TP-Link SG2008p - 8 port switch w 4xPOE+ - install advice

Installing and Using OpenWrt
1

Hi All

I've got a TP-Link SG2008P 8 port switch with 4 x POE+ ports. I use at least 1 x POE port for a dumb AP, and might need another POE or 2 in the future. I'm pretty happy with the TP-Link software, although ACL settings for MAC filtering was a bit of a pain. So, I was very excited to see that the TP-Link SG2008P is showing as a supported target for OpenWRT and am considering trying OpenWRT on it. I just have a few questions for anyone who can help if possible?

  1. There's doesn't appear to be a device page for this target currently, if I'm wrong can someone point me the right way?

  2. I can't confirm if all versions of the SG2008P are supported. I'm pretty confident I have v3. Does anyone know if that is supported or where I should look to confirm?

  3. I believe the way to convert to OpenWRT would be to use the TFTP method. I think this switch has TFTP client, so I'd have to setup a device as a TFTP server. I've checked the guidance here, with steps 3 and 4 looking like the relevant parts, but want to check I understand it all OK. Does anyone know:
    a. What IP address I would need to set for the server?
    b. Which port I'd have to plug into on the switch?
    c. What name I'd need to give to the image to be transferred over as part of the TFTP process? I'm guessing SG2008P.bin
    d. Do I need to tick the box for DHCP Auto Install as per step 3 in the TP-Link guidance before TFTP will work?

  4. Has anyone experience of using this switch or similar with POE ports active on OpenWRT? I ask because I believe that needs some additional work so wanted to check if there's advice on this as well?

  5. If I mess it up, which there is a fair chance of, is it fairly easy to switch back to the stock firmware via TFTP?

Thanks all

Happy

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https://git.openwrt.org/?p=openwrt/openwrt.git;a=commit;h=6d5873a162e9e03c93012a26b0004d46e6764a8e

1 Like
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Hi there

A quick follow up to this, just cos the instructions on the git page are a bit beyond my comfort zone. Would there be any chance that I could somehow change the backup image (Currently Image1.bin - as per image below) and then cause the TP-link to reboot into its backup image?

image
image941×715 16.4 KB

I've seen there's a way to enable SSH so maybe it can be done with scp command? Or would I likely brick the device?

Also, the git page appears to say POE isn't possible on this device in Openwrt. Is that likely to change in the future, and although I'm relatively novice would there be any way I could help progress some work on this?

Ta

Happy

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@svanheule might be able to answer the PoE question ...

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AFAIK, @mrnuke is the one how worked on this switch.

1 Like
6

There is no known way to flash from the factory firmware. You need to abuse the bootloader.

For PoE, it can be done; see https://openwrt.org/toh/tp-link/tl-sg2210p_v3#power_over_ethernet_control

1 Like
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Thanks MrNuke, love the username btw. Tell me if this is complete folly, but the other thing I considered was whether I could run the Omada controller software on a computer (I don't have a hardware Omada controller but think I saw it can be run as software on Windows or Linux) and maybe try to convince it to point towards a TFTP server via DHCP and upload an OpenWRT image renamed as TP-Link, or would that fail also in your opinion?

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The bootloader hack described in the commit message relies on TFTP. I don't know how Omada would give you shell access.