[OpenWrt-Devel] rt3883 iNIC subsystem - any chance to get this running (Easybox 904 xDSL, Zyxel NBG5715)

[Arnold Schulz]

Hi everyone,

there is a wlan subsystem called "rt3883 iNIC" used in the EasyBox 904
and in the Zyxel NBG5715.

The RT3883 SoC is supported by the OpenWrt ramips target. But here this
chip is dedicated to WLAN and has own firmware (main SoC in the Easybox
is of type Lantiq VR9).

Problem:
- No documentation found about interface and protocols for communicating
    with the RT3883 iNIC subsystem.
- Proprietary driver rt3883_iNIC.ko provides iNIC control, but
   no source code found for this driver.

Question:

Any chances to get this subsystem running and controlled in OpenWrt?
E.g. any docs or source code somewhere?
Anyone with Mediatek/Ralink connections?

Arnold
------------------------------------------
Excerpt from  http://arny.tjps.eu/OpenWrt/EasyBox904xDSL/research/Findings.txt

- Main subsystem chips are from Mediatek/Ralink:
   * RT3883F. "802.11n 2.4/5GHz 3T3R (450/450Mbps) Single Chip AP/Router SoC"
   * RT5392L. For 2.4GHz only. Almost no infos found on web
- RT3883 contains i.a. a CPU core MIPS32 74Kc and wlan logic
- Many wireless functions are implemented via proprietary firmware in SoC RT3883.
- Firmware uses uC/OS, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micro-Controller_Operating_Systems_(MicroC/OS)
- At boot time firmware is loaded from /etc/Wireless/RT3883/iNIC_ap.bin (size 576kB).
   Initial config data is loaded from files in /etc/Wireless/RT3883/ and from /dev/mtd7 (part. "fwdiag")
- RT3883 is connected via ethernet to either Lantiq xrx200 internal switch or to extra RTL8367RB switch
- Control communication and firmware loading is done via proprietary linux driver rt3883_iNIC.ko
   possibly using ethernet connection between main system and RT3883 SoC
- Driver rt3883_iNIC.ko reads some configuration parameters from files (eg. iNIC_ap.dat, iNIC_e2p.bin)
- Driver provides regular linux wlan network interfaces, so wlan can be set up by normal userspace wlan
   utilities (eg. iwconfig, iwpriv).
- 2.4 GHz band is covered by RT5392L, 5 GHz band covered by RT3883F
- RT5392L probably connected to and driven by RT3883
- Possibly wlan traffic to ext. ethernet connectors bridged via switches, so main cpu is not involved (?)
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