OpenWrt Support for Linksys EA8100-AH

Another hint...
Probably you need to set a uboot env var after a successful boot to keep the current partition active.

Here are some examples:

$ find target/linux/ -iname "bootcount" | sort
target/linux/ipq40xx/base-files/etc/init.d/bootcount
target/linux/ipq806x/base-files/etc/init.d/bootcount
target/linux/kirkwood/base-files/etc/init.d/bootcount
target/linux/mvebu/base-files/etc/init.d/bootcount
target/linux/ramips/base-files/etc/init.d/bootcount

That contradicts my knowledge of majority of dual-boot routers with OpenWrt support.

Thanks! I found it on EA8300. I should look more deeper.

Thanks!
I found something interesting on the uboot env

boot_part=1

I will take a closer look at it thanks!

using the EA8300 way does not seem to work, EA8300 uses a script to reset the boot counter everytime openwrt is booted to prevent it from witching to partition B. Bot boot_count is not an environment variable in EA8100's Uboot

run strings on factory uboot (partition) dump... should give you something notable... ( as would diffing u-env with both back on factory... then flash factory... the reboot a few times etc. etc. best to dump the env pre-load and post-load too )

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I found out that EA8300 are resetting the boot counter using mtd resetbc, which is provided by package/system/mtd/src/linksys_bootcount.c. But how I actually build this c file into my built?

EDIT: Nevermind i found it

Now I am facing a new problem, the Mac address in the factory partition for both wifi radio is not the same as in the original firmware.

I can confirm that the wifi driver is reading the correct mac address from the factory partition by using a hex editor to examine the factory partition.
I suspect that the original firmware patch the mac addresses during boot, how can I do the same on openwrt?

I tried using a script to do ip link set dev wlan0 address, but the mac is resetting every time wifi is re-enabled.

Which hardware are they using? MT7621 soc with dual MT7615N wifi?

Depends on hardware and from where you wanna derive it...
It´s a de-/incremented one of the lan/wan mac?

Yes, MT7621 soc with dual MT7615N for both EA8100AH an EA7500v2

Yes, bgn wifi is wan mac + 1, and ac is wan mac + 2

The solution on QCA devices for this problem is just dumping the factory partition and patch the dump file, and tell the driver to load the patched file instaed of loading the factory partition directly.
However, i cant find similar thing for mt76 driver.

I found this: https://github.com/openwrt/mt76/issues/219 seems like this feature is work in progress? But i am not sure

I successfully flashed the EA8100 with OpenWRT. Anybody else using the same? It is largely stable but will need to see overtime. There is an issue when you hardboot, it randomly picks up the original linksys firmware from boot partition. But couple of restarts and it comes back.

That indicates a wrongly configured bootcount script.

Anyway, can you test the ac wifi performance? It is not too good in my testing....

i also tring to flash EA8100 with OpenWRT but it was fail. can you teach me how to flash it?

can u please give us the firmware and steps to flash the EA8100 or EA7500 please!

do u have the firmware, how are u trying to flash?

Hey, any body figured out how to flash EA8100, or is there OpenWRT firmware available for the same router?
Would really appreciate any leads.
Thanks in advance

There is currently no official OpenWrt support available for EA8100.
You can check yourself the current EA8100 support status and firmware downloads

  • If you see "Nothing found" -> no OpenWrt support
  • If you see "snapshot" or something else in column "Supported Current Rel", and some download links further to the right, then you know that support has been added.

Hi, i am new on openwrt forum, but i have successfully install openwrt for linksys ea8100 AH v1
The firmware based on openwrt 21.02.0 rc3 stable. Looks like the developer update new driver for MT7615E wireless and the wifi performance much stable than previous firmware based on openwrt 19.07.7
You can download the squashfs factory and install from Linksys OEM GUI
The firmware can be downloaded on Official Openwrt Firmware Selector
OpenWrt Firmware Selector

FYI - OpenWrt 21.02.0 support is available now.

Please open new topics for any remaining questions.

Thanks! :slight_smile:

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