The main question is about how to support/update the Linksys MBE70 WRT Pro 7 802.11be Tri-Band WIFI router that seemingly has no HW support for the radio (Qualcomm IPQ9574/AP-AL02-C4) in openWRT yet (even though Linksys engineers seem to have used a now legacy openWRT version 19.07-9 maybe plus their “secret sauce” to support the tri-band radio).
I would appreciate any advice/guidance/recommendations from the experts on this forum regarding if this legacy FW 29.07 is “safe” enough to not risk easy intrusion, how to possibly update the MBE70 and still keep its current radio support and performance, and maybe comment if the Linksys engineers created a “Frankenstein’s monster” ie an experiment or is this standard practice for similar manufactures to "kick-start" a new HW platform?
I had a Linksys WRT3200ACM for 5 years which was running its original ~2020 Linksys FW version 1.0.8.199531 which has worked well until my home network grew and became too demanding.
(Please don’t make fun of my not updating till now as I know that FW likely contained multiple cybersecurity risks ;-).
Since I was a bit nervous about bricking my only WIFI router with the 24.10.4 update, I was looking for a second WRT32000 as a backup however they were not cheap.
Therefore, I decided to look into the latest tech and found the Linksys MBE70 (a.k.a LN6001) WRT Pro 7 802.11be Tri-Band WIFI router which I bought from Amazon for $200. It really kicks butt and supports my newer TV on the 6G band and gets 400Mbps download speed. However, the MBE70 came loaded with OpenWrt 19.07-9 / LuCI which is currently a legacy release. (Kernel v 5.4.213; 1.0.3 build 01)
I would like to bring the MBE70 to the latest FW (24.10.4) image but checked the openWRT site and it seems that its HW (Qualcomm IPQ9574/AP-AL02-C4) is Not yet supported. So for sanity sake, I checked https://openwrt.org/_media/packages/packages_dump_tab_separated_19.07.zip and could not find this target HW so I am a bit confused with what the Linksys Engineers did. Maybe they took the 19.07 openWRT source code and used a fraction (only 445 package names installed out of 6,079 available in 19.07 ), added the needed radio support code, placed it in this MBE70 WIFI router but never placed their radio custom code back into openWRT ?
Is that not a violation of open-source rules under GNU??
Linksys standard product helpline was no help so that is why I am reaching out for help/advise from the experts here…
Nothing has changed since then (almost nothing, at least).
What you're seeing is just a typical OEM firmware, loosely based on a heavily butchered up Qualcomm QSDK by Linksys, which in turn is loosely based on an ancient OpenWrt version, mutilated beyond recognition, with heart and guts replaced with semi-proprietary kernel and drivers. To this day, OpenWrt does not support ipq957x (at least not beyond source-only) - and certainly didn't in 19.07.x; how could it, when ipq957x only came around in late 2023/ 2024. And this device has nothing (little) to do with Qualcomm's own AP-AL02-C4 devboard either, Linksys just started with that reference design to build their own -very different- hardware, without changing the name in their firmware (no one's going to see that anyways).
qualommbe/ ipq957x support is still marked source-only, not ready for prime time, in need of further development - a lot of that. Once ipq957x support is 'ready' (no longer source-only), someone -in other words, you, yourself, as you're the only one with this hardware on their desk and the motivation to work on it- would still have to do the device specific porting (which is rarely trivial). Betting on future support is a losing game and rarely works in your favour, unless you are confident to do the necessary development yourself (and these days we are increasingly seeing encrypted/ signed firmware and secure boot, which could throw a spanner into the works).
1st is update my WRT3200ACM to the latest 24.10 as a backup.
2nd, get the latest signed OEM Linksys MBE7000 FW_MBE7000_1.0.14.216607_prod.signed
since the Linksys Linksys MBE70 (a.k.a LN6001) WRT Pro 7 probably does NOT have a Secure Boot, as it was meant to be updated by third-party FW (openWRT) then I should be able to install the latest commercial Linksys MBE7000 FW**?**
Do you think this will produce a “clean” install of the OEM FW or will there be some “complication” because I intend to install the OEM FW through the LuCi interface ??
If the above approach fails to bring the MBE70 to the latest MBE7000 OEM FW cleanly (does Not function as a WIFI router), do you think I can at least reinstall the original legacy openWRT 19.07 if LuCi is still intact?
or will I have a Brick…Note my plan was to Not have to go through the serial port to unbrick the device.
Look forward to your advice.
(note I will also try Linksys support but generally they are able to only support OEM functionality at a high level… )
Now that I was able to find and successfully install a later Linksys OpenWRT hybrid version to replace the older Linksys OpenWRT hybrid version (both with LuCi), is it too risky to do the following??
get the latest signed OEM Linksys MBE7000 FW_MBE7000_1.0.14.216607_prod.signed (NOT OpenWRT Based, or at least Not LuCi UI since it uses their simple Linksys UI)
since the Linksys Linksys MBE70 (a.k.a LN6001) WRT Pro 7 probably does NOT have a Secure Boot, as it was meant to be updated by third-party FW (openWRT) then I should be able to install the latest commercial Linksys MBE7000 FW ??
Do you think this will produce a “clean” install of the OEM FW or will there be some “complication” because I intend to install the OEM FW through the LuCi interface ??
If the above approach fails to bring the MBE70 to the latest MBE7000 OEM FW cleanly, do you think I can at least reinstall the previous Linksys/openWRT hybrid version, assuming LuCi is still functional?
or will I have a Brick…Note my plan was to Not have to go through the serial port to unbrick the device.
