Devices with RTL8221b PHYs which use the integrated PHY LED drivers

bevanweiss · March 19, 2026, 11:00am

I've put together a patch for the linux kernel which would expose the LED drivers available on this PHY (and potentially the RTL8226 / RTL8226b PHYs).
Does anyone know of any (ideally cheap) devices that leverage the LED drivers on these PHYs?

I'd like to test this code around the PHY LED drivers.

I've got a Hasivo S1100WP-8GT which uses 8 of these PHYs, but drives the LEDs using HC595 chips.

54ac · March 31, 2026, 4:33pm

Some of the Cudy devices have it. I have a WR3000P and use mdio to turn off the WAN LED. The WR3000H (also with RTL8221b) is slightly cheaper due to less RAM I believe.

bevanweiss · March 31, 2026, 8:34pm

The WR3000H appears to use just a normal GPIO pin for the WAN LED

github.com/openwrt/openwrt

mediatek: filogic: Add support for cudy wr3000h

committed 04:08PM - 12 Jan 25 UTC

juampe

+367 -0

The manufacturer Cudy usually releases signed openwrt firmware, to facilitate th…e migration from the proprietary version to the official versions of openwrt. In contact with the manufacturer tells me that only releases the firmware of the WR3000H if and only if there is an official version. With this proposal I pretend to have an initial operative version so that they do their part, and facilitate to the users the possibility of using openwrt. In the present state, it is only possible to use this firmware by uploading and installing it with UART connection. AX3000 2.5G Dual Band Wi-Fi 6 Mesh Router (WR3000H) Hardware -------- MediaTek MT7981 WiSoC 256MB DDR3 RAM 128MB SPI-NAND (XMC XM25QH128C) MediaTek MT7981 2x2 DBDC 802.11ax 2T2R (2.4 / 5) 4 LAN MediaTek MT7531 PHY 1 WAN RTL8221B-VB-CG 2.5Gbps PHY (C22) 2 Radios MT7976CN UART: 115200 8N1 3.3V MAC: LAN MAC: label mac WAN MAC: label mac + 1 2.4G MAC: label mac 5G MAC: label mac + 1 with LA bit set Installation ------------ 1. Connect to the serial port as described in the "Hardware" section. 2. Power on the device + press reset pin. Keep pressing reset pin to enter the U-Boot shell (The recovery.bin image load process must fail). 3. Download the OpenWrt initramfs image. Place it on an TFTP server connected to the Cudy LAN ports. Make sure the server is reachable at 192.168.1.88. Rename the image to "cudy3000h.bin" 4. Download and boot the OpenWrt initramfs image. $ tftpboot 0x46000000 cudy3000h.bin; bootm 0x46000000 5. IMPORTANT: Make backup from original firmware. System -> Backup /Flash Firmware -> Save mtdblock contents. All mtdblock one by one, keep unaltered (BL2, u-boot-env, Factory, bdinfo, FIP, and ubi). 6. Transfer the OpenWrt sysupgrade image to the device using scp. Install with sysupgrade. Warning for BL2 and U-BOOT developers ------------------------------------- The nand partition layout from vendor is slightly diferent from "standard". The FIP partition starts at 0x3c0000 be carefull with BL2 to BL31. The UBI partition start at 0x5c0000 be carefull. DO NOT OVERWRITE bdinfo partition it contains hardware MAC definition Layout is start-end (not start size) - 0x000000000000-0x000007800000 : "nmbm0" - 0x000000000000-0x000000100000 : "bl2" - 0x000000100000-0x000000180000 : "u-boot-env" - 0x000000180000-0x000000380000 : "factory" - 0x000000380000-0x0000003c0000 : "bdinfo" - 0x0000003c0000-0x0000005c0000 : "fip" - 0x0000005c0000-0x0000045c0000 : "ubi" ALLWAYS for U-BOOT operations check this setenv mtdids nmbm0=nmbm0 setenv mtdparts nmbm0:1024k(bl2),512k(u-boot-env),2048k(factory),256k(bdinfo),2048k(fip),65536k(ubi) Signed-off-by: Juan Pedro Paredes Caballero <juanpedro.paredes@gmail.com> Link: https://github.com/openwrt/openwrt/pull/17458 Signed-off-by: Hauke Mehrtens <hauke@hauke-m.de>

The same looks to be true for the WR3000P

github.com/openwrt/openwrt

mediatek: add cudy wr3000p-v1 ubootmod

committed 10:27AM - 27 Mar 26 UTC

stavultras

+528 -145

This allows us to use the full size of nand, which extends ubi size from 64Mb to… 122.25Mb. 1. Log in to the device and backup all the partitions, especially unique "Factory" and "bdata" partitions from System -> Backup / Flash Firmware -> Save mtdblock contents. 2. Install kmod-mtd-rw to unlock mtd partitions for writing apk update && apk add kmod-mtd-rw && insmod mtd-rw i_want_a_brick=1 3. Write new OpenWrt (U-Boot Layout) "BL2" and "FIP": mtd -e BL2 write openwrt-mediatek-filogic-cudy_wr3000p-v1-ubootmod-preloader.bin BL2 mtd -e FIP write openwrt-mediatek-filogic-cudy_wr3000p-v1-ubootmod-bl31-uboot.fip FIP 4. Set static IP on your PC: "192.168.1.254", gateway "192.168.1.1" 5. Serve openwrt-mediatek-filogic-cudy_wr3000p-v1-ubootmod-initramfs-recovery.itb using TFTP server. 6. Connect Router LAN with PC LAN. 7. Cut off the power and re-engage, wait for TFTP recovery to complete. 8. After OpenWrt initramfs recovery has booted, clean "/dev/mtd5" ubi partition to utilize maximum of free space: ubidetach -p /dev/mtd5; ubiformat /dev/mtd5 -y; ubiattach -p /dev/mtd5 ubimkvol /dev/ubi0 -n 0 -N ubootenv -s 128KiB ubimkvol /dev/ubi0 -n 1 -N ubootenv2 -s 128KiB 9. Perform sysupgrade. Signed-off-by: Dmitry Mostovoy <stavultras@gmail.com> Link: https://github.com/openwrt/openwrt/pull/21943 Signed-off-by: Robert Marko <robimarko@gmail.com>

Which MDIO commands are you using to turn off the WAN LED?
Is it definitely the LED registers...?

54ac · March 31, 2026, 9:29pm

The LED configuration panel in LuCI (or anything in /sys/class/leds) does not have any effect on the LAN/WAN LEDs for me. I use mdio mt7530-0 0:0x1f raw 0x21 0x0008 to disable the LAN LEDs which I took from this GitHub issue, and mdio mdio-bus 6:0x1f 0xd044 0x4089 to disable the WAN LED according to the datasheet

bevanweiss · March 31, 2026, 10:22pm

That definitely seems to be the RTL8221b PHY LEDs for the WAN

So if I put together a github branch which would include patches to get your WAN (and maybe LAN) LEDs working, would you be able to test it out?

The WAN I've already got code for, would just need to edit the DTS for your board.
The LAN I'd need to look into the MT753x switch chip to see what can be done.

[EDIT] Ahh.. that's right, the LAN looks to be an upstream limitation, where the gpio-controller takes all the outputs from PHY LED => GPIO.. and putting them back with a software netdev trigger doesn't result in the same behaviour as default. I'll have to dig more into the MT753x switch stuff for that (I've got such a switch, so I can likely test that myself first).

54ac · April 1, 2026, 5:44pm

So if I put together a github branch which would include patches to get your WAN (and maybe LAN) LEDs working, would you be able to test it out?

Sure, I wouldn't mind - as long as it's relatively low risk as I'm quite new to OpenWrt (and am actively using that device), though I don't mind tinkering when necessary.

olek210 · April 1, 2026, 8:39pm

Is this your patch or someone else's?

bevanweiss · April 1, 2026, 9:23pm

That's someone elses... I hadn't allowed for the software on/off, so I'll need to check to see if there is an ability to support that and add it if so.
I think apart from support software on/off (which this other patch doesn't appear to implement correctly), my patch is a more complete implementation, mine just hasn't been tested (hence why I haven't submitted upstream yet).

olek210 · April 1, 2026, 9:38pm

So coordinate your efforts to implement this feature
Unfortunately, I don't have the hardware to test it. The WAX206 doesn't have any LEDs connected to the PHY.