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Topic: need to add support for 8m flash on wr703n

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Post #1
perazim
13 Nov 2012, 10:34

Have read the thread on wr703 8m flash upgrade but this is is for old kernel. I am using current trunk with kernel 3.3.8 and the flash and partition  definitions code seem to have changed radically.  This is from the howto:

...
Now first problem is current linux kernel has no EN25Q80A JEDEC ID, so it hungs on
no rootfs. Here is the clue:

In file linux-2.6.32.27/drivers/mtd/devices/m25p80.c add line:
        { "en25p64", 0x1c2017, 0, 64 * 1024, 128, },
-->   { "en25q64", 0x1c3017, 0, 64 * 1024, 128, },

Next modification in kernel was extending partition info:
in file linux-2.6.32.27/arch/mips/ar71xx/mach-tl-mr3x20.c

static struct mtd_partition tl_mr3x20_partitions[] = {
        {
                .name           = "u-boot",
                .offset         = 0,
                .size           = 0x020000,
                .mask_flags     = MTD_WRITEABLE,
        }, {
                .name           = "kernel",
                .offset         = 0x020000,
                .size           = 0x140000,
        }, {
                .name           = "rootfs",
                .offset         = 0x160000,
                .size           = 0x690000,     // 0x290000
        }, {
                .name           = "art",
                .offset         = 0x7f0000,     // 0x3f0000
                .size           = 0x010000,
//              .mask_flags     = MTD_WRITEABLE,
        }, {
                .name           = "firmware",
                .offset         = 0x020000,
                .size           = 0x7d0000,
        }
};


Th new flash definition is already in the 3.3.8 kernel so it seems the problem is the partition table.

Perhaps this 8m flash upgrade is already handled in the new kernel for openwrt?  If not, has anybody using a wr703n got this to work and what did you do? I thought I would ask before spending a lot of time on this.

Thanks,

Perazim

Post #2
xopal
13 Nov 2012, 11:13

There is no need to modify openwrt source code if you plan to modify flash chip size, let say from 4MB to 8MB, because openwrt will detect your flash chip size and adjust the rootsf size for new chip size.

This is my putty log of MR-3020 upgraded flsh chip to 8MB.

=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~= PuTTY log 2012.11.10 15:05:43 =~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=


U-Boot 1.1.4 (Nov 28 2011 - 09:34:00)

AP121 (ar9330) U-boot

DRAM:  32 MB
led turning on for 1s...
id read 0x100000ff
flash size 4194304, sector count = 64
Flash:  4 MB
Using default environment

In:    serial
Out:   serial
Err:   serial
Net:   ag7240_enet_initialize...
No valid address in Flash. Using fixed address
Fetching MAC Address from 0x81ff4228
: cfg1 0x5 cfg2 0x7114
eth0: 00:03:7f:09:0b:ad
ag7240_phy_setup 
eth0 up
: cfg1 0xf cfg2 0x7214
eth1: 00:0c:f0:60:dc:98
athrs26_reg_init_lan
ATHRS26: resetting s26
ATHRS26: s26 reset done
ag7240_phy_setup 
eth1 up
eth0, eth1
Autobooting in 1 seconds
## Booting image at 9f020000 ...
   Uncompressing Kernel Image ... OK

Starting kernel ...

[    0.000000] Linux version 3.3.8 (blogic@Debian-60-squeeze-64-minimal) (gcc version 4.6.3 20120201 (prerelease) (Linaro GCC 4.6-2012.02) ) #2 Sat Oct 20 12:31:22 UTC 2012
[    0.000000] bootconsole [early0] enabled
[    0.000000] CPU revision is: 00019374 (MIPS 24Kc)
[    0.000000] SoC: Atheros AR9330 rev 1
[    0.000000] Clocks: CPU:400.000MHz, DDR:400.000MHz, AHB:200.000MHz, Ref:25.000MHz
[    0.000000] Determined physical RAM map:
[    0.000000]  memory: 02000000 @ 00000000 (usable)
[    0.000000] Initrd not found or empty - disabling initrd
[    0.000000] Zone PFN ranges:
[    0.000000]   Normal   0x00000000 -> 0x00002000
[    0.000000] Movable zone start PFN for each node
[    0.000000] Early memory PFN ranges
[    0.000000]     0: 0x00000000 -> 0x00002000
[    0.000000] Built 1 zonelists in Zone order, mobility grouping on.  Total pages: 8128
[    0.000000] Kernel command line:  board=TL-MR3020 console=ttyATH0,115200 rootfstype=squashfs,jffs2 noinitrd
[    0.000000] PID hash table entries: 128 (order: -3, 512 bytes)
[    0.000000] Dentry cache hash table entries: 4096 (order: 2, 16384 bytes)
[    0.000000] Inode-cache hash table entries: 2048 (order: 1, 8192 bytes)
[    0.000000] Primary instruction cache 64kB, VIPT, 4-way, linesize 32 bytes.
[    0.000000] Primary data cache 32kB, 4-way, VIPT, cache aliases, linesize 32 bytes
[    0.000000] Writing ErrCtl register=00000000
[    0.000000] Readback ErrCtl register=00000000
[    0.000000] Memory: 29008k/32768k available (2209k kernel code, 3760k reserved, 412k data, 212k init, 0k highmem)
[    0.000000] SLUB: Genslabs=9, HWalign=32, Order=0-3, MinObjects=0, CPUs=1, Nodes=1
[    0.000000] NR_IRQS:51
[    0.000000] Calibrating delay loop... 265.42 BogoMIPS (lpj=1327104)
[    0.080000] pid_max: default: 32768 minimum: 301
[    0.080000] Mount-cache hash table entries: 512
[    0.090000] NET: Registered protocol family 16
[    0.090000] gpiochip_add: registered GPIOs 0 to 29 on device: ath79
[    0.100000] MIPS: machine is TP-LINK TL-MR3020
[    0.350000] bio: create slab <bio-0> at 0
[    0.360000] Switching to clocksource MIPS
[    0.360000] NET: Registered protocol family 2
[    0.370000] IP route cache hash table entries: 1024 (order: 0, 4096 bytes)
[    0.370000] TCP established hash table entries: 1024 (order: 1, 8192 bytes)
[    0.370000] TCP bind hash table entries: 1024 (order: 0, 4096 bytes)
[    0.380000] TCP: Hash tables configured (established 1024 bind 1024)
[    0.390000] TCP reno registered
[    0.390000] UDP hash table entries: 256 (order: 0, 4096 bytes)
[    0.400000] UDP-Lite hash table entries: 256 (order: 0, 4096 bytes)
[    0.400000] NET: Registered protocol family 1
[    0.430000] squashfs: version 4.0 (2009/01/31) Phillip Lougher
[    0.430000] JFFS2 version 2.2 (NAND) (SUMMARY) (LZMA) (RTIME) (CMODE_PRIORITY) (c) 2001-2006 Red Hat, Inc.
[    0.440000] msgmni has been set to 56
[    0.440000] Block layer SCSI generic (bsg) driver version 0.4 loaded (major 254)
[    0.450000] io scheduler noop registered
[    0.450000] io scheduler deadline registered (default)
[    0.460000] Serial: 8250/16550 driver, 16 ports, IRQ sharing enabled
[    0.470000] ar933x-uart: ttyATH0 at MMIO 0x18020000 (irq = 11) is a AR933X UART
[    0.480000] console [ttyATH0] enabled, bootconsole disabled
[    0.480000] console [ttyATH0] enabled, bootconsole disabled
[    0.490000] m25p80 spi0.0: found mx25l6405d, expected m25p80
[    0.500000] m25p80 spi0.0: mx25l6405d (8192 Kbytes)
[    0.500000] 5 tp-link partitions found on MTD device spi0.0
[    0.510000] Creating 5 MTD partitions on "spi0.0":
[    0.510000] 0x000000000000-0x000000020000 : "u-boot"
[    0.520000] 0x000000020000-0x0000001096a8 : "kernel"
[    0.520000] mtd: partition "kernel" must either start or end on erase block boundary or be smaller than an erase block -- forcing read-only
[    0.540000] 0x0000001096a8-0x0000007f0000 : "rootfs"
[    0.540000] mtd: partition "rootfs" must either start or end on erase block boundary or be smaller than an erase block -- forcing read-only
[    0.550000] mtd: partition "rootfs" set to be root filesystem
[    0.560000] mtd: partition "rootfs_data" created automatically, ofs=2D0000, len=520000 
[    0.570000] 0x0000002d0000-0x0000007f0000 : "rootfs_data"
[    0.570000] 0x0000007f0000-0x000000800000 : "art"
[    0.580000] 0x000000020000-0x0000007f0000 : "firmware"
[    0.600000] ag71xx_mdio: probed
[    0.610000] eth0: Atheros AG71xx at 0xb9000000, irq 4
[    1.160000] ag71xx ag71xx.0: eth0: connected to PHY at ag71xx-mdio.1:00 [uid=004dd041, driver=Generic PHY]
[    1.170000] TCP cubic registered
[    1.170000] NET: Registered protocol family 17
[    1.180000] Bridge firewalling registered
[    1.180000] 8021q: 802.1Q VLAN Support v1.8
[    1.190000] VFS: Mounted root (squashfs filesystem) readonly on device 31:2.
[    1.200000] Freeing unused kernel memory: 212k freed
- preinit -
Press the [f] key and hit [enter] to enter failsafe mode
- regular preinit -
[    6.400000] JFFS2 notice: (441) jffs2_build_xattr_subsystem: complete building xattr subsystem, 1 of xdatum (0 unchecked, 0 orphan) and 12 of xref (0 dead, 2 orphan) found.
switching to jffs2
- init -

Please press Enter to activate this console. [    8.290000] Compat-drivers backport release: compat-drivers-2012-09-04-2-gddac993
[    8.290000] Backport based on wireless-testing.git master-2012-09-07
[    8.300000] compat.git: wireless-testing.git
[    8.470000] cfg80211: Calling CRDA to update world regulatory domain
[    8.480000] cfg80211: World regulatory domain updated:
[    8.480000] cfg80211:   (start_freq - end_freq @ bandwidth), (max_antenna_gain, max_eirp)
[    8.490000] cfg80211:   (2402000 KHz - 2472000 KHz @ 40000 KHz), (300 mBi, 2000 mBm)
[    8.500000] cfg80211:   (2457000 KHz - 2482000 KHz @ 20000 KHz), (300 mBi, 2000 mBm)
[    8.500000] cfg80211:   (2474000 KHz - 2494000 KHz @ 20000 KHz), (300 mBi, 2000 mBm)
[    8.510000] cfg80211:   (5170000 KHz - 5250000 KHz @ 40000 KHz), (300 mBi, 2000 mBm)
[    8.520000] cfg80211:   (5735000 KHz - 5835000 KHz @ 40000 KHz), (300 mBi, 2000 mBm)
[    8.720000] usbcore: registered new interface driver usbfs
[    8.730000] usbcore: registered new interface driver hub
[    8.730000] usbcore: registered new device driver usb
[    9.420000] ieee80211 phy0: Atheros AR9330 Rev:1 mem=0xb8100000, irq=2
[    9.420000] cfg80211: Calling CRDA for country: US
[    9.430000] cfg80211: Regulatory domain changed to country: US
[    9.430000] cfg80211:   (start_freq - end_freq @ bandwidth), (max_antenna_gain, max_eirp)
[    9.440000] cfg80211:   (2402000 KHz - 2472000 KHz @ 40000 KHz), (300 mBi, 2700 mBm)
[    9.450000] cfg80211:   (5170000 KHz - 5250000 KHz @ 40000 KHz), (300 mBi, 1700 mBm)
[    9.460000] cfg80211:   (5250000 KHz - 5330000 KHz @ 40000 KHz), (300 mBi, 2000 mBm)
[    9.460000] cfg80211:   (5490000 KHz - 5600000 KHz @ 40000 KHz), (300 mBi, 2000 mBm)
[    9.470000] cfg80211:   (5650000 KHz - 5710000 KHz @ 40000 KHz), (300 mBi, 2000 mBm)
[    9.480000] cfg80211:   (5735000 KHz - 5835000 KHz @ 40000 KHz), (300 mBi, 3000 mBm)
[    9.540000] PPP generic driver version 2.4.2
[    9.790000] ip_tables: (C) 2000-2006 Netfilter Core Team
[   10.010000] NET: Registered protocol family 24
[   10.030000] ehci_hcd: USB 2.0 'Enhanced' Host Controller (EHCI) Driver
[   10.040000] ehci-platform ehci-platform: Generic Platform EHCI Controller
[   10.040000] ehci-platform ehci-platform: new USB bus registered, assigned bus number 1
[   10.080000] ehci-platform ehci-platform: irq 3, io mem 0x1b000000
[   10.100000] ehci-platform ehci-platform: USB 2.0 started, EHCI 1.00
[   10.100000] hub 1-0:1.0: USB hub found
[   10.100000] hub 1-0:1.0: 1 port detected
[   10.130000] nf_conntrack version 0.5.0 (456 buckets, 1824 max)
[   10.360000] ohci_hcd: USB 1.1 'Open' Host Controller (OHCI) Driver
[   13.620000] device eth0 entered promiscuous mode



BusyBox v1.19.4 (2012-10-12 05:19:00 UTC) built-in shell (ash)
Enter 'help' for a list of built-in commands.

  _______                     ________        __
 |       |.-----.-----.-----.|  |  |  |.----.|  |_
 |   -   ||  _  |  -__|     ||  |  |  ||   _||   _|
 |_______||   __|_____|__|__||________||__|  |____|
          |__| W I R E L E S S   F R E E D O M
 -----------------------------------------------------
 ATTITUDE ADJUSTMENT (Attitude Adjustment, r33883)
 -----------------------------------------------------
  * 1/4 oz Vodka      Pour all ingredients into mixing
  * 1/4 oz Gin        tin with ice, strain into glass.
  * 1/4 oz Amaretto
  * 1/4 oz Triple sec
  * 1/4 oz Peach schnapps
  * 1/4 oz Sour mix
  * 1 splash Cranberry juice
 -----------------------------------------------------
root@OpenWrt:/# cdf -h
Filesystem                Size      Used Available Use% Mounted on
rootfs                    5.1M    276.0K      4.9M   5% /
/dev/root                 2.0M      2.0M         0 100% /rom
tmpfs                    14.3M     60.0K     14.2M   0% /tmp
tmpfs                   512.0K         0    512.0K   0% /dev
/dev/mtdblock3            5.1M    276.0K      4.9M   5% /overlay
overlayfs:/overlay        5.1M    276.0K      4.9M   5% /
root@OpenWrt:/# cat /proc/cpuinfo
system type        : Atheros AR9330 rev 1
machine            : TP-LINK TL-MR3020
processor        : 0
cpu model        : MIPS 24Kc V7.4
BogoMIPS        : 265.42
wait instruction    : yes
microsecond timers    : yes
tlb_entries        : 16
extra interrupt vector    : yes
hardware watchpoint    : yes, count: 4, address/irw mask: [0x0000, 0x0180, 0x0010, 0x0010]
ASEs implemented    : mips16
shadow register sets    : 1
kscratch registers    : 0
core            : 0
VCED exceptions        : not available
VCEI exceptions        : not available

root@OpenWrt:/# cat /proc/mtd
dev:    size   erasesize  name
mtd0: 00020000 00010000 "u-boot"
mtd1: 000e96a8 00010000 "kernel"
mtd2: 006e6958 00010000 "rootfs"
mtd3: 00520000 00010000 "rootfs_data"
mtd4: 00010000 00010000 "art"
mtd5: 007d0000 00010000 "firmware"

(Last edited by xopal on 13 Nov 2012, 11:23)

Post #3
Squonk
13 Nov 2012, 11:19

It looks like there is a confusion between Mbit (megabits) and MB (megabytes):

  • The TL-WR703N comes with a Spansion S25FL032P 32Mbit 104-MHz SPI Flash memory in SO8 package, so you get 32 / 8 = 4MB of Flash

  • To upgrade the memory to 8MB, you need a 64Mbit 104-MHz SPI Flash memory in SO8 package, like the EN25Q64,it is already declared in the SPI device MTD table

  • The EN25Q80A you cite is only an 8 Mbit (NOT 8MB) serial Flash memory, so you get only 1MB total, see ESSI product list

So you don't have to modify the OpenWrt source code, just get the right chip.

Post #4
perazim
13 Nov 2012, 13:27

I have EN25Q80A 8mbit spi flash yielding 8MByte. From looking at the kernel sources, I see that this is already defined.

If the system auto adjusts for the flash size, what happens to the art partition? Do I need to move it from the top 64K of the 4M flash to the top 64K  of the 8M flash before installing the 8M flash and booting it? I have a flash programmer.

Thanks,

Perazim

Post #5
Squonk
13 Nov 2012, 15:15
perazim wrote:

I have EN25Q80A 8mbit spi flash yielding 8MByte. From looking at the kernel sources, I see that this is already defined.

I don't understand what you mean: the EN25Q80A is an "8 Megabit Serial Flash Memory with 4Kbyte Uniform Sector", see its datasheet. On page 5, its memory organization is described as:

  • 1,048,576 bytes ==> 1,048,576 / 1024 = 1024 K-byte = 1024  / 1024 = 1 Mbyte

  • Uniform Sector Architecture

  • 16 blocks of 64-Kbyte ==> 16 * 64-Kbyte = 1024-Kbyte = 1-Mbyte

  • 256 sectors of 4-Kbyte ==> 256 * 4-Kbyte = 1024 K-byte = 1-Mbyte

  • 4096 pages (256 bytes each) ==> 4096 * 256 byte = 1,048,576 bytes = 1,048,576 / 1024 = 1024 K-byte = 1024  / 1024 = 1 Mbyte

On the same page, you can see that the address range is from 000000h to 0FFFFFh, or 0 to 1,048,575 bytes or 1 MB.

So, there is no way the EN25Q80A may contain 8Mbyte of data.

In which kernel sources do you see it defined? I have the 3.3.8 from latest trunk, it is not in there, and all "xx80xx" parts ("mx25l8005", "sst25vf080b", "m25p80",  "m45pe80" and "w25x80"), defined in " drivers/mtd/devices/m25p80.c" have 16 sectors of 64  * 1024 bytes, so are all 8Mbit devices too.

Post #6
xopal
13 Nov 2012, 15:17
perazim wrote:

I have EN25Q80A 8mbit spi flash yielding 8MByte. From looking at the kernel sources, I see that this is already defined.

If the system auto adjusts for the flash size, what happens to the art partition? Do I need to move it from the top 64K of the 4M flash to the top 64K  of the 8M flash before installing the 8M flash and booting it? I have a flash programmer.

Thanks,

Perazim

Art partition is not in the top of flash layout, it was in the bottom of flash layout.

Read more about flash layout here

Post #7
perazim
13 Nov 2012, 15:38

This is a typo from the howto I used. I have en25q64 flash which has 8MB of storage. Sorry for the confusion.

Perazim

Post #8
perazim
13 Nov 2012, 15:40

The top I refer to here is the traditional use of the word top,  meaning high memory.

Perazim

Post #9
perazim
13 Nov 2012, 15:53

Followup question: If the system now allows automatically for larger flash size, how does one tell the build system this? If I exceed the default flash size, I receive an error.

Perazim

Post #10
Squonk
13 Nov 2012, 15:55

Ok! I understand better now smile

As for the "ART" partition, you can see from Xopal's log above with an 8MB Flash, that at the very beginning, U-Boot only recognize it only as a 4MB Flash:

id read 0x100000ff
flash size 4194304, sector count = 64
Flash:  4 MB

It is not a problem, as the Linux kernel recognize it correctly:

[    0.490000] m25p80 spi0.0: found mx25l6405d, expected m25p80
[    0.500000] m25p80 spi0.0: mx25l6405d (8192 Kbytes)

And you can see that the "firmware" partition is the one at the end of the memory:

root@OpenWrt:/# cat /proc/mtd
dev:    size   erasesize  name
mtd0: 00020000 00010000 "u-boot"
mtd1: 000e96a8 00010000 "kernel"
mtd2: 006e6958 00010000 "rootfs"
mtd3: 00520000 00010000 "rootfs_data"
mtd4: 00010000 00010000 "art"
mtd5: 007d0000 00010000 "firmware"

This "mtd5" partition is the one that is used by the JFFS2 filesystem, and it will automatically expand to the amount of memory available, up to 8MB in your case, leaving the "ART" partition below untouched.

Post #11
Squonk
13 Nov 2012, 16:02
perazim wrote:

Followup question: If the system now allows automatically for larger flash size, how does one tell the build system this? If I exceed the default flash size, I receive an error.

Perazim

You don't have to tell the build system! The build system only controls the size of the kernel + rootfs, so they both fit into the Flash memory with a minimum-sized for the JFFS2 "firmware" partition. It does not control the JFFS2 partition size itself or the additional package size you will put into this JFFS2 overlay partition.

You receive an error because you try to put a lot of things "built-in" into the "rootfs" partition: you have to select some package with "M", so they will become optional and can be stored into the large JFFS2 partition later.

The "en25q64" chip is recognized by its JEDEC enumeration while the Linux mtd driver starts at run time and is matched against the table in "m25p80.c", where its memory capacity is given, so the mtd driver knows how much flash is available. This information is used by the JFFS2 fs to expand up to the maximum possible partition size.

(Last edited by Squonk on 13 Nov 2012, 16:04)

Post #12
perazim
13 Nov 2012, 16:52

OK, I understand better now. But, it still seems to me that I must relocate the art partition when I program the 8MB flash.

Also, I have more than one router to setup and a lot of packages that will not fit in the stock 4MB flash, so it really would be better if I could get all these packages into the squashfs root.

Perazim

Post #13
Squonk
13 Nov 2012, 17:26

You can't push the walls smile

But if you have a fixed setup with always the same packages that you don't want to upgrade, you can check to option in menuconfig to remove the "opkg" info from the rootfs, you will save some precious space. If you don't intend to add more packages but rather perform a full system upgrade every time, you can strip also the unnecessary kernel symbols and unused objects in static libraries, too. Also avoid all the fancy stuff in busybox...

You shouldn't have to move the ART partition, but just save it somewhere safe on our PC, just in case... If the ART partition is not recognized correctly, then you have no wifi, since it contains all the calibration values for the radio, so you will quickly see if it is ok or not.

(Last edited by Squonk on 13 Nov 2012, 17:27)

Post #14
perazim
13 Nov 2012, 20:38

Here is a link to the flash layout for a tp-link router. Although it is not a wr703, it is similar.

http://wiki.openwrt.org/toh/tp-link/tl- … ash.layout

The art partition is at the top end of the address space for this flash. Simply copying the 4MB flash to the first half of a 8MB device will put the art partition smack in the middle of where the rootfs_data partition should be. Unless the filesystem has some way to handle a partition with multiple physical extents on the flash, the art needs to be moved to the end of the flash space yielding one contiguous space for the rootfs_data partition.

I am looking for someone to confirm this or explain otherwise.

Perazim

(Last edited by perazim on 13 Nov 2012, 20:51)

Post #15
perazim
13 Nov 2012, 20:51

Squonk wrote:

And you can see that the "firmware" partition is the one at the end of the memory:

root@OpenWrt:/# cat /proc/mtd
dev:    size   erasesize  name
mtd0: 00020000 00010000 "u-boot"
mtd1: 000e96a8 00010000 "kernel"
mtd2: 006e6958 00010000 "rootfs"
mtd3: 00520000 00010000 "rootfs_data"
mtd4: 00010000 00010000 "art"
mtd5: 007d0000 00010000 "firmware"

This "mtd5" partition is the one that is used by the JFFS2 filesystem, and it will automatically expand to the amount of memory available, up to 8MB in your case, leaving the "ART" partition below untouched.




I disagree: mtd0 is the u-boot and the first on the flash, mtd5 is the firmware and further broken up into mtd1 - kernel, mtd2 - rootfs and mtd3 - rootfs_data. mtd4 is the last partition on the flash at the very end of the device and is the art. The u-boot and art are normally write protected for safety leaving the large space in the middle writable for us to use. Here is a link to the layout for a tp-link router but not the wr703n.

http://wiki.openwrt.org/toh/tp-link/tl- … ash.layout

Perazim

Post #16
Squonk
13 Nov 2012, 21:45

@Perazim: You are right!

This can be seen clearly in your original post in this thread:

        {
                .name           = "u-boot",
                .offset         = 0,
                .size           = 0x020000,
                .mask_flags     = MTD_WRITEABLE,
        }, {
                .name           = "kernel",
                .offset         = 0x020000,
                .size           = 0x140000,
        }, {
                .name           = "rootfs",
                .offset         = 0x160000,
                .size           = 0x690000,     // 0x290000
        }, {
                .name           = "art",
                .offset         = 0x7f0000,     // 0x3f0000
                .size           = 0x010000,
//              .mask_flags     = MTD_WRITEABLE,
        }, {
                .name           = "firmware",
                .offset         = 0x020000,
                .size           = 0x7d0000,
        }
};

You see in the comments that the "rootfs" partition size has been increased by 0x400000, and that the "art" partition has been moved further accordingly.

So you definitely have to move the "art" partition to the end of the Flash memory.

Post #17
Squonk
13 Nov 2012, 22:00

It looks like that for newer kernels on the TP-LINK routers, the partition is read from a header in Flash by this parser: "driver/mtd/tplinkpart.c".

So there is no need to edit a fixed table in the sources any more, but we now have to find out when it is written during the build tongue

EDIT: Here it is in "target/linux/ar71xx/image/Makefile" (last arg is "4Mlzma"):

$(eval $(call SingleProfile,TPLINK-LZMA,$(fs_64kraw),TLWR703,tl-wr703n-v1,TL-WR703N,ttyATH0,115200,0x07030101,1,4Mlzma))

As far as I understand, the process to find the JFFS2 size is iterative until it fits in the given size once compressed in lzma.

(Last edited by Squonk on 13 Nov 2012, 22:13)

Post #18
perazim
13 Nov 2012, 23:56

Changing 4Mlzma to 8Mlzma in this Makefile and rebuilding produced 8M images. It will be a few days before I can test this as I need to have a serial port available in case I brick the router but I will let you know if this works as hoped.

It has also occurred to me that there MAY be something in the bootloader that sets size, I don't know.

Thanks for the help.

Can I ask you to have a look at another issue I have: patches that seem to have disappeared. This may be because I don't understand how to get a patch permanently included.

https://forum.openwrt.org/viewtopic.php?id=40502



Perazim

(Last edited by perazim on 14 Nov 2012, 09:28)

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