Comparing the output between LED on (wlan configured) and LED off (wlan off) using the OEM firmware should be even easier to check.
cat /sys/kernel/debug/gpio on OEM firmware didn't list all GPIOs, like on LEDE. White LEDs turned on or off, the GPIO output stayed the same. They don't seem to be listed there. I've activated amber LED using OEM led_ctrl utility (just script for /sys/class/leds) and I was indeed getting white + amber LED activated at the same time. Unfortunately, /sys/class/leds only lists the amber LED, no traces about the white LED so far.
gpio-0 (mdio ) in hi
gpio-1 (mdc ) out lo
gpio-3 (rst_n ) out hi
gpio-9 (POWER ) out hi
gpio-26 (WiFi_5G ) out lo
gpio-33 (WiFi_2G ) out lo
gpio-38 (sdc1_dat_7 ) in hi
gpio-39 (sdc1_dat_6 ) in hi
gpio-40 (sdc1_dat_3 ) in hi
gpio-41 (sdc1_dat_2 ) in hi
gpio-42 (sdc1_clk ) in lo
gpio-43 (sdc1_dat_1 ) in hi
gpio-44 (sdc1_dat_0 ) in hi
gpio-45 (sdc1_cmd ) in hi
gpio-46 (sdc1_dat_5 ) in hi
gpio-47 (sdc1_dat_4 ) in hi
gpio-48 (rst_n ) out hi
gpio-53 (WLAN_DISABLE ) in lo
gpio-54 (RESET ) in hi
gpio-61 (UHS_mode ) in lo
gpio-64 (INTERNET ) out lo
gpio-65 (WPS ) in hi
Sidenote: WLAN_DISABLE is on gpio-53 (I've verified it on OEM), opposed to current LEDE implementation using gpio-6. Indeed: WLAN_DISABLE button doesn't work on current LEDE. Easy fix I guess.
//Edit: rmmod leds-gpio on OEM firmware disabled POWER and INTERNET LED, but 2.4G and 5G.
//Edit 2: white WiFi LEDs on OEM firmware are controlled by zyxel_led_ctrl utility, which uses iwpriv wifi[0|1] gpio_config 17 <status> 0 0 whereas status = 1 means disabled and 0 enabled. wifi0 is 5G and wifi1 is 2.4G.
//Edit 3: Okay, pinned down the issue. It's the same issue, which also prevents Netgear R7800 from using it's native WiFi LEDs (the R7800 guys are atm using other, rarely used LEDs instead). White 5G and 2.4G LEDs are not controlled by SoC GPIO, but Qualcomm Atheros QCA9984 GPIO (phy0 and phy1). For both devices, the Zyxel NBG6817 and the Netgear R7800, gpio-17 per PHY GPIO is used. Fixing one, will also fix the other. From what I've seen so far, it looks like it needs to be implemented in ath10k. I haven't found a way to make any ath10k GPIO writable from userspace so far - that would solve our issue though. I've got my infos from Netgear R7800 OEM firmware source and Zyxel OEM script.
That explains the situation - and puts the nbg6817 into a comparatively good situation (LEDs are usable, 'just' the wrong colour).
I've received a very interesting E-Mail from a TP-Link Archer C2600 user (nwfilardo on ath10k mailing list), featuring a method to toggle the LEDs on Qualcomm QCA9980, which also works on Qualcomm QCA9984 (NBG6817, R7800).
QCA9984 is connected via PCI, so he used a tool to gain read / write access to PCI memory registers. In Archer C2600 u-boot source code, it was revealed that GPIO 17 can be activated by setting Bit 17 on address 0x85018, which makes address 0x85000 Bit 17 usable as active-low controller for driving the LEDs.
Didn't had alot of time to look into ath10k so far, but it looks like ath10k_pci_reg_write32 or atleast ath10k_pci_write32 should do the job for exposing LEDs to sysfs. The TP-Link C2600 and Netgear R7800 communities are probably interested in this aswell.
nwfilardo posted a bash script to toggle LEDs (pcimem required), which you can try out, if you're interested: https://www.mail-archive.com/ath10k@lists.infradead.org/msg07443.html.
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These pull requests should improve support for the NBG6817.
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I have tried using fstab to mount /dev/mmcblk0p10 on /overlay or on / during boot (pivot overlay and pivot root), but none of them succeed. They both mount back to /dev/loop0
It's possible to mount it by typing mount /dev/mmcblk0p10 /overlay, but like Kostja mentioned, this won't survive the reboot.
Any help or ideas will be appreciated.
@mushr00m as stated by a few posters, installing kmod-fs-ext4 fixes this issue. @slh already posted a patch, which will hopefully get merged soon, so this will be an issue of the past. Until then, you need to dive in and build your own image e.g. using Image Builder, integrating ext4 drivers. While you're at it, you may also add other useful packages aswell. Please note, that Image Builder doesn't include luci per default. A few suggested configs are listed in this thread.
Latest LEDE snapshot still crashes after a few hours of operation, even with custom board-2.bin. Not sure, if this is a temperature issue or something else, as I've found nothing suspicious in the logs - it just reboots after a few hours.
Other than WiFi, this thing is a beast. Using SQM (layer_cake.qos), my bufferbloat went down to 7ms - 14ms on a 100/40 line. After enabling irqbalance (banned IRQ 99/eth0 & 100/eth1 and manually pinned them to CPU0 & CPU1), bufferbloat went down to very impressive 2ms - 7ms (!).
I can also confirm the recovery method posted by @Kostja_V working for recovery, aswell as overwriting LEDE with OEM firmware.
To have less issues with flashing LEDE, I think it should be best practice to run printf "\xff" >/dev/mtdblock6 on OEM firmware, reboot and then flash LEDE. This makes sure, you're on the correct partition, which eliminates the "I've flashed LEDE, but I'm still booting into OEM" issue. Also, if LEDE has issues booting after the initial flash (e.g. bootloop), try holding RESET for 10 - 15 seconds. Fixed a bootloop issue for me.
Just be careful to only write to mtdblock6 from the OEM/ vendor firmware, it's mtdblock11 from LEDE (different mtd partitioning)! Please do read the in-depth explanation of the dual-boot flag before overwriting anything crucial (and be extra careful).
Hi, @tolga9009. I'm not linux guru, can you please share how did you ban IRQ 99/eth0 and 100/eth1 and manually pinned them to CPU0 and 1 ? Also why did you do this ? I know what irqbalance does, but didn't know there is some need for fiddling on nbg6817.
Thanks 
Not entirely sure, whether IRQ pinning makes a difference or not, but irqbalance vs no-irqbalance made a huge difference in my environment.
My thought about IRQ pinning was: when eth0 / eth1 is not processed by the same CPU all the time, interprocess communication may slow it down. I read it somewhere on the net and it didn't seem to hurt.
cat /proc/interrupts reveals eth0 / eth1 IRQs. As irqbalance distributes IRQs more or less "randomly", you tell irqbalance to not touch eth0 / eth1 IRQs (IRQ 99 and IRQ 100 in my case) by using following options: irqbalance --banirq=99 --banirq=100. You can then manually pin IRQs to CPUs: echo 1 > /proc/irq/99/smp_affinity and echo 2 > /proc/irq/100/smp_affinity. Again, no idea if pinned vs unpinned makes a difference, but it's definitely not a requirement.
So I just obtained this router and every attempt I've tried to install LEDE has bootlooped the router. I've tried both the latest snapshot and 17.01.4. Is there something I'm doing wrong? I'm just DDing the two files to mmcblk0p4 and mmcblk0p5 respectively, and I made sure the bootflag on /dev/mtdblock6 is 0xFF.
Prefer snapshots over 17.01.4 until a potential 17.01.5 (or 18.x.y) gets released.
The installation process from the OEM firmware is:
copy lede-ipq806x-NBG6817-squashfs-mmcblk0p4-kernel.bin and lede-ipq806x-NBG6817-squashfs-mmcblk0p5-rootfs.bin to /tmp/ of your router (e.g. by using wget directly or scp'ing the firmware)
# printf "\xff" >/dev/mtdblock6 #warning, only do this from the OEM firmware!
# cat /tmp/lede-ipq806x-NBG6817-squashfs-mmcblk0p4-kernel.bin >/dev/mmcblk0p4
# cat /tmp/lede-ipq806x-NBG6817-squashfs-mmcblk0p5-rootfs.bin >/dev/mmcblk0p5
# sync
# reboot -f
A self compiled ~10 days old snapshot is working fine for me.
Strange, that's what I was doing with the latest snapshot, both with dd and cat. I'll have to try it again I guess D:
I've written a simple script which can set the bootflag safely on both LEDE and the ZyXEL OEM firmware.
I've also started to document the ZyXEL NBG6817 in the OpenWrt wiki, as I conclude that @tmomas prefers device specific information to be maintained there (cf. Xiaomi WiFi Router 3G):
https://wiki.openwrt.org/toh/zyxel/nbg6817
(I'm not quite sure how to represent 4 MiB SPI-NOR flash && 4 GiB eMMC in the device table though).
I've now implemented full dual-boot support for nbg6817 in this pull request (pending):
https://github.com/openwrt/openwrt/pull/670
This means LEDE will from then on always flash to the other, currently inactive, partition set. Both partition sets keep their own overlay, so you can toggle between different LEDE versions, each with their own configuration.
Safe options to toggle between the dualflag are using the afforementioned nbg6817-dualboot shell script (which also works from on the OEM firmware) via ssh or by installing and using luci-app-advanced-reboot for a nice integration into LEDE's webinterface.
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Can I install the firmware now without need of compiling it by myself?
trunk/ master yes, since early november 2017, the corresponding change has also been backported to the lede-17.01 branch (not yet present in 17.01.4, will be present in 17.01.5 or 18.xx.y).
This has now been merged and should be available in snapshot builds starting tomorrow.
Keep in mind that the installed firmware provides the sysupgrade functionality, so it will only start alternating between both firmware locations once you have a firmware version supporting this functionality already installed (so second flash from now on).
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I need some help recovering from a bad flash on my Zyxel nbg6817. It got stuck in a boot loop. If I power it up while holding down the WPS button I'm able to then ping it at 192.168.1.1 which is something. I've tried sending firmware to it using tftp2.exe and the generic windows tftp client with no luck. I've also tried setting up my PC as a TFTP server listening on .33 and .99 also with no luck. Does anyone have any tips or am I out of luck?
EDIT: Solved my issue. When I connected my PC directly to the router with nothing else connected Windows 10 decided that it was a "public" network and the firewall blocked incoming connections. Turned the firewall off and nbg6817 immediately grabbed the factory firmware! My router is alive!
Hello, first post from me (but as I am just getting started not the last one )
I am having zyxel nbg6817, and want to run lede on it... but dont know how.
I have win based laptop, I download correct .bin files and will kindly ask someone to write step by step what to do next to get it installed.
Thank you in advance!