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Topic: WNDRv4 fit for openwrt - english

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hi there,

i'd like to create a buildroot for the brand new WNDR3700v4

i connected via jtag - rs232 - usb to the boot console, here some parts from the output:

grep 'AR'

Booting Atheros AR934x (ToH -> o.k.)   

Atheros on-chip NAND FLash Controller Driver, Version 0.1 (c) 2010 Atheros Communications, Ltd.
Ath Nand ID[878555a0]: 2c:f1:80:95:02
ONFI MICRON      MT29F1G08ABADAWP   
Micron NAND 128MiB 3,3V 8-bit [128MB]
12 cmdlinepart partitions found on MTD device ath-nand
Creating 12 MTD partitions on "ath-nand":
0x000000000000-0x000000040000 : "u-boot"
0x000000040000-0x000000080000 : "u-boot-env"
0x000000080000-0x0000000c0000 : "caldata"
0x0000000c0000-0x000000140000 : "pot"
0x000000140000-0x000000340000 : "language"
0x000000340000-0x0000003c0000 : "config"
0x0000003c0000-0x0000006c0000 : "traffic_meter"
0x0000006c0000-0x0000007e0000 : "kernel"
0x0000007e0000-0x000001fc0000 : "rootfs"

What will be the next step ?

There is allready an openwrt running on the machine - netgear didn't respond to my quest for making there buldroot available to the community, yet.

sunshine !

flo

(Last edited by staar on 14 Dec 2012, 12:14)

I also have purchased a 3700v4 to experiment with.

I've build custom openwrt images for my 3700v2 and 3800 routers, and I've been using Linux since the 0.99 kernel days, so I have a lot of experience building and troubleshooting custom kernels on the x86 and Sparc, but I don't know the bootloader and firmware signatures needed for this.

If someone can point out the next steps, it looks like there are two of us willing to experiment with our hardware

In a post on the cerowrt list the following information has appeared.

> I took a look at their GPL source distribution. And yea! it's openwrt. And boo! it's ancient openwrt, for example dnsmasq is 2.39 (current is 2.64), and their kernel is 2.6.31.
>
> I think the cpu and ethernet chips tho look a lot better: Atheros AR9344+ AR9580(5GHz)+AR9344(2.4GHz). It's my hope these do ipv6 better.

So this seems like it should not be _too_ hard to make work (and it's not a broadcom like the v3 version)

Can someone suggest, either here or in e-mail (a similar post went to the -devel mailing list) how to move forward?

Have you connected a serial console and captured a complete boot log? (and posted it somewhere, maybe even the wiki)

You might have a look at target/linux/ar71xx/image/Makefile, where all these image tweaks seem to be configured.

I have not done so yet, I'll try to do so today.

Staar has pulled the bootlog, but I haven't seen it posted anywhere yet

Also, check out this:

  http://www.downloads.netgear.com/files/ … pl_src.zip

There is a file WNDR3700v4-V1.0.1.32_build_instructions.txt which claims to tell you how to generate an image.  If you carefully investigate what it's doing with signing/checksumming, it ought to be possible to determine what (if anything) is necessary to fix it.

Because I'm lazy, I guess I might start out by just trying one of the images for 3700 or 3800 and seeing if they work.  A serial console (with logging turned on, so you can review what flew past) is always a good idea.

Comparing target/linux/ar71xx/image/Makefile between the vendor's tree and the stock OpenWrt tree might be informative as well.

Netgear's tarball has "wndr3700v4" as a separate target from "ar71xx" and the checksumming tool source is there at tools/firmware-utils/src/mkdniimg.c, where the header is:

/*
 *  Copyright (C) 2009 Gabor Juhos <juhosg@openwrt.org>
 *
 *  This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
 *  under the terms of the GNU General Public License version 2 as published
 *  by the Free Software Foundation.
 *
 */
RussellSenior wrote:

Comparing target/linux/ar71xx/image/Makefile between the vendor's tree and the stock OpenWrt tree might be informative as well.

In this case, target/linux/wndr3700v4/image/Makefile is the right file.

Any progress on this?

i successfully compiled the gpl source

I had to
1. fix ZLib.cpp to make it compile with my gentoo
2. modify busybox makefiles
3. commend out acl/libacl.h from fsio.c in proftpd
4. my gentoo does not have ipv6 enabled, so have to modify my host /usr/include/netinet/in.h to make zebra compile

haven't tried to flash the built image yet

Has anyone tried the NAND subtarget and flashing like a mikrotik board?  The bootloader is different, it seems.  I am still curious about the boot log (from power on).

Anyone who has build the firmware image for 3700v4 with the data extracted from this zip file:

http://www.downloads.netgear.com/files/ … pl_src.zip

where do i put the dir 'u-boot ' ?

I succeeded with building the toolchain and fw image, but maybe the process did not compile the u-boot into the fw ?

Well, on my Ubuntu Server 10.04.3 with gcc 4.4.3 i build the fw & flashed it now successfully. But selecting packages & make doesn't work. Maybe it's because i installed the feeds (same revision as in .config -> r18571) with subversion but should use git ??

Or could it be a problem to use a newer gcc version as required, maybe ?

(Last edited by staar on 7 Feb 2013, 12:26)

Are we still looking for more help on this, I would like to contribute I happen to have a WNDR3700v4 at the current moment.

There is profile & kernel support for WNDR4300, which is essentially the same hardware as WNDR3700v4 (see wiki). I haven't seen any downloads for the 4300 available though. I submitted a ticket requesting support for the 3700v4.

Early support in DD-WRT now...

Any chance this will have OpenWRT support soon? I mean, other than Netgear's version of it...

Lets hope so Mantene...We finally have a decent router one can purchase off the shelf at a BB.  Sure wish I had a few more of the 3700v2's around, its been a rockstar.

I compiled the openwrt trunk this weekend and it create an initramfs image

But when I attempted to follow the standard netgear tftp install process, I couldn't get it to work.

Anyone have any suggestions on what I may need to do to get an image on to the 3700v4/4300 routers?

This is killing me. The WNDR4300 is supported in dd-wrt, but they don't support port-specific vlans for atheros chips (which I'd like, but will survive without if need be). The real killer is, for whatever reason, wifi performance is TRAGIC.

Subscribed, so that hopefully I can get me some openwrt goodness soon sad

liucougar wrote:

i successfully compiled the gpl source

I had to
1. fix ZLib.cpp to make it compile with my gentoo
2. modify busybox makefiles
3. commend out acl/libacl.h from fsio.c in proftpd
4. my gentoo does not have ipv6 enabled, so have to modify my host /usr/include/netinet/in.h to make zebra compile

haven't tried to flash the built image yet




I am glad to see this post, great to know about such a nice details that I really need..

Has anyone been able to successfully compile openwrt on WNDR3700v4?