just wanted to report to the community that I was able to finally install OpenWRT on my AeroHive AP121 device.
At first I have to admit that I didn't take care of the bootloader version but I can re-confirm what takimata posted on the wiki: version 1.0.0.25 won't work: you first need to update it to at minimum with version 1.0.0.43.
I was able to restore a stock firmware HiveOS 6.2r1 release build1924 in order to get me to the bootloader version v1.0.0.43
I ran into similar issues with the stock image where some mounting points where set to read only. But since the bootloader got updated I was able to re run the procedure to deploy the factory OpenWRT without any issue this time.
So in short, if you still have access to the bootloader and manage its upgrade you should be able to run OpenWRT image afterwards.
ar7240> version
Aerohive Boot Loader v1.0.0.52, Build time Tue Oct 17 05:33:55 2017
[ 9.390615] (driver?)
[ 9.470890] No filesystem could mount root, tried:
[ 9.470895] squashfs
[ 9.529236]
[ 9.574171] Kernel panic - not syncing: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on unknown-block(254,0)
[ 9.676372] Rebooting in 1 seconds..
Which Version do you have installed? Can you share the Stock Image?
That is curious, but I guess it's not entirely impossible that bootloader v1.0.0.52, while being newer than the known good ones, is incompatible. Known good firmware versions are listed in the wiki. Disproven, see below.
Just to double check, did you follow the installation instructions outlined in the wiki or did you follow any of the instructions spread across this thread? The instructions in the wiki are current best practice.
How often did you try to have it boot? The AP121 can hold two firmwares in flash, and it switches to the primary firmware if the secondary one fails to boot three times. (I don't know if it would switch to the secondary if the primary fails, as that is not an option with OpenWrt taking the space of both.)
Unfortunately there is no known way of manually switching between firmwares from the bootloader console, but on the serial output you should at least be able to observe which one (i.e. which flash address) it is trying to boot.
I just successfully flashed three routers with v1.0.0.52 (also two with v1.0.0.4f), so these should be compatible. The only problem I had was the tftp connection being weirdly spotty (more specifically, the first transfer always had some errors in the beginning, second transfer worked though).
That's great information, thank you, I will add it to the Wiki. v1.0.0.4f is newer than v1.0.0.43, right? Do you perchance know which AeroHive firmware version includes these bootloader versions?
Also, a bit frustratingly, this thread has the weird habit of people abruptly dropping out of the discussion without any feedback.
They might have had reasons to go back to a previous version in a newer release, I wouldn't read too much into that. Thanks for the HiveOS version numbers, amended in the Wiki.
Hello, I bought one of these access points and just realized none of my computers have a Serial port. Is there any other way I could install openwrt on it wihtout it? thanks in advance
Installation has to be done through the device's bootloader console accessed via RS232 serial connection, supplemented by a TFTP server connected via ethernet.
so that would be a no.
get a RS232 (RJ45) <> USB serial port, they're < $10.
(Link expired)
That's the dumps of mtd5..mtd9, i.e. everything on the SPI-connected NOR flash chip. Most importantly the first file (partition@0) contains the u-boot partition on the beginning of the chip at 0x0. I'm not completely sure but I believe the NOR chip doesn't contain the wifi data (that would be wifi-info on the NAND chip), but proceed with the necessary care anyway.
