    Run every 2 minutes:
    crontab -e
    add the following and save
    */2 * * * * /etc/config/om1pwatchdog

    Start NM again, you will now get an ip from the om1p openwrt dhcp server.
    /etc/init.d/network-manager start

    connect with firefox at http://192.168.1.1

    yay, no more crap open-mesh!