Adding support for EnGenius enh1350ext

For Developers
1

Hi there, I'm trying to add support for the Engenius enh1350ext and have run into a few problems. Here's some basic information about the device first:

  • ipq4018 (very similar to ens620ext which is already supported)
  • IP67 rated outdoor AP with 802.11af PoE
  • Single ethernet port
  • 32MB flash and 256MB memory

Here's what I've done so far:

  • Removed board from case (you have to destroy the case to do this) and soldered on serial console headers.
  • With the serial console you have access to u-boot, but not the stock firmware. I can use an ssh hack to get a root shell though.
  • I have extracted the device tree from the stock firmware file as well as the board files for the radios. The stock device tree is for a much older kernel, so I didn't find it too helpful, but someone with more experience may glean some important info from it.
  • I updated the build system to support it, and added a device tree based on the ens620ext dts.
  • I can network boot the device with the image I created using the master branch of openwrt (should I be using 21.02 instead?). I had originally started work using 19.07, but moved to master to be up to date.

There are two things I'd like some help with:

  • ath10k won't load the board file. Here's one of the printk lines when you load ath10k_pci which shows a truncated variant name:
    [ 5195.181666] ath10k_ahb a800000.wifi: failed to fetch board data for bus=ahb,vendor=0000,device=0000,subsystem-vendor=0000,subsystem-device=0000,variant=EnGenius-ENH135 from ath10k/QCA4019/hw1.0/board-2.bin
    The variant is correct in both the device tree and in the board file, so I'm not sure what is going on here. I actually got wifi working in the 19.07 build I created, so I'm sure the board file is good.
  • I'd like to get vlans to work on the ethernet port. I know there's been lots of problems with these ipq40xx boards in the past, but I have vlans working on both the eap1300 and ens620ext (linux vlans, not configuring the switch) and can't see why it won't work with this board.

I can provide a diff of the build tree, the board files, or anything else.

1 Like
2

I fixed the VLAN problem and at the same time the board file problem. I was able to get VLANs to work using an older version of OpenWRT (I don't know the exact version, though probably in the 18.xx series). I also got the board file to work in the older version.

If someone wants the patch for the older OpenWRT version, I can post the patch after doing some testing with 18.06 or 17.01 to see which one I'm actually using. I'm still going to try to get this device working in 21.02, though VLANs likely will not work.

3

Hi Keith, I'm trying to use this device. Could you send me what you already have (in whatever state you have now, we can rework it). Thank you!

4

I still haven't taken a look at which version of OpenWRT I used to get it working. We latched onto a specific commit on master in 2018 sometime. I can easily send you a patch that will get it to work in a more modern openwrt, but the switch won't be able to do vlans. Maybe things have changed more recently on the ipq40xx target with the move to DSA. The patch is pretty small, so it should be easy to port to openwrt 22.03 or master.