use
swconfig dev switch0 show
to figure out which port numbers are for which physical ports based on link status
these are the numbers used in the UCI script 02_network for
ucidef_add_switch
(if it is not switch0 do swconfig list for the name of the switch)
thanks @mpratt14 networking works now. Submitted patch with networking working(wan, lan & 2.4GHz probably 5GHz also).
Now trying to boot from flash, but unable to flash the Squashfs.bin through TP-link web interface
upgrade firmware...
Reading Partition Table from NVRAM ... OK
Parsing Partition Table ... OK
file_len:7142652
fw_type_name :
md5 verify ok!
[NM_Error](nm_checkUpgradeMode) 00805: Up file partition-table base address changed up(0x00fdf800) flash(0x00fe0000)!
[NM_Error](nm_checkUpdateContent) 01038: upgrade boot mode check fail.
[NM_Error](nm_buildUpgradeStruct) 01159: checkUpdateContent failed.
check firmware error!
[NM_Error](nvrammanager_checkUpgradeFile) 00784: check firmware file failed!
[NM_Error](main) 01160: firmware upgrade file check error
Also found LED GPIO ports for LEDs(except 2.4GHz WIfi) , but LEDs are not updated actively in the booted initramfs image.
It's possible that the board has a unique header for firmware images
you probably need to compare OEM images with other openwrt images for other TP-link boards
TP-link boards have a unique ID that needs to be included in this file
tools/firmware-utils/src/tplink-safeloader.c
study the commit for other archer a6 boards like this one
the last resort is TFTP is the only way to install
Made some progress in understadning, it is coming due to partition-table position in tplink-safeloader.c, there is a partition table definition mismatching with TP-link partition table.
Found the tp-link partition map from factory image, but now facing a new issue while trying creating the SquashFS image.
The OpenWRT OS image size coming around 2.3MB while the standard TP-link partition size reserved only to 2MB. And it is failing in SquashFS creation.
Any suggestions how this issue is addressed in other products?
if you mean the kernel is too large, then you can use the kernel loader instead of the kernel in that partition, it is like a second bootloader. when it is configured correctly, the bootloader loads the kernel loader, and the kernel loader then loads the kernel from the rootfs paritition. This means the rootfs partition actually would contain both kernel and rootfs.
some functions from ath79 would have to be copied / edited
target/linux/ath79/image/common-tp-link.mk
look at the makefile definition
Device/tplink-safeloader-okli
other devices that use this are in this file, you can see their DTS for how partitioning has to be
target/linux/ath79/image/generic-tp-link.mk
Will have a look.
Is it fine to change DTS partition layout in OpenWrt from TP-Link defined one? Wouldnt break things while reverting back to factory firmware?
Are below partitions from ar9344-tplink-CPE are part of OKLI?
partition@20000 {
label = "partition-table";
reg = <0x020000 0x010000>;
read-only;
};
info: partition@30000 {
label = "info";
reg = <0x030000 0x010000>;
read-only;
};
No these are not the partitions you would change
The only partitions you change are the ones with the kernel and rootfs
OKLI would go into the os-image partition I think
and the real kernel goes after whereever the rootfs is
sometimes called file-system
Don't change any partitions unless you have to
Still seeing the error of Kernel size too big, am I missing something?
os-image partition too big (more than 2097152 bytes): Success
Also, Not sure if the below build commands remain same for OKLI loader, ramips uses Uimage with lzma,
LOADER_TYPE := elf
LOADER_FLASH_OFFS := 0x43000
COMPILE := loader-$(1).elf
COMPILE/loader-$(1).elf := loader-okli-compile
KERNEL := kernel-bin | append-dtb | lzma | uImage lzma -M 0x4f4b4c49 | \
loader-okli $(1) 12288
I had to change the INITRAMFS as below to make work with OKLI changes
KERNEL_INITRAMFS := $(KERNEL_DTB) | uImage lzma
TP-Link partition layout is like below
dev: size erasesize name offset
mtd0: 00040000 00010000 "uboot" 00000000
mtd1: 00200000 00010000 "uImage" 00040000
mtd2: 00db0000 00010000 "rootfs" 00240000
mtd3: 00010000 00010000 "ART" 00ff0000
try this
KERNEL := $(KERNEL_DTB) | uImage lzma -M 0x4f4b4c49
LOADER_TYPE := bin
LOADER_FLASH_OFFS := 0x240000
COMPILE := loader-$(1).bin loader-$(1).uImage
COMPILE/loader-$(1).bin := loader-okli-compile
COMPILE/loader-$(1).uImage := append-loader-okli $(1) | pad-to 64k | lzma
IMAGE/sysupgrade.bin := append-kernel | pad-to $$$$(BLOCKSIZE) | append-rootfs | \
append-metadata | check-size
IMAGE/factory.bin := append-kernel | pad-to $$$$(BLOCKSIZE) | append-rootfs | \
tplink-safeloader-okli factory
and in the file
include/image-commands.mk
add this new image command which is based on tplink-safeloader...
define Build/tplink-safeloader-okli
-$(STAGING_DIR_HOST)/bin/tplink-safeloader \
-B $(TPLINK_BOARD_ID) \
-V $(REVISION) \
-k $(KDIR)/loader-$(DEVICE_NAME).uImage \
-r $@ \
-o $@.new \
-j \
$(wordlist 2,$(words $(1)),$(1)) \
$(if $(findstring sysupgrade,$(word 1,$(1))),-S) && mv $@.new $@ || rm -f $@
endef
Edit: earlier I was wrong about comparing to boards in ath79. What you need seems to be unique
there is really only 4 partitions? and the log from original tp-link firmware shows something like this too?
can we see your DTS?
you have to be very careful with the value of
LOADER_FLASH_OFFS
in this case it needs to be the start of the rootfs partition
Yes only 4 partitions, TP-Link FW boot logs snippet for reference
flash manufacture id: ef, device id 40 18
W25Q128BV(ef 40180000) (16384 Kbytes)
mtd .name = raspi, .size = 0x01000000 (16M) .erasesize = 0x00010000 (64K) .numeraseregions = 0
4 cmdlinepart partitions found on MTD device raspi
Creating 4 MTD partitions on "raspi":
0x000000000000-0x000000040000 : "uboot"
0x000000040000-0x000000240000 : "uImage"
0x000000240000-0x000000ff0000 : "rootfs"
0x000000ff0000-0x000001000000 : "ART"
Register flash device:flash_chrdev
PPP generic driver version 2.4.2
My WIP DTS is here, with OKLI changes included
LOADER_FLASH_OFFS just to confirm needs to be beginning of firmware partition(which host Uimage+rootfs): 0x240000? or 0x240000+0x300000?
Also, do I need to enable MTD_SPLIT_UIMAGE_FW?
Sorry I should not have told you to compare to other tp-link devices, this is a unique situation
DTS partitions should be like this
partition@0 {
label = "u-boot";
reg = <0x0 0x40000>;
read-only;
};
partition@40000 {
label = "uImage";
reg = <0x40000 0x200000>;
};
partition@240000 {
compatible = "openwrt,okli";
label = "firmware";
reg = <0x240000 0xdb0000>;
};
radio: partition@ff0000 {
label = "art";
reg = <0xff0000 0x10000>;
read-only;
};
Sorry there is some things wrong with what I had
KERNEL := $(KERNEL_DTB) | uImage lzma -M 0x4f4b4c49
LOADER_TYPE := bin
LOADER_FLASH_OFFS := 0x240000
COMPILE := loader-$(1).bin loader-$(1).uImage
COMPILE/loader-$(1).bin := loader-okli-compile
COMPILE/loader-$(1).uImage := append-loader-okli $(1) | pad-to 64k | lzma
IMAGE/sysupgrade.bin := append-kernel | pad-to $$$$(BLOCKSIZE) | append-rootfs | \
append-metadata | check-size
IMAGE/factory.bin := append-kernel | pad-to $$$$(BLOCKSIZE) | append-rootfs | \
tplink-safeloader-okli factory
I'm not sure what this does....dynamic partitioning already works in ramips
this is the partition that will be called "firmware" that will have both kernel + rootfs and the offset for LOADER_FLASH_OFFS
ok thanks.
And I found below missing in ramips/Makefile, but bs value seems not parsed properly.
# Arguments: <output name> <kernel offset>
define Build/loader-okli
dd if=$(KDIR)/loader-$(word 1,$(1)).$(LOADER_TYPE) bs=$(word 2,$(1)) conv=sync of="$@.new"
cat "$@" >> "$@.new"
mv "$@.new" "$@"
endef
compile is throwing error like below
dd if=/xxxxx/Documents/archera6v3/xxxxx/openwrt/build_dir/target-mipsel_24kc_musl/linux-ramips_mt7621/tmp/openwrt-ramips-mt7621-tplink_archer-a6-v3-squashfs-sysupgrade.bin of=/home/xxxxx/Documents/archera6v3/xxxxx/openwrt/build_dir/target-mipsel_24kc_musl/linux-ramips_mt7621/tmp/openwrt-ramips-mt7621-tplink_archer-a6-v3-squashfs-sysupgrade.bin.new bs= conv=sync
dd: invalid number: ''
the two functions we are using are
Build/loader-okli-compile
Build/append-loader-okli
and they are in this file
target/linux/ramips/image/Makefile
Removed that change from rampis/image/makefile, but still getting following error
dd if=/home/xxx/Documents/archera6v3/xxx/openwrt/build_dir/target-mipsel_24kc_musl/linux-ramips_mt7621/tmp/openwrt-ramips-mt7621-tplink_archer-a6-v3-squashfs-sysupgrade.bin of=/home/xxx/Documents/archera6v3/xxx/openwrt/build_dir/target-mipsel_24kc_musl/linux-ramips_mt7621/tmp/openwrt-ramips-mt7621-tplink_archer-a6-v3-squashfs-sysupgrade.bin.new bs= conv=sync
dd: invalid number: ''
It is coming from some other build statement.
(nevermind what I said)
I think it is from pad-to but not sure
just remove IMAGE/sysupgrade.bin we will fix it later...
or maybe look at other boards makefile to compare...
Edit: try this
IMAGE/sysupgrade.bin := append-kernel | append-rootfs | \
pad-rootfs | append-metadata | check-size
Edit 2: also for factory.bin
IMAGE/factory.bin := append-kernel | append-rootfs | pad-rootfs | \
tplink-safeloader-okli factory
With some additional corrections flashed the factory.bin successfully, but now facing below error while booting.
^M3: System Boot system code via Flash.
^M## Booting image at bc040000 ...
^M Image Name: MIPS OpenWrt Linux-5.4.87
^M Image Type: MIPS Linux Kernel Image (lzma compressed)
^M Data Size: 3295 Bytes = 3.2 kB
^M Load Address: 80001000
^M Entry Point: 80001000
^M Verifying Checksum ... OK
^M Uncompressing Kernel Image ... OK
^MNo initrd
^M## Transferring control to Linux (at address 80001000) ...
^M## Giving linux memsize in MB, 128
^M
^MStarting kernel ...
^M
^M
^M
^MOpenWrt kernel loader for MIPS based SoC
^MCopyright (C) 2011 Gabor Juhos <juhosg@openwrt.org>
^MLooking for OpenWrt image... not found!
^M
^MSystem halted!