I have a Netgear WAX214v2 access point and was wondering whether I can flash OpenWrt to it. It has the limitation of 4 SSIDs and I believe the bandwidth is also artificially capped.
As the snapshot exists, does that mean there is a working firmware for this device?
The ToH page for its sibling WAX220 mentions nmrpflash to restore OEM firmware, so I was wondering if I could try the snapshot and then, if it doesn't work out, restore the factory image?
Installation and reverting to stock firmware instructions can be found in the link @kirdes posted:
Installation:
* Flash the factory image by TFTP to the bootloader.
NMRP can be used to TFTP without opening the case.
Revert to stock firmware:
* Flash the stock firmware to the bootloader using TFTP/NMRP.
Thanks for your replies.
Forgive me, I am still inexperienced with flashing images.
I have flashed a good many BT HH5a routers (xrx200), using UART and TFTP, so I'm comfortable with the process of actually doing it, but I'm still not very clear on what files are what
Could you expand on what file to provide over TFTP and what IP address the target will be looking for for TFTP boot?
Yes, since a snapshot firmware is available for the WAX214v2, it indicates that there is at least preliminary support for the device in OpenWrt. However, snapshot builds may lack a web interface (LuCI) by default and could have bugs or missing features. If the WAX220 ToH mentions using nmrpflash for recovery, it is likely that nmrpflash would work for the WAX214v2 as well, but this is not guaranteed without confirmation.
Your device is not a WAX220 so do not use those instructions. Use TFTP as mentioned here before.
nmrpflash looks like a nice wrapper around TFTP so use that.
I think my confusion and hence trepidation comes from the use of factory, which to my mind means the image shipped by the manufacturer. And the incompleteness of the statement Flash the factory image by TFTP to the bootloader
I thought the bootloader was temporary and used to bootstrap to rest of the OS?
If so, what would flashing to the bootloader achieve, other than a temporary environment from which to do more?
That is the image you flash on devices running factory firmware, so it is basically a "migration" image. Afterwards use sysupgrade images to update your device.
Nowadays there are handy tools like owut or attended sysupgrade to do so from your device.
There is always a bootloader which start before the OS. 99,9% this bootloader is uboot on embedded devices. As this is a piece of software it can also be updated but just flashing a "regular" OpenWRT image (factory, sysupgrade) does not change or modify the bootloader.
Flashing OpenWRT is device specific. Even though devices might be similar, the ways to flash OpenWRT can change dramatically. I know you want top help and this is not to rain on your parade but I have posted the instructions to flash OpenWRT on the WAX214 v2 in this thread and these should be followed. Not just random other things.
Well not exacly since they both are almost identical and released near the same date, the gui for both is very similar so flashing by gui is same for almost all devices made by the same manufacturer
No they are not. They run on completely different platforms, Qualcomm ipq60xx vs a MT7986 device. So the vendor skin may look the same, they are different beasts and thus require a different flashing method.
What I am saying is that even if the GUI is the same, the underlying mechanism can differ. We would not want bricked devices, do we?
@hedzwillroll should use the TFTP (NMRP) method just as the installation instruction from the developer who added support for the device clearly state.
