Adding OpenWrt support for Linksys E5600

digislayer · 2021-05-30T05:10:24.032Z

No problem, @ct25! I think I have fixed everything that Adrian has asked. Hope the PR gets accepted soon and we make it to 21.02. I see 21.02RC2 is out too, and that probably slims our chances.

digislayer · 2021-06-06T04:00:20.751Z

@ct25 , @Borromini, @amishv, @aashishkul
Our PR has been merged to Master!

github.com/openwrt/openwrt

ramips: add support for Linksys E5600

committed 05:10AM - 02 Mar 21 UTC

aashishkul

+212 -0

This submission relied heavily on the work of Linksys EA7300 v1/ v2. Specifica…tions: * SoC: MediaTek MT7621A (880 MHz 2c/4t) * RAM: 128M DDR3-1600 * Flash: 128M NAND * Eth: MediaTek MT7621A (10/100/1000 Mbps x5) * Radio: MT7603E/MT7613BE (2.4 GHz & 5 GHz) * Antennae: 2 internal fixed in the casing and 2 on the PCB * LEDs: Blue (x4 Ethernet) Blue+Orange (x2 Power + WPS and Internet) * Buttons: Reset (x1) WPS (x1) Installation: Flash factory image through GUI. This device has 2 partitions for the firmware called firmware and alt_firmware. To successfully flash and boot the device, the device should have been running from alt_firmware partition. To get the device booted through alt_firmware partition, download the OEM firmware from Linksys website and upgrade the firmware from web GUI. Once this is done, flash the OpenWrt Factory firmware from web GUI. Reverting to factory firmware: 1. Boot to 'alt_firmware'(where stock firmware resides) by doing one of the following: Press the "wps" button as soon as power LED turns on when booting. (OR) Hard-reset the router consecutively three times to force it to boot from 'alt_firmware'. 2. To remove any traces of OpenWRT from your router simply flash the OEM image at this point. Signed-off-by: Aashish Kulkarni <aashishkul@gmail.com> [fix hanging indents and wrap to 74 characters per line, add kmod-mt7663-firmware-sta package for 5GHz STA mode to work, remove sysupgrade.bin and concatenate IMAGES instead in mt7621.mk, set default-state "on" for power LED] Signed-off-by: Sannihith Kinnera <digislayer@protonmail.com> [move check-size before append-metadata, remove trailing whitespace] Signed-off-by: Adrian Schmutzler <freifunk@adrianschmutzler.de>

ct25 · 2021-06-06T07:09:41.782Z

Congratulations! So I just tried the snapshot and it works. So here are a few things though that I think need to be solved now.

Since updating to the .152 firmware on stock I can no longer boot into openwrt that is the primary firmware. It simply boots into the secondary firmware which is stock. I can force it to boot from primary (press WPS once and it boots into secondary and I believe you press it twice or thrice to select primary) and it will boot into openwrt but on reboot it will boot into secondary again. This has something to do with the header I think. This was not a problem with .130 so I think they must have updated the bootloader somehow. I think this is more of a bug though and the header might be the culprit. Any ideas are welcome and if anyone has this please try to factory update from stock. Its not working for now but overall everything else is great apart from this for those who have it working.

Borromini · 2021-06-06T08:05:02.168Z

Congrats!!

amishv · 2021-06-06T09:24:40.811Z

Congrats!

I already have the snapshot running on my main router for 12 days with mwan3 load balancing.
No issues seen till now.

digislayer · 2021-06-06T21:17:47.451Z

I have had this happen to me when I flashed OpenWrt from the wrong partition.

Could you try removing all traces of OpenWrt by flashing Stock on all partitions.. and then flash OpenWrt Factory image in the recommended way(boot up the router, flash stock, wait for router reboot, and then flash OpenWrt Factory image)?

Also, next goal is to try and get our commit cherry picked into 21.02, so that we are not stuck with snapshots. For that, we would need couple of people who could test the snapshot images and report on a PR that I will open soon.

mondalex · 2021-06-07T17:55:13.881Z

The same happened to me, even with .130. From what I have gathered, after multiple tries, this is due to flashing OpenWrt to the wrong partition. Now it's working with .152 as well.

mondalex · 2021-06-07T17:59:22.184Z

You guys have done such an awesome job. I wish I could help, but I am a noob. Thank you very much!

digislayer · 2021-06-07T20:22:25.563Z

I have created a PR for 21.02. Please add comments if the images have been working well for you:

github.com/openwrt/openwrt

[21.02] ramips: add support for Linksys E5600

openwrt:openwrt-21.02 ← digislayer:linksys_e5600_support_21.02

opened 07:56PM - 07 Jun 21 UTC

digislayer

+212 -0

This submission relied heavily on the work of Linksys EA7300 v1/ v2. Specific…ations: * SoC: MediaTek MT7621A (880 MHz 2c/4t) * RAM: 128M DDR3-1600 * Flash: 128M NAND * Eth: MediaTek MT7621A (10/100/1000 Mbps x5) * Radio: MT7603E/MT7613BE (2.4 GHz & 5 GHz) * Antennae: 2 internal fixed in the casing and 2 on the PCB * LEDs: Blue (x4 Ethernet) Blue+Orange (x2 Power + WPS and Internet) * Buttons: Reset (x1) WPS (x1) Installation: Flash factory image through GUI. This device has 2 partitions for the firmware called firmware and alt_firmware. To successfully flash and boot the device, the device should have been running from alt_firmware partition. To get the device booted through alt_firmware partition, download the OEM firmware from Linksys website and upgrade the firmware from web GUI. Once this is done, flash the OpenWrt Factory firmware from web GUI. Reverting to factory firmware: 1. Boot to 'alt_firmware'(where stock firmware resides) by doing one of the following: Press the "wps" button as soon as power LED turns on when booting. (OR) Hard-reset the router consecutively three times to force it to boot from 'alt_firmware'. 2. To remove any traces of OpenWRT from your router simply flash the OEM image at this point. Signed-off-by: Aashish Kulkarni <aashishkul@gmail.com> [fix hanging indents and wrap to 74 characters per line, add kmod-mt7663-firmware-sta package for 5GHz STA mode to work, remove sysupgrade.bin and concatenate IMAGES instead in mt7621.mk, set default-state "on" for power LED, fix conflicts with 21.02] Signed-off-by: Sannihith Kinnera <digislayer@protonmail.com> [move check-size before append-metadata, remove trailing whitespace] Signed-off-by: Adrian Schmutzler <freifunk@adrianschmutzler.de>

Hope it gets accepted!

ct25 · 2021-06-08T06:13:49.782Z

Any idea how to know for sure which partition I have booted into ? So I have been on stock past few days (since I couldn’t get into openwrt) but I have major issues on stock and today it even auto updated to the easymesh update 1.1.0.14 or something which does improve performance.I saw 500mbps transfer speeds on 5G which is insane for such a low cost device and not even in the same room. The firmware however is buggt otherwise. I just want to know how to figure out which partition i’m booting into exactly. I use the wps switch but I haven’t figured out yet what the switch exactly does in terms of uboot selection

mondalex · 2021-06-08T06:45:18.983Z

I am sorry, I don't know of a way to find which partition is active right now. However, you can just flash OpenWrt to the other partition than the one it is on currently (note that I am not using the term firmware or alt_firmware). Just turn the router on, no button presses. After it had booted into the stock firmware, flash any (EDIT: Preferably a different version than the one it is on right now, just to make sure it has booted from the other partition later on) stock firmware image and let it reboot by itself. This will make it boot from the other partition. Now you can go ahead and flash OpenWrt. That's what fixed it for me. Please try and let us know.

EDIT: Pressing the WPS button just boots the secondary firmware, primary being the one that the router was last upgraded to. e.g. if the router is on .104, which is primary right now, and you upgrade it to .130, .130 becomes primary. Now if you again upgrade it to .152, .152 becomes primary and .130 secondary. Hope this is clear.

digislayer · 2021-06-08T07:49:17.709Z

This is what works for me too.

ct25 · 2021-06-08T16:37:40.985Z

Thanks got into openwrt master. But is my 7613 radio done for good ? I am having major issues with this AP and I am starting to think (based on someone saying 7613 is having high failure rates) that this radio is not working. I have frequent disconnects even on stock. I just cant get the radio to work.

digislayer · 2021-06-08T19:04:50.870Z

Can you try these images and see if you find any difference:

https://github.com/digislayer/openwrt-builds/blob/test_stable/openwrt-ramips-mt7621-linksys_e5600-squashfs-factory.bin
https://github.com/digislayer/openwrt-builds/blob/test_stable/openwrt-ramips-mt7621-linksys_e5600-squashfs-sysupgrade.bin

ct25 · 2021-06-09T10:29:55.558Z

When I upgrade it to this one ethernet port 1 doesnt work and I get no IP assigned. Also I cannot log into the the router via ssh even if I set a static IP. Basically I had to revert to stock after this. I am pretty sure there is some problem with my router though as I am getting frequent disconnects (like every few seconds) and video calls and audio calls are having major problems. I believe I need to RMA this one.

digislayer · 2021-06-09T14:49:21.855Z

Would you be able to try the provided factory image, instead of upgrade? It works fine for me, except the mesh.

Also, I noticed something on OpenWrt mailing list. Please see if this is relevant to the issue you face:
http://lists.openwrt.org/pipermail/openwrt-devel/2021-June/035383.html

captain-n3m0 · 2021-06-09T16:21:13.780Z

Guys can you please tell me is it normal that a package manager is already installed on official firmware of Linksys E5600.

ss1920×1080 144 KB

ct25 · 2021-06-10T03:56:40.421Z

the stock is based on LEDE. It’s some really old version though (from my digging in the GPL code I think it’s running 3.10 linux kernel so whichever version of LEDE was using that kernel probably) which is expected since the stock firmware is generally based on something cost effective. So it’s totally possible this is just a theme over openwrt with binary blobs for drivers.

Borromini · 2021-06-10T07:38:58.424Z

@ct25 Was that somewhere in a post, that someone said the MT7613 had high failure rates?

Can someone confirm DFS channels work on the OEM firmware by the way?

ct25 · 2021-06-10T11:53:18.648Z

@Borromini
I read that in the A6 v3 thread I think. That one has the same radio. The problem I am facing is that all my iOS clients connect and disconnect upon waking from sleep to wifi. This happens on both bands actually now so I don't think its the AP (I tried it with a different router and its the same). This is likely an iOS 14.6 bug. Not sure which channels are DFS but I think with the right country code stock firmware does have all channels for that country.

@digislayer So there is a problem with the snapshot or my router. When I use snapshot the 5G radio doesn't work. No idea why (but my guess is the firmware-sta inclusion). I am currently using a build based on master in my github repo that is working perfectly fine. I just added the @aashishkul 's commit files manually to master and compiled it. Odd behavior. Could be a faulty AP but right now its stable for me except for the iOS bug.