Guys, how can I connect to the box? Can you recommend a cheap USB to serial/UART adapter?
Thank you all for looking into this and helping the community.
Thanks, I've order it...what is the voltage? 3.3V or 5V?
Hi Martin,
When my UART adapter is coming, would you be interested to to a remote session om the MX80 to try it out? I expect it to arrive this weekend.
Regards
Mihai
Thank you for the offer, but I do not need access to your MX80.
@riptidewave93 is correct, there is no upstream support in the kernel for the APM86290. Therefore, you will be stuck with the 3.4 kernel from the Meraki GPL archive they provided you.
If you are interested in an alternate firmware, I would suggest you look at the buildroot project, which will allow you to build a custom userspace to use with the 3.4 kernel provided. OpenWrt is not known to accept pull requests for devices which do not have mainline kernel support, and I do not have the time or knowledge to port the APM86290 to mainline.
@markbirss there is no need to use an obsolete version of Ubuntu to build the source code. Following the instructions provided by Meraki will build GCC 4.8.3 as part of the OpenWrt fork included in their GPL archive.
Ok, you give it a try
Is there any possibility for an exception on this "upstream CPUs" policy? given that meraki's firmware is based on OpenWRT but with support for the CPU architecture this device uses, and we have merakis GPL source code, it would be a shame for this devices support to be held up by process.
The MX80 is a well built device that can't be used without a meraki subscription, and a lot of hardware will show up on ebay etc.
If an experimental OpenWRT build was developed incorporating the meraki code, it would probably be more likely to get upstreamed into mainline linux once it works and is demonstrably stable. Seems to be a chicken and egg problem if we have to wait for someone else to make the same thing.
Submit a PR and see what the devs say. As far as I know, OpenWrt does not accept devices for which there is no mainline (or upcoming mainline) support.
There are security issues with these old kernels, and once upstreamed, someone will want the device to be maintained. It's not a "fire and forget" process.
There are other options to have a custom firmware without using OpenWrt. As I have previously suggested, buildroot is one such option.
ah I see. I didn't think of the ongoing support issues. It's just madness that hardware that is currently already running OpenWRT (admittedly, old & meraki modified) and perfectly usable for years to come, is going to end up in landfill because of their restrictive business model. If you have the time to work on a device specific build I can ship you a Meraki MX80
Is there any progress to supporting the MX80
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I would be nice to know.. I have one lying around in my basement.....
I have a buildroot based image booting on the MX80, but I personally doubt anyone will find it useful.
Here is the bootlog: https://gist.github.com/halmartin/ff82fdb655860925ec3ec470fe87228f
The 3.4 kernel provided by Meraki doesn't have any of the features required by OpenWrt (e.g. overlayfs) and buildroot doesn't have a package manager. If you just want something to boot and run SSH on, then the image works, but to use as anything productive, it's useless.
If people are very interested, I can post build instructions and you are welcome to create your own custom buildroot-based firmware for the MX80.
I remain of the opinion that nothing useful will happen with the MX80 until the APM86290 is supported in mainline Linux. I don't have time to do this.
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Has anyone had success in making builds for the MX80?