Belkin N1 vision : sources and toolchain available

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Do we need DD-WRT on the Belkin N1 vision?
yes
94%
 94%  [ 217 ]
no
5%
 5%  [ 13 ]
Total Votes : 230

Author Message
benh
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Joined: 23 Sep 2006
Posts: 19

PostPosted: Mon Jul 21, 2008 4:59    Post subject: Reply with quote
Ok, so the serial port is indeed the one next to the encoder for the buttons and it's 3.3V. I did have a 3.3V voltage converter lying around, so I took some traces.

Attached is a minicom capture of 2 boots: one normal and one
with console enabled via the "hidden" page mentioned earlier in the thread. As you can see, this setting makes us get into a busybox shell prompt on the serial port. I typed a couple of commands for the show.

Now, unless I'm mistaken, the kernel source provided by Belkin -is- missing a bunch of stuff (it's a blatant GPL violation along with attempts to hide it I'd say), so we may have to reverse engineer a bit more than I would have hoped to get things working unless we can get Belkin to release the missing bits (or probably whoever they outsourced the developement to). I'll work on that separately but I don't have any formal contact at Belkin, so if somebody here does, please let me know.
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benh
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Joined: 23 Sep 2006
Posts: 19

PostPosted: Mon Jul 21, 2008 5:36    Post subject: Reply with quote
Hrm... attachment didn't make, let's try again
benh
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Joined: 23 Sep 2006
Posts: 19

PostPosted: Mon Jul 21, 2008 5:37    Post subject: Reply with quote
Hrm.. I must be missing something with attachments on this forum. It's now on:

http://gate.crashing.org/~benh/n1_log.txt

Ben.
benh
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Joined: 23 Sep 2006
Posts: 19

PostPosted: Mon Jul 21, 2008 5:59    Post subject: Reply with quote
BTW. As it is, I don't have any way to reflash the thing if I bust it so I won't try experimental kernels, until I figure one out. Any suggestion in that area is welcome, even if that involve soldering something on what looks like a JTAG header.
benh
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Joined: 23 Sep 2006
Posts: 19

PostPosted: Mon Jul 21, 2008 6:41    Post subject: Reply with quote
Played a bit with redboot, you can bring up ports and tftp files. I've checked I see the tftp request packets coming on another machine. So I should be able to play with kernels without crapping all over my flash and I should be able to reflash from redboot too hopefully.

Little time this week (kernel merge window is open and I'm maintaining the powerpc arch while paulus is on vacation) but I'll toy around next week.
Sash
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PostPosted: Mon Jul 21, 2008 13:08    Post subject: Reply with quote
hi benh

nic to hear that someone goes into this.
i will trigger sebastian to give us a litestationX builsd for testing. hopefully it will boot

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benh
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Joined: 23 Sep 2006
Posts: 19

PostPosted: Mon Jul 21, 2008 21:43    Post subject: Reply with quote
Good, thanks. Feel free to also give me source & build instructions, I should be able to do at least some amount of fixups if things don't work out of the box.

I'll try to avoid flashing things for now, and due to the small amount of RAM, I doubt I can get a huge initrd/ramfs in there, so I may just nfs root it if I can get the network working (ie, the PHY/switch chip is supported).

BTW. I have little experience with these things (switch chips). They are connected via RGMII to the ar7100 like any PHY with MDIO for config ? Or it's fancier ? (ie. do we get some MDIO ID's to identify them like a normal PHY ?). Hrm, I should dbl check on the PCB when at work too, I suppose there will be a normal PHY on the "WAN" link, I can always use that to netboot if the 4 ports one isn't working.
marvan
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Joined: 22 Jul 2008
Posts: 3

PostPosted: Tue Jul 22, 2008 9:20    Post subject: Reply with quote
It is great that WRT will be supported N1 Vision.

If possible, I would like to see the WRT for N1 Vision will enhance DHCP can support MAC-to-IP. I have contacted Belkin Support who said that all the Belkin SOHO class routers will not have MAC-to-IP in DHCP.

Also, better to add authentication in order open the status page. It is so stupid that no need any password but you can read all the router information. It impacts that I will not enable Remote Management for access my N1 Vision via Internet. I have contacted Belkin Support too but they refused to change the step of login.

So helpless support by Belkin.
benh
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Joined: 23 Sep 2006
Posts: 19

PostPosted: Tue Jul 22, 2008 9:40    Post subject: Reply with quote
Yup, lack of fixed addresses seem to be a common complaint about these routers. It's the main reason why I started investigating alternative firmwares, yours too I suppose, seems to show up in many forums and the local belkin tech support here seemed to imply I'm not the first one to ask.

It's sad for a device priced clearly among the high end to lack such a fundamental feature.

I find it funny that clearly belkin doesn't seem to care what their customers want ..
jashsayani
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Joined: 05 Jul 2008
Posts: 6

PostPosted: Fri Jul 25, 2008 18:20    Post subject: Reply with quote
Got the hang to edit text in VI through console backdoor and control the LCD screen...?
benh
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Joined: 23 Sep 2006
Posts: 19

PostPosted: Sun Jul 27, 2008 0:42    Post subject: Reply with quote
Heh no, haven't had much time this week. I'm not even sure there's vi on the thing :-)

Figuring out how the LCD works is low priority for me for now. Once I had a chance to get things booting with a custom kernel and wireless & switch working, then we can start toying with the front panel as far as I'm concerned.

BTW. Sash, any news about these litestationX bits ? Any place I can find the patches / sources and catch up with you guys on IRC ? I'd like to start toying with the kernel next week.
kralcak
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Joined: 27 Jul 2008
Posts: 1

PostPosted: Sun Jul 27, 2008 21:18    Post subject: thanks Reply with quote
thank you for all the effort.
BrainSlayer
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Joined: 06 Jun 2006
Posts: 7463
Location: Dresden, Germany

PostPosted: Mon Jul 28, 2008 10:11    Post subject: Reply with quote
looks like a ar7100 board. this can be supported by dd-wrt if i get such a board. the ubiquiti lsx firmware i posted, is a ar7100 board
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benh
DD-WRT Novice


Joined: 23 Sep 2006
Posts: 19

PostPosted: Mon Jul 28, 2008 10:46    Post subject: Reply with quote
Hi Brainslayer !

I'm happy to work on it, will give me a break from the powerpc patch moneying Smile I'm a bit new to dd-wrt tho, so if you guys can point me to the bits you already have for ar7100 based platforms (ie, at this stage, I really only care about kernel source, the rest can follow) I can start having a good look.

It looks like the platform code that they stripped from the source package is in part some of the GPIO handling. That's typically the stuff that's wired differently on every board under the sun... On the other hand, it -might- not be a big blob to disassemble. I'm not a MIPS expert, but it's a fairly simple architecture, so if it comes to disassembling the belkin bits I should be able to manage... hopefully :-)

For that sort of reverse-engineering/bringup work, it might be good if we could catch up on IRC while I do it.

Now, of course, if you happen to be in Canberra, then we can just get together and do it live :-)

Cheers,
Ben.
benh
DD-WRT Novice


Joined: 23 Sep 2006
Posts: 19

PostPosted: Mon Jul 28, 2008 11:31    Post subject: Reply with quote
s/moneying/monkeying Smile
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