I have simple application for a WR703N as a linux I can ssh into, run minicom and connect to a serial port from another server to monitor it.
1) I'm planning on using it in a far away server room. If I use minicom to write logs to /tmp, am I likely to corrupt flash and break the device after a few months?
2) serial port hangs:
I used openwrt-ar71xx-generic-tl-wr703n-v1-squashfs-factory.bin and a simple PL2303 based serial adapter:
usbserial 23792 1 pl2303
usbcore 99104 6 pl2303,usbserial,ohci_hcd,ledtrig_usbdev,ehci_hcd
root@OpenWrt:~# uname -r
3.3.8
[ 10.000000] ohci_hcd: USB 1.1 'Open' Host Controller (OHCI) Driver
[ 10.120000] usb 1-1: new full-speed USB device number 2 using ehci-platform
[ 10.180000] usbcore: registered new interface driver usbserial
[ 10.180000] USB Serial support registered for generic
[ 10.280000] usbcore: registered new interface driver usbserial_generic
[ 10.290000] usbserial: USB Serial Driver core
[ 10.320000] USB Serial support registered for pl2303
[ 10.320000] pl2303 1-1:1.0: pl2303 converter detected
[ 10.340000] usb 1-1: pl2303 converter now attached to ttyUSB0
[ 10.340000] usbcore: registered new interface driver pl2303
[ 10.350000] pl2303: Prolific PL2303 USB to serial adaptor driver
It works fine with minicom or screen talking to /dev/ttyUSB0, unfortunately the serial connection hangs if I stay connected more than a few minutes.
Two ways to fix it are:
1) reboot the router (no power cycle, just reboot over ssh ok)
2) unplug the serial adapter, plug it back in, connect on ttyUSB1 and the connection resumes.
If I don't leave minicom running, and quit it. I can reconnect later just fine. It seems that it's just leaving the serial port open that causes the usb driver to flake and hang.
I've done this before on other machines, including other routers and have not experienced problems.
Any idea if there is a hardware issue with the WR703N that is causing this? Or is it just a bad kernel/build?
Thanks,
Marc