Recovering my old nucom device with non booting OpenWRT installed

Installing and Using OpenWrt
1

I wanted to use my old Nucom R5010UNv2 device to do some openWRT config tests without affecting my main router.

I connect to it (it had a previous openwrt version installed) and upload 24.10.1 firmware image using sysupgrade without conserving settings and forcing upgrade.

But when after uploading and while it was rebooting there was a power outgage.

Now it does not boot correclty.

Lucy interface is not working (connection refused error) and it is not serving IPs or doing any other function.

It seems to get blocked in some early stage of booting.

I can ssh as root to it. It reports OpenWrt SNAPSHOT, r29662-800ea46bd5.

I have tried to upload the firmware to /tmp using scp command in it to copy it from my PC (I have install an sshd server).
But I receive an error saying Permission denied.

It seems that it is read only.

So I cannot upload the file.

It has no internet access either.

I tried to follow the instruccions in the device page to recover, disconnecting it from power and pressing reset button for more than 12 seconds.

It is supposed to installl a minimal firware with a web page interface to upload the firmware, but does not work.

I have tried to use ftp to connect to it during booting with no luck, either.

2

Due to https://firmware-selector.openwrt.org/?version=23.05.5&target=bcm63xx%2Fgeneric&id=nucom_r5010un-v2 the latest possible version is 23.05.5. I think, due to the lack of Ram/Flash.
Where did you get the 24.10.1 for your device from?

1 Like
3

Uhhh...

In the table of hardware it says it supports 24.10.0 (last version says that) and you can download the sysupgrade and install firmware.

The device page says the same.

[OpenWrt Wiki] NuCom R5010UNv2

I downloaded it from there anyway (not sure the version, I assumed it was the last supported one).

THe download installation firmware directs you to 24.10.0..

sysupgrade I don't know exactly (I used sysupgrade open-bmips-bcm...... firmware from that page)

It seems the device is still using an old version of openWRT as it seems it is using swconfig and not DSA.

This is the network configuration

config interface 'loopback'
        option device 'lo'
        option proto 'static'
        option ipaddr '127.0.0.1'
        option netmask '255.0.0.0'

config globals 'globals'
        option ula_prefix 'fdc3:43c70043:b32600b3::/48'

config device 'switch'
        option name 'switch'
        option type 'bridge'

config bridge-vlan 'lan_vlan'
        option device 'switch'
        option vlan '1'
        option ports 'lan1 lan2 lan3 lan4'

config interface 'lan'
        option device 'switch.1'
        option proto 'static'
        option ipaddr '192.168.1.1'
        option netmask '255.255.255.0'
        option ip6assign '60'
4

I have managed to upload the firmware.
I have used the pressing reset while power on and get access to the web page to upload the firmware.

But after uploading the sysupgrade firmware that is in its webpage it gets bricked.

The name of the firmware (and the las version in the webpage) says it is 24.10.0.
So it may be a mistake as it seems that only 23 is supported.

Where may I download the correct version for this router?

UPDATED:

Finally I could get it to work.

I uploaded a firmware version 23.05.5 factory image from here: Index of /releases/23.05.5/targets/bmips/bcm6328/

And it works.

But if you look en the 24.10.0 page or even 24.10.1 there are firmware releases for these router.

Index of /releases/24.10.1/targets/bmips/bcm6328/

5

Finally I could use sysupgrade to upload the las 24.10.1 version and it seems to work perfectly.

But it uses swconfig and not DSA for switching.

Thank you for the help

6

Some of the 10/100 chips were never migrated and likely never will be. It may have only a 16 entry VLAN table (check with swconfig help) in which case it can't handle arbitrary VLAN setups.

1 Like
7

I don't know, probably the functionality is somehow limited.

In this case it seems to use swconfig and not DSA (as the device is quite old) even in 24.10.1 and uses vlan 1 for lan interface. I have created VLAN 2 for wan interface and make it a router.

It works and it gives me access to internet using wan interface wit client dhcp.

It won't be a production device, just to make some configuration tests and do not play with my main router until I check it works.
Having the same openwrt version will help I expect.