[wsfii-discuss] Modified Ubiquiti bootloader?

[Ben West]

Sorry for dredging up an old topic, but I a query I posted to the UBNT forum
about modifying the config of their u-boot bootloader to remove the
dependence on the reset button went unanswered.
http://ubnt.com/forum/showthread.php?t=5117

Reposting here, in case anyone has made their own progress.

For some follow-up, I poked around a Nanostation M5 that I'd flashed with
OpenWRT. Looks like the device uses u-boot as bootloader, not Redboot.

Atheros AR71xx SPI Controller driver version 0.2.4
m25p80 spi0.0: mx25l6405d (8192 Kbytes)
7 cmdlinepart partitions found on MTD device spi0.0
Creating 7 MTD partitions on "spi0.0":
0x000000000000-0x000000040000 : "u-boot"
0x000000040000-0x000000050000 : "u-boot-env"
0x000000050000-0x000000150000 : "kernel"
0x000000150000-0x0000007b0000 : "rootfs"
mtd: partition "rootfs" set to be root filesystem
mtd: partition "rootfs_data" created automatically, ofs=250000, len=560000
0x000000250000-0x0000007b0000 : "rootfs_data"
0x0000007b0000-0x0000007f0000 : "cfg"
0x0000007f0000-0x000000800000 : "EEPROM"
0x000000050000-0x0000007b0000 : "firmware"

Likewise, here are contents of u-boot-env, i.e. the u-boot configuration
options.

root at nsm5-e:~# cat /dev/mtd1
d
��ethaddr=0xDE:0xAD:0xBE:0xEF:0xFF:0xeefilesize=690000fileaddr=80010000bootdelay=4baudrate=115200mtdids=nor0=ar7240-nor0partition=nor0,0mtddevnum=0mtddevname=u-bootserverip=192.168.1.254stdin=serialstdout=serialstderr=serialethact=eth0mtdparts=mtdparts=ar7240-nor0:256k(u-boot),64k(u-boot-env),1024k(kernel),6528k(rootfs),256k(cfg),64k(EEPROM)bootcmd=bootm
0x9f050000bootargs=console=ttyS0,115200 root=31:03 rootfstype=squashfs
init=/initipaddr=192.168.1.20u-boot),64k(u-boot-env),1024k(kernel),6528k(rootfs),256k(cfg),64k(EEPROM)bootcmd=bootm
0x9f050000(NVRAM),64k(ART)ethact=eth0partition=nor0,0mtddevnum=0mtddevname=u-boot

I see the options expecting a TFTP server at 192.168.1.254, with local IP
192.168.1.20, and these are consistent with instructions provided for
firmware recovery.
http://www.ubnt.com/wiki/Firmware_Recovery

Any thoughts on a way to override u-boot's dependency on the reset button,
or is this effectively hard-coded/wired?

I see the bootdelay option, but nothing else that looks promising.  Even if
changing the u-boot config requires access to the on-board serial port, that
does at least provide one option for removing the requirement for the reset
button durign re-flash.  That would still be very helpful when that reset
button sits at the top of a tall pole. ;)

On Mon, Mar 14, 2011 at 12:18 AM, Ben West <me at benwest.name> wrote:

> Hi Ulf,
>
> Sorry for the extreme delay in posing this question, but I would be very
> interested to hear more about the modified Ubiquiti bootloader you mention.
>  Is there a link for it somewhere?
>
> Thanks!
>
> On Wed, Oct 27, 2010 at 3:31 AM, Ulf Kypke-Burchardi <ulf at jewel-box.de>wrote:
>
>>  hi ben, very cool, congratulations for you great community wireless
>> project.
>> how many nodes are in the olsr cloud?
>> i saw in the news, you are running ubnt hardware, so if you use olsr, you
>> are using openwrt on it?
>> just yesterday we (some freifunker) finished working on a modified
>> bootloader for the nanostation 2 and bullet 2 to have a bootwait to get
>> access to the bootloader for upgrading firmware
>> no more reset button pressing on rooftops for upgrading!
>> good luck for your fiber uplink,
>> cheers
>> ulf kypke from berlin
>>
>>
>>

-- 
Ben West
westbywest at gmail.com
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