I've been experimenting with alternative operating systems for an original (V1) WRT54G. I first tried DD-WRT, but the PPTP client on the WAN port didn't work properly; it failed to make a connection while the Linksys firmware worked fine. So, I decided to try OpenWrt. I first flashed the router with the Kamikaze version of the software, but found that there was no Web interface. (A Web server was running, but it had no pages to serve.) While I probably could manage the router using vi, I know that most of my employees couldn't, so I thought I'd go back a version and try the "White Russian" version of OpenWrt.

This proved to be harder than I thought. For some unknown reason, I couldn't TFTP the older firmware into the router, even if I set the "boot_wait" parameter to "on". There was no Web interface though which I could upload the firmware, and the router also did not have a tftp, ftp, or scp server to which I could upload from the laptop I was using to control the router. Finally, I noticed that the router had the "wget" utility. So, I downloaded the ".bin" file for the "White Russian" firmware to a Web server on my LAN. I then awkwardly reconfigured the router so that its WAN interface had an address on the LAN, and used wget to download the firmware into the /tmp directory on the router. Hallelujah, I thought: I could finally flash with the "White Russian" firmware. But my enthusiasm was short lived; I got an error message when I tried to use the "mtd" program to flash the router. Went back to the Web site and inferred from what I read there that I had to strip a 32 byte header from the firmware to make it work. Did this using dd on the router (it was easier than setting up another download). After I did that, the mtd utility accepted the firmware and flashed the router. I figured I was home free at this point.

Unfortunately, I now can't get into the router via telnet, ssh, or http. It pings during the boot process but becomes unpingable after the boot completes. Does downgrading OpenWrt require a special procedure so as not to brick the router (perhaps due to some configuration files that were left behind in flash)? How can I recover it at this point?

(Last edited by BrettGlass on 7 Dec 2007, 07:54)

for the record, the firmware in default configuration will, once you set a password, accept scp transfers through the built in ssh server.
There is no special procedure or requirements for downgrading. it should not have directly caused any problems, and would not use the kamikaze configuration (it may use the configuration information in nvram). try failsafe mode (hold the reset button down for a while AFTER the kernel has started, documented on the wiki), a serial cable (very easy to see what's wrong and fix it), or jtag.

x-wrt has a gui for openwrt that I believe works for kamikaze now.

The router doesn't have serial or JTAG connectors, and I didn't have any 1488 or 1489 chips handy to add a serial port. The "failsafe" mode didn't work. I did eventually recover the router by holding the reset button at boot and reloading the Linksys firmware.

BrettGlass

The .trx file is provided for use with mtd since the bin file contains extra device specific headers used for verifying the firmware is correct when using the vendors web interface.

I have up and downgraded between White Russian and Kamikaze five or six times and not encountered any problems - always with the .trx files, always with the firmware image in the ramdisk not the jffs partition.

Did you assign a new IP address the the router when Kamikaze was installed or leave as default 192.168.1.1 ?