I recently aquired a Linksys E4200 V2 on freegle.
I connected it directly to my Windows computer and I held the reset button for 10 seconds to reset it to factory defaults, the IP setting is set to "Obtain an IP automatically" and it gave me 192.168.1.101 with a default gateway of 192.168.1.1
But i can't login to the Linksys GUI using the default username (blank or admin) and password (admin).
So soldered a header to the serial port and I can access the serial console via PuTTy with my USB to TTL adaptor. When it says "Hit any key to stop autoboot", I can stop the boot process and it gives me a Viper>> prompt.
This is what ive done:
setenv ipaddr 192.168.1.1
setenv serverip 192.168.1.2
Manually set the IP address of my computer to 192.168.1.2
Ive installed Tftpd32 and downloaded
openwrt-19.07.7-kirkwood-linksys_viper-squashfs-factory.bin
from https://openwrt.org/toh/linksys/ea4500 page to the Tftpd32 folder.
In the "Older builds (deprecated): Installation using Serial" section I modified the tftpboot command to use the file i downloaded so it looks like this:
Viper» tftpboot ${loadaddr} openwrt-19.07.7-kirkwood-linksys_viper-squashfs-factory.bin; setenv bootargs $(console) root=/dev/ram rw; bootm ${loadaddr}`
The E4200 successfully downloads the openwrt-19.07.7-kirkwood-linksys_viper-squashfs-factory.bin file and starts loading it
Bytes transferred = 6291456 (600000 hex)
## Booting image at 02000000 ...
Image Name: ARM OpenWrt Linux-4.14.221
Created: 2021-02-15 15:22:37 UTC
Image Type: ARM Linux Kernel Image (uncompressed)
Data Size: 2085446 Bytes = 2 MB
Load Address: 00008000
Entry Point: 00008000
Verifying Checksum ... OK
OK
Starting kernel ...
After lots of messages I get the following errors quite a long way down in the console:
VFS: Cannot open root device "ram" or unknown-block(1,0): error -6
[ 1.018365] Please append a correct "root=" boot option; here are the available partitions:
[ 1.026776] 1f00 512 mtdblock0
[ 1.026780] (driver?)
[ 1.033359] 1f01 128 mtdblock1
[ 1.033363] (driver?)
[ 1.039923] 1f02 128 mtdblock2
[ 1.039926] (driver?)
[ 1.046500] 1f03 2688 mtdblock3
[ 1.046503] (driver?)
[ 1.053074] 1f04 23936 mtdblock4
[ 1.053077] (driver?)
[ 1.059639] 1f05 2688 mtdblock5
[ 1.059642] (driver?)
[ 1.066215] 1f06 23936 mtdblock6
[ 1.066218] (driver?)
[ 1.072795] 1f07 75776 mtdblock7
[ 1.072798] (driver?)
[ 1.079364] 1f08 1280 mtdblock8
[ 1.079367] (driver?)
[ 1.085940] Kernel panic - not syncing: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on unknown-block(1,0)
[ 1.095007] Rebooting in 1 seconds..
I don't understand why there are so many partitions. Then it just reboots into the existing firmware.
What do i do? How do i get the OpenWRT firmware into the NAND (and which partition) and make it boot it
Alternatively, maybe there a way to just reset the existing username and password from the serial console-maybe by deleting the file that holds the config?
Be aware that i don't have any experience of linux. Just tell me exactly what to do.