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Topic: Porting to Intenso Memory 2 Move RT5350 WiFi / USB external hard-disk

The content of this topic has been archived on 28 Apr 2018. There are no obvious gaps in this topic, but there may still be some posts missing at the end.

Hi everybody,
Intenso Gmbh distributes a line of external USB 3.0 hard-disk enclosures (official product page: http://www.intenso.de/produkte_en.php?k … 383118261) which furthermore work in standalone mode as an embedded, battery powered Linux system, apparently assembled from Ralink 4.0.1.0 SDK. This is a slightly customized BuildRoot distribution, including kernel 2.6.21, Busybox, minidlna, smbd and lighthttpd servers, and booting through the U-Boot bootloader.

There is a backdoor in the latest stock firmware ver. 1.1, allowing connections from the same subnet via telnet, with username "root" and password "20080826". It is relatively easy also to unpack it, patch such 'feature', and reflash the unit via its HTTP interface.

The hardware seems based on the RT5350 MIPS 24Kec CPU variant (i.e. without a real FPU?), it includes 32 MiB of RAM and 8 MiB of flash memory. Since hard-disk space poses no limits, I've managed to install and run a complete Debian 5.0 aka "Lenny" distro for MIPSEL architecture in a chroot mountpoint, without having to upgrade the stock kernel.

I would like however to undertake such step too, and switch to a properly maintained, more recent environment. This combination of portable SAN / router / UPS and plenty of storage in a small form factor has plenty of appeal, and I've started to document my own poking around with it. It seems everything should basically be already supported by OpenWRT. Anybody else interested?

Have lots of fun,
--
mrmo

Hi mrmo, hi all,
I have this product and must say that was tempted to do something similar, though not really as dedicated as porting the complete OpenWRT. I would be interested in participating however I can, ... I would be interested in basically configuring it as a portable router with the possibility of putting some internal storage management logic (de-duplication and synchronization depending on the network it finds itself, multiple network configurations and some sort of capability of working trough a proxy for whenever it finds itself in a corporate like environment). I also wanted to get rid of the full FAT partitioning, and leave maybe just a portion of it available in case it needs to be connected trough the USB.

I was poking myself around as well, and have come to the same findings about the device as you, however not much else as it is kind of not as popular as  http://www.hackseagatesatellite.com/wordpress/welcome/ .

I would be interested in reading your documentation for a starter, ... do you think it could be a problem publishing it for others to have a look into? Maybe also contribute? I myself would certainly try doing some better use of it than just remotely accessing the files trough SMB. Also, the current android app is a bit buggy and screams for a custom app to access and manage the device .

All the best,
Maim

(Last edited by maim on 5 Jun 2014, 13:06)

Thanks for the reply. Of course any insight gained by a weekend tinkering is available, I only wanted to re-order notes a bit, and time simply runs short. If you don't mind too much the messy nature of initial write-up, you can find it here: http://hckohwnotes.blogspot.de/

Basically, Debian MIPSEL "Lenny" runs with no big efforts, either as chroot in an image file or within its own, repartioned space. I've also managed to recompile and reflash the stock firmware, modifying in particular its userspace portion; before touching the kernel instead, I wanted to wait until receiving a TTL-to-serial over USB adaptor, and make sure I can follow the default booting process through Das U-Boot and a console, in case anything goes wrong.

But surely there are more experienced people out there, it's my first poking around with OpenWRT but I'd find it nicely suited for a more up-to-date whoie reflashing. It is a neat small device on reasonably familiar and capable hardware, for my needs at least; freeing it up and improving some services would really make it more useful.

All the best,
--
mrmo.

Not at all a messy write-up but an excellent and rich source of information. I'm looking forward of doing some catching up :-).

Some minor update on the RT5350 device in subject. I could open the case, identify a UART port on the circuit board, solder some pins and connect a standard serial interface.

I'll write up findings better when time allows, in practice however there are 4 pins on the battery side. The square one, closer to the power socket, is +Vcc at 3.3 V.  Next to it lies what I connect to the TXC pin of a CP2102 TTL-to-RS232-to-USB adapter, then RXC, then GND.

(Edit: some preliminary details here, http://hckohwnotes.blogspot.de/2014/06/ … tenso.html )

The UART is configured as 57600 8N1, software flow control. Here the default booting process dumps its log; at the end, a standard "getty" is available for console access, i.e. via minicom, through the default username and password.

It is important to ensure power to the circuit board thorugh the battery, by leaving it attached and using the 'power' button to start it, and only after that complete the serial interface connection. The latter alone in fact can provide sufficient power to start the unit, but not to have it run in consistent fashion even with the hard-disk disconnected, resulting in gibberish on the console.

All of this gives me better confidence that the complete kernel and "buildroot" environment can be upgraded, porting in particular OpenWRT (modifications should be pretty limited). I need to familiarize myself with Das U-Boot though. Is it possible to have it start in debug mode, before jumping straight into booting the default kernel?

Best,
--
mrmo.

(Last edited by mrmo on 18 Jun 2014, 12:50)

Any progress?

I too have this device, and also the serial TTL connection up and running. But due to lack of time, and lots of other projects I haven't gone further than that.

Hope you guys are making progress smile

mrmo wrote:

Hi everybody,
Intenso Gmbh distributes a line of external USB 3.0 hard-disk enclosures (official product page: http://www.intenso.de/produkte_en.php?k … 383118261) which furthermore work in standalone mode as an embedded, battery powered Linux system, apparently assembled from Ralink 4.0.1.0 SDK. This is a slightly customized BuildRoot distribution, including kernel 2.6.21, Busybox, minidlna, smbd and lighthttpd servers, and booting through the U-Boot bootloader.

There is a backdoor in the latest stock firmware ver. 1.1, allowing connections from the same subnet via telnet, with username "root" and password "20080826". It is relatively easy also to unpack it, patch such 'feature', and reflash the unit via its HTTP interface.

The hardware seems based on the RT5350 MIPS 24Kec CPU variant (i.e. without a real FPU?), it includes 32 MiB of RAM and 8 MiB of flash memory. Since hard-disk space poses no limits, I've managed to install and run a complete Debian 5.0 aka "Lenny" distro for MIPSEL architecture in a chroot mountpoint, without having to upgrade the stock kernel.

I would like however to undertake such step too, and switch to a properly maintained, more recent environment. This combination of portable SAN / router / UPS and plenty of storage in a small form factor has plenty of appeal, and I've started to document my own poking around with it. It seems everything should basically be already supported by OpenWRT. Anybody else interested?

Have lots of fun,
--
mrmo


Hi, really wish to patch that firmware, but can't find the way to unpack it, can you point me into the right direction please, thanks.

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