Dear fellow Forum Users!
Some years ago I bought a piece of the Netgear WNDR3700v4 router. For some time it just lay around, but now that OpenWRT 18.06 came around, I tried to update its firmware, by compiling OpenWRT from source.
I then obviously ran into the problem with the flash layout, that only around 11-12 MB are available in ubifs, and that there is a large unused partition at the end of the flash storage.
Then I was pointed to this bug/topic: https://bugs.openwrt.org/index.php?do=details&task_id=146
I went ahead and applied the patch, recompiled OpenWRT and did a sysupgrade to the new version, but to my surprise the amont of free space did not increase, even though the partition table now reflects the changes.
BusyBox v1.28.3 () built-in shell (ash)
_______ ________ __
| |.-----.-----.-----.| | | |.----.| |_
| - || _ | -__| || | | || _|| _|
|_______|| __|_____|__|__||________||__| |____|
|__| W I R E L E S S F R E E D O M
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OpenWrt 18.06.1, r7258-5eb055306f
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root@bielefeld:~# df -h
Filesystem Size Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/root 5.3M 5.3M 0 100% /rom
tmpfs 61.0M 76.0K 60.9M 0% /tmp
/dev/ubi0_1 11.2M 72.0K 10.5M 1% /overlay
overlayfs:/overlay 11.2M 72.0K 10.5M 1% /
tmpfs 512.0K 0 512.0K 0% /dev
root@bielefeld:~# cat /proc/cmdline
board=WNDR3700_V4 console=ttyS0,115200 mtdparts=ar934x-nfc:256k(u-boot)ro,256k(u-boot-env)ro,256k(caldata),512k(pot),2048k(language),512k(config),3072k(traffic_meter),2048k(kernel),121856k(ubi),123904k@0x6c0000(firmware),256k(caldata_backup),-(reserved) rootfstype=squashfs noinitrd
# dmesg
[ 0.000000] Linux version 4.9.120 (janos@debian-build.lan) (gcc version 7.3.0 (OpenWrt GCC 7.3.0 r7188-b0b5c64c22) ) #0 Thu Aug 16 07:51:15 2018
[ 0.000000] bootconsole [early0] enabled
[ 0.000000] CPU0 revision is: 0001974c (MIPS 74Kc)
[ 0.000000] SoC: Atheros AR9344 rev 2
...
[ 0.000000] Built 1 zonelists in Zone order, mobility grouping on. Total pages: 32512
[ 0.000000] Kernel command line: board=WNDR3700_V4 console=ttyS0,115200 mtdparts=ar934x-nfc:256k(u-boot)ro,256k(u-boot-env)ro,256k(caldata),512k(pot),2048k(language),512k(config),3072k(traffic_meter),2048k(kernel),121856k(ubi),123904k@0x6c0000(firmware),256k(caldata_backup),-(reserved) rootfstype=squashfs noinitrd
[ 0.000000] PID hash table entries: 512 (order: -1, 2048 bytes)
...
[ 0.652162] random: fast init done
[ 0.734428] mtd: ar934x-nfc: skipping zero sized partition
[ 0.739996] 11 cmdlinepart partitions found on MTD device ar934x-nfc
[ 0.746461] Creating 11 MTD partitions on "ar934x-nfc":
[ 0.751773] 0x000000000000-0x000000040000 : "u-boot"
[ 0.758818] 0x000000040000-0x000000080000 : "u-boot-env"
[ 0.766393] 0x000000080000-0x0000000c0000 : "caldata"
[ 0.773649] 0x0000000c0000-0x000000140000 : "pot"
[ 0.780497] 0x000000140000-0x000000340000 : "language"
[ 0.787848] 0x000000340000-0x0000003c0000 : "config"
[ 0.795049] 0x0000003c0000-0x0000006c0000 : "traffic_meter"
[ 0.802868] 0x0000006c0000-0x0000008c0000 : "kernel"
[ 0.809976] 0x0000008c0000-0x000007fc0000 : "ubi"
[ 0.817532] 0x0000006c0000-0x000007fc0000 : "firmware"
[ 2.160860] random: crng init done
[ 2.541897] 0x000007fc0000-0x000008000000 : "caldata_backup"
[ 2.550385] libphy: Fixed MDIO Bus: probed
[ 2.559317] switch0: Atheros AR8327 rev. 4 switch registered on ag71xx-mdio.0
root@bielefeld:~#
What step may I have missed?
I even tried resetting the configuration of OpenWRT in the hopes that it would wipe and re-format the ubifs partition, so that would thus possibly be increased, but this does not seem to have worked.