Error building image for Zyxel NWA50AX Pro. Kernel too big?

For Developers
1

I'm trying to build custom AP images for a couple Zyxel NWA50AX Pro devices.

The pre-built image install and works great but I want a smaller, pre-configured image for APs.

I downloaded the imagebuilder from https://mirror-03.infra.openwrt.org/releases/23.05.5/targets/mediatek/filogic/ and tried to build by:

tar xvf openwrt-imagebuilder-23.05.5-mediatek-filogic.Linux-x86_64.tar.xz
cd openwrt-imagebuilder-23.05.5-mediatek-filogic.Linux-x86_64/
make image PROFILE=zyxel_nwa50ax-pro

It downloads some packages, does other bits and bobs and ends with the following error:

ubinize: volume size was not specified in section "kernel", assume minimum to fit image "/home/c10l/openwrt/openwrt-imagebuilder-23.05.5-mediatek-filogic.Linux-x86_64/build_dir/target-aarch64_cortex-a53_musl/linux-mediatek_filogic/zyxel_nwa50ax-pro-kernel.bin"3805556 bytes (3.6 MiB)
Can't set hash 'value' property for 'hash' node(FDT_ERR_NOSPACE)
Can't set hash value for 'hash' hash node in 'ubi' image node
Can't add verification data for node 'ubi' (<unknown error>)
FIT description: Zyxel FIT (Flattened Image Tree)
Created:         Mon Sep 23 13:34:46 2024
 Image 0 (ubi)
  Description:  unavailable
  Created:      Mon Sep 23 13:34:46 2024
  Type:         Firmware
  Compression:  uncompressed
  Data Size:    10485760 Bytes = 10240.00 KiB = 10.00 MiB
  Architecture: Unknown Architecture
  OS:           Unknown OS
  Load Address: unavailable
  Hash algo:    sha256
  Hash value:   a29f1328e02061fccbbcf20ecb17cc35b3590638f02e696fe734314e04303734

If it makes any difference, the computer I'm running this on is running Debian unstable on amd64.

It looks like the kernel is too large to be built, even by just selecting the profile. How can I troubleshoot this?

2

Hmm, I don't see any errors there. Did you check in bin for results? If there's something there, it should be good to go.

I just grabbed that same image builder and tested it out, here's what I see. I wonder why my data size is smaller than yours???

$ wget https://mirror-03.infra.openwrt.org/releases/23.05.5/targets/mediatek/filogic/openwrt-imagebuilder-23.05.5-mediatek-filogic.Linux-x86_64.tar.xz
$ tar xvf openwrt-imagebuilder-23.05.5-mediatek-filogic.Linux-x86_64.tar.xz
$ cd openwrt-imagebuilder-23.05.5-mediatek-filogic.Linux-x86_64/

$ make image PROFILE=zyxel_nwa50ax-pro
...
ubinize: volume size was not specified in section "kernel", assume minimum to fit image "/home/efahlgren/openwrt/image_builder/openwrt-imagebuilder-23.05.5-mediatek-filogic.Linux-x86_64/build_dir/target-aarch64_cortex-a53_musl/linux-mediatek_filogic/zyxel_nwa50ax-pro-kernel.bin"3805556 bytes (3.6 MiB)
Can't set hash 'value' property for 'hash' node(FDT_ERR_NOSPACE)
Can't set hash value for 'hash' hash node in 'ubi' image node
Can't add verification data for node 'ubi' (<unknown error>)
FIT description: Zyxel FIT (Flattened Image Tree)
Created:         Mon Sep 23 05:34:46 2024
 Image 0 (ubi)
  Description:  unavailable
  Created:      Mon Sep 23 05:34:46 2024
  Type:         Firmware
  Compression:  uncompressed
  Data Size:    9043968 Bytes = 8832.00 KiB = 8.62 MiB
  Architecture: Unknown Architecture
  OS:           Unknown OS
  Load Address: unavailable
  Hash algo:    sha256
  Hash value:   3a084ddf842b37e17b908bff685e23ee3ad83c62661ba1623a973afef91a4468

$ ll bin/targets/mediatek/filogic/
Permissions Size User      Date Modified    Name
drwxr-xr-x@    - efahlgren 2025-01-15 14:36 .
drwxr-xr-x@    - efahlgren 2025-01-15 14:36 ..
.rw-r--r--@ 9.0M efahlgren 2025-01-15 14:36 openwrt-23.05.5-mediatek-filogic-zyxel_nwa50ax-pro-squashfs-factory.bin
.rw-r--r--@ 7.9M efahlgren 2025-01-15 14:36 openwrt-23.05.5-mediatek-filogic-zyxel_nwa50ax-pro-squashfs-sysupgrade.bin
.rw-r--r--@ 3.8k efahlgren 2025-01-15 14:36 openwrt-23.05.5-mediatek-filogic-zyxel_nwa50ax-pro.manifest
.rw-r--r--@ 1.5k efahlgren 2025-01-15 14:36 profiles.json
.rw-r--r--@  485 efahlgren 2025-01-15 14:36 sha256sums
1 Like
3

I see that the "Created:" date is different, mine is 8 hours older(?) than yours. :thinking: Re-download and try again?

EDIT: Oops, probably timezone differences.

4

Hey, you're right... I guess I had just assumed these lines were errors causing the build to fail and didn't bother to look in bin/. It's my first time attempting to build OpenWRT... :slight_smile:

Can't set hash 'value' property for 'hash' node(FDT_ERR_NOSPACE)
Can't set hash value for 'hash' hash node in 'ubi' image node
Can't add verification data for node 'ubi' (<unknown error>)

I have no idea why my image is larger but it all seems to be working as expected.

Thanks!

5

Yeah, x86 builds have this "omg the partition is too small!" message that's likewise meaningless. It's like the old story, "The Build Who Cried Wolf", I've come to just ignore the messages and assume it's ok if there's an image...