Trendnet tpe-1620ws both hardware revisions supported?

For Developers
1

The trendnet tpe-1620ws is a managed switch with poe support.

This switch has two hardware revisions:
v1.0r - 16x1gb poe ports, 2x1gb sfp
v2.1r - 16x1gb poe ports, 4x1gb/4x1gb-sfp (can use 4 total at a time)

It sounds like openwrt may have preliminary support for some poe switches with realtek chipsets.
This list seems to indicate that the tpe-1620ws has a chance of working, however based on the specs listed I assume it's talking about the original v1.0r and not the newer v2.1r which has a few more ports and is a little easier to find.

Is there any way of knowing if the newer v2.1r version has a chance of working, or if it has the same chipset as the original?

2

By opening it up and looking at the hardware. Boot logs might help as well.

The target is really new, but it's very stable though - running a ZyXEL GS1900-10HP here with two PoE+ APs attached, among others.

3

A very casual look at https://downloads.trendnet.com/tpe-1620ws_v2/firmware/fw_ws-2-10-024-all.zip (TRENDNET-2-10-024-FW.hex) looks rather promising:

$ strings _TRENDNET-2-10-024-FW.hex.extracted/vmlinux_org.bin | grep -i -e mips -e rtl[89]3
Linux version 2.6.19 (lemon@SW3) (gcc version 3.4.4 mipssde-6.03.00-20051020) #86 PREEMPT Wed Oct 16 15:47:53 CST 2019
2.6.19 preempt mod_unload MIPS32_R1 32BIT 
Calibrating delay loop (skipped)... %lu.%02lu BogoMIPS preset
%lu.%02lu BogoMIPS (lpj=%lu)
RTL8390
RTL8380
RTL8328
MIPS
MIPS MT Thread exception in kernel
<6>Enable cache parity protection for MIPS 20KC/25KF CPUs.
BogoMIPS                : %lu.%02lu
 mips16
 mips3d
 smartmips
MIPS 4Kc
MIPS 5Kc
MIPS 4KEc
MIPS 4KSc
MIPS 20Kc
MIPS 25Kf
MIPS 24K
MIPS 34K
MIPS 74K
Dunno how to handle MIPS32 / MIPS64 second level cache
Algorithmics/MIPS FPU Emulator v1.5
mips_io_port_base
mips_machgroup
mips_machtype
rtc_mips_get_time
rtc_mips_set_time
mips
Trtl8390_
Trtl8380_
rtl8380
rtl8390

and

$ /sbin/modinfo ./_TRENDNET-2-10-024-FW.hex.extracted/squashfs-root/lib/modules/2.6.19/kernel/drivers/net/switch/rtcore/rtcore.ko 
filename:       /tmp/pkg/./_TRENDNET-2-10-024-FW.hex.extracted/squashfs-root/lib/modules/2.6.19/kernel/drivers/net/switch/rtcore/rtcore.ko
license:        GPL
description:    Switch SDK Core Module
depends:        
vermagic:       2.6.19 preempt mod_unload MIPS32_R1 32BIT 
parm:           rtcore_num:int

That obviously doesn't mean that the device magically gets supported, nor that there aren't any potential hurdles in the way.

3 Likes
4

Thanks slh, seeing a bunch of "rtl" stuff looks encouraging.

Trying to figure out what chip this thing uses has made me more sympathetic toward openwrt devs, you would think there would just be a spec sheet somewhere, but nope.

There are more versions that I initially realized:
v1.0r - ????? ????? - discontinued, 2x sfp
v1.1r - marvell 98dx3054 - discontinued, 2x sfp - wicat
v2.0r - realtek rtl8382m - discontinued, 4x sfp - wicat, biot
v2.1r - realtek rtl838x??? - current model, 4x sfp
v2.5r - ????? ????? - "coming soon", 4x sfp

The specs on the current 2.1r and the upcoming 2.5r appear identical, the "view emulator" links go to the same url, so either they are nearly identical hardware or they just copy-pasted the page and plan to fill in the 2.5r info later.

One difference is the 2.5r feature list mentions "trendnet hive" which sounds like some cloud subscription junk, so I guess trendnet is also getting into that game.

So still no concrete confirmation it's running a realtek chip, but the previous two revisions were, so I guess that's something.

I've used openwrt on wireless access points but never on a managed switch, and never an unsupported device, what would be the general process for trying to get openwrt support for this switch?

Would it be:
get switch
post pictures of board
try to flash experimental build to see if it boots, post results
be prepared to need a serial adapter for terminal access?