I need little guidance on general routers' architecture

Hardware Questions and Recommendations
1

Hi everyone,

I have been using OpenWRT some years. But I don't have strong IT basic foundations, I have been mainly autodidact, and then I need some guidance on where to read about routers architecture. (Also a lot more different things in IT). In this case I'd like to ask you guys where is a good starting point to read about routers' architecture, including these concepts I often read about and don't know what they're exactly:

  • Flash memory
  • NVRAM
  • SquashFS filesystem
  • JTAG
  • about different ways to flash OpenWRT
  • Serial connection
  • What of these hardware parts are common to all routers or almost all routers
  • Other hardware parts not mentioned
  • Strong basic foundation on routers' architecture
  • How do you manage to analyze routers' hardware in order to build OpenWRT firmware to install on them (and is it really difficult, or not that much?)
  • If it is not that difficult, I'd like to learn the necessary knowledge and maybe collaborate in this task in the future.
    --edit--
  • Boot process of a router with OpenWRT
  • /overlay

Thanks a lot,
Greets

2

The OpenWRT wiki has some very good paragraphs e.g.:
https://openwrt.org/docs/techref/flash.layout

3

If you're looking for general information about most of the stuff in your list, you can probably just look on wikipedia.

This one probably assumes a fairly good understanding of all of the above, but for some light reading:
https://openwrt.org/docs/guide-developer/add.new.device

1 Like
4

This sounds like hiring question

2 Likes
5

I think this diagram shows it quite nicely:
https://fccid.io/img.php?id=2541433&img=bg1.png

6

These topics cover quite some info as well:
SquashFS filesystem => https://openwrt.org/docs/techref/filesystems and https://openwrt.org/docs/techref/file_system
Architecture => https://openwrt.org/docs/guide-user/network/architecture/components and https://openwrt.org/docs/techref/architecture
Build OpenWRT firmware => https://openwrt.org/docs/guide-developer/start
Boot process => https://openwrt.org/docs/techref/process.boot

7

Thank you guys a lot.
I'm looking forward to sit and read these resources one of these days.