I am working to add support for the Netgear R6400v1. I know this device won't have usable wifi due to the broadcom hardware.
I have it booting into openwrt at this point. There are some curious items in the bootlog I have questions on below. This device is probably most similar to a netgear 6300v2, but also fairly similar to netgear r7000 and r8000. I used those as guides so far
Questions
- Should I explicitly define partitions in the DTS? I didn't and the r6300v1, r7000 and r8000 do not either. Openwrt does create partitions, but they look odd in the bootlog. See bootlog snippets below. I am not sure I am looking at these right, but I think openwrt leaves space that could be used for ubi. Specifically 0x2240000 - 0x3400000 that wouldn't interfere with any of the stock partitions. Also openwrt creates several extra partitions and they don't line up with stock. See the POT* and ML* partitions.
Stock partitions from bootlog. Full bootlog here https://pastebin.com/raw/CXTNKcq3
[ 2.150000] Creating 18 MTD partitions on "nflash":
[ 2.160000] 0x000000000000-0x000000080000 : "boot"
[ 2.170000] 0x000000080000-0x000000200000 : "nvram"
[ 2.170000] 0x000000200000-0x000006d00000 : "linux"
[ 2.180000] 0x000000401dc8-0x000006d00000 : "rootfs"
[ 2.180000] 0x000007200000-0x000007280000 : "board_data"
[ 2.190000] 0x000007280000-0x000007380000 : "POT1"
[ 2.200000] 0x000007380000-0x000007480000 : "POT2"
[ 2.200000] 0x000007480000-0x000007740000 : "T_Meter1"
[ 2.210000] 0x000007740000-0x000007a00000 : "T_Meter2"
[ 2.220000] 0x000007a00000-0x000007a80000 : "ML1"
[ 2.220000] 0x000007a80000-0x000007b00000 : "ML2"
[ 2.230000] 0x000007b00000-0x000007b80000 : "ML3"
[ 2.230000] 0x000007b80000-0x000007c00000 : "ML4"
[ 2.240000] 0x000007c00000-0x000007c80000 : "ML5"
[ 2.250000] 0x000007c80000-0x000007d00000 : "ML6"
[ 2.250000] 0x000007d00000-0x000007d80000 : "ML7"
[ 2.260000] 0x000007d80000-0x000007e00000 : "QoSRule"
[ 2.270000] 0x000007e00000-0x000007f00000 : "DebugMsg"
...
[ 2.560000] Creating 2 MTD partitions on "brcmnand":
[ 2.570000] 0x000003400000-0x000006d00000 : "brcmnand"
[ 2.570000] 0x000006d00000-0x000007200000 : "OpenVPN"
Openwrt partitions from bootlog. Full bootlog here https://pastebin.com/raw/bhrTtDW0
[ 2.935840] Reached maximum number of partitions, scanning stopped!
[ 2.942088] 20 bcm47xxpart partitions found on MTD device brcmnand.0
[ 2.948429] Creating 20 MTD partitions on "brcmnand.0":
[ 2.953647] 0x000000000000-0x000000080000 : "boot"
[ 2.959365] 0x000000080000-0x000000200000 : "nvram"
[ 2.965174] 0x000000200000-0x000002240000 : "firmware"
[ 2.972344] 2 trx partitions found on MTD device firmware
[ 2.977791] Creating 2 MTD partitions on "firmware":
[ 2.982749] 0x00000000001c-0x000000400000 : "linux"
[ 2.987631] mtd: partition "linux" doesn't start on an erase/write block boundary -- force read-only
[ 2.997693] 0x000000400000-0x000002040000 : "ubi"
[ 3.003361] 0x000002240000-0x000002280000 : "POT"
[ 3.009055] 0x000002280000-0x000002400000 : "POT"
[ 3.014751] 0x000002400000-0x000002440000 : "ML"
[ 3.020363] 0x000002440000-0x000002480000 : "ML"
[ 3.026003] 0x000002480000-0x0000024c0000 : "ML"
[ 3.031544] 0x0000024c0000-0x000002500000 : "ML"
[ 3.037150] 0x000002500000-0x000002540000 : "ML"
[ 3.042719] 0x000002540000-0x000007200000 : "ML"
[ 3.048649] 0x000007200000-0x000007280000 : "board_data"
[ 3.054936] 0x000007280000-0x000007380000 : "POT"
[ 3.060528] 0x000007380000-0x000007a80000 : "POT"
[ 3.066276] 0x000007a80000-0x000007b00000 : "ML"
[ 3.071812] 0x000007b00000-0x000007b80000 : "ML"
[ 3.077413] 0x000007b80000-0x000007c00000 : "ML"
[ 3.082952] 0x000007c00000-0x000007c80000 : "ML"
[ 3.088618] 0x000007c80000-0x000007d00000 : "ML"
[ 3.094107] 0x000007d00000-0x000008000000 : "ML"
- Should I be worried about either of these bootlog errors? I do have a r7000 this is running 22.03.3 and it has the same errors in it's bootlog so I am assuming nothing to worry about, but wanted to check
[ 0.000000] Hit pending asynchronous external abort (FSR=0x00001c06) during first unmask, this is most likely caused by a firmware/bootloader bug.
[ 0.004378] CPU: WARNING: CPU(s) started in wrong/inconsistent modes (primary CPU mode 0x13)
[ 0.004385] CPU: This may indicate a broken bootloader or firmware.
thanks for any tips. Other than these question, I have a lot of cleanup and USB config to add.