FritzBox 7530 downloads continuosly bin file from TFTP

Installing and Using OpenWrt
1

Hi all,
I have bought a second hand Fritz!Box 7530 router.
I love this brand due to they usually build very good devices.
I am very surprised about OpenWRT support for this model and I would try to deploy the open source firmware on this device.

Installation guide here: https://openwrt.org/toh/avm/avm_fritz_box_7530

I tried to followed this guide step by step. I passed different steps with success, unfortunatelly I am stucked.
In fact I did not pass these ones:

1) The U-Boot will now start. Now assign yourself the IP address 192.168.1.70/24. Copy the OpenWrt initramfs (!) image to a installed TFTP server root directory on our Computer and rename it to FRITZ7530.bin.

2) The Box will now put the file (a pull request every 5 seconds) and boot OpenWrt into RAM. This can take up to two minutes.

3) Copy the U-Boot and the OpenWrt sysupgrade (!) image to the Box using scp, like

I runned TFTP server, Fritz!Box router downloaded "FRITZ7530.bin" file many times without stopping.
My Fritz!Box loops downloading the bin file every 5 seconds (more or less), so I couldn't upload OpenWRT image via SCP. TCP 22 port is always close (probably OpenWRT doesn't boot into RAM).
Is it normal? What can I do?

Before to install OpenWRT I deployed FritzOS firmware using recovery software. This router is working fine using FritzOS at the moment.

Thanks
Federico

2

Assuming you used the right image, serial console access would be the next step.

You could also try to use an initramfs, from an older openwrt release.

3

I suggest you follow this step-by-step guide. It is very clear. The current official "installation instructions" are not very clear for everyone in my opinion, and need to be replaced by the ones I mentioned.

However, I do not want to disappoint you, but the difficulties and challenges just started for you with the 7530... Please take a look here and there.

Even if you flash OpenWrt on the 7530, you will find out that you need to juggle with the interfaces, device and vlan setup to get what you want. I simply wanted to simulate a standard WAN port (because the device lacks a physical WAN port) on an existing LAN port, and isolate the traffic as if it was a WAN port (i.e. make 7530 a standard (NOT DUMB) router with firewall), and I gave up in the end, with even considering selling the device on eBay. The configuration of this ipq40xx device is $#..show at the moment (not sure if it will be permanently like that); I have been told that if you experiment with the snapshot build, things are much (?) better, but then you need to figure out how to set up luci without having access to interenet etc etc. Even after you finally solve that, you probably need to do the same process over and over each time you need to update your build, until the improvements become part of the standard release image (next year probably).

Also, another limitation is that the device lacks a physical reset button to restore the device to defaults, meaning that if you lock yourself out while juggling (like what happened to me), you need to flash the stock AVM firmware back using the AVM recovery utility and repeat the OpenWrt flash process again!! Are we serious? Good luck!

P.S.
My personal advice? Unless you want to have an all-in-one modem-router/gateway (xDSL support is experimental with the 7530 now with OpenWrt), if you can sort out the modem part in a different way (i.e. if you have FTTH at home or another good modem in bridge mode), then go sell the 7530 and buy a widely supported by OpenWrt and powerful router. You will be MUCH happier and better off.

4

Did you apply for a Wiki account and put these instructions onto the Wiki?

Just use a current snapshot image and these problems are all gone. It is unfortunate that this is currently necessary, but often these builds are very stable. My box currently has an uptime of 60+ days with a DSL uptime of 60+ days. If you want DSL support, you need a custom build anyway since DSL support is probably not coming in the near future to an official release. Take a look here for a discussion on DSL support: Adding support for VRX518 (and maybe VRX320)

It's a bit hard to find in the thread, but a working branch with DSL patches applied is available here: https://github.com/dhewg/openwrt/tree/vr11

That said, it's also possible that AVM has changed - once again - hardware: My 7530 came with an unsupported flash chip and I'm unsure if the patch made it into 22.03 or is only applied to master. The symptoms, however, are different, i.e. the initramfs image boots fine but flashing fails.

5

Is it necessary? Why can't the OpenWrt admin just replace the text in the current installation instructions?
I am afraid that if we go down the wiki route, there will be two "installation intructions" at the same time, causing potentially even more confusion; unless the current ones will be deleted when the new ones kick in. Have I understood sth differently?

I personally do not care about the xDSL part - that has been resolved looong ago for me via a modem in bridge mode; I only care about the interfaces/devices/router setup part, but I found it (a lot) messy (compared to BTHH5A or R7800) to get a simple setup done. For others, some things may be obvious (like how to get internet to the router for first time after having flashed a snapshot image in order to install luci etc), but for me and many others are not. If you can provide a bullet-point guide (or if that takes you time, PM me and I will do that later similar to what I did with the installation guide) with how to set up 7530 as a router config with a virtual WAN port (not a dumb ap setup) via luci gui using snapshot builds, that would be very helpful for everyone (and I guess for the future of this device in OpenWrt too). Thanks!

6

Because it's a community-driven project and it's not the duty of an admin to copy-and-paste content. You can adjust the Wiki in any way you find it useful - that's the purpose of the Wiki. I, for myself, find the instructions in the Wiki clear and concise, but I'm a Linux user.

That's not specific to the 7530. The instructions would apply to any router using a DSA switch. The principle is already described here: https://openwrt.org/docs/guide-user/network/dsa/dsa-mini-tutorial#multiple_bridged_networks
What's missing is assigning the bridge you use as WAN to the wan firewall zone.

Please keep in mind that snapshot builds do not contain LuCI. You have to install it yourself.

7

Thanks a lot for your suggestions!
In my case I do not need VLAN settings and I am going to connect an external USB LTE dongle to Internet access.

I will try again to flash OpenWRT firmware on this Fritz!Box router.

See you soon

8

Hi all,
I followed step by step suggested guide to deploy OpenWRT on my Fritz!Box 7530 router.
This is the guide
I uploaded wrong file using TFTP to my router in the past, in any case, the router now works with openwrt firmware.

In the end I created a WAN port following this guide creating a new VLAN and I installed necessary packages to manage Internet access using USB Tethering.

P.S.
You must assign custom WAN port or USB Tethering interface to right firewall-zone:
Network > Interface > Edit/Add your custom interface > Firewall Settings > Create/Assign firewall-zone

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image846×214 15.1 KB

Later enable masquerading and create LAN to Internet firewall rule for Internet access.

Thanks a lot for your support!
Have a nice day!
Federico

9

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