[OpenWrt-Devel] Mikrotik ar71xx -> ath79 port

[Adrian Schmutzler]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: openwrt-devel [mailto:openwrt-devel-bounces at lists.openwrt.org] On
> Behalf Of Christopher Hill
> Sent: Montag, 17. Februar 2020 16:03
> To: openwrt-devel at lists.openwrt.org
> Subject: [OpenWrt-Devel] Mikrotik ar71xx -> ath79 port
> 
> Hi,
> 
> New here, and am looking for some advice on porting an existing device
> to ath79 - specifically a Mikrotik RB493G (which is NAND).

In case you are not aware, there is another Mikrotik NAND pull request on GitHub which already received some feedback:

https://github.com/openwrt/openwrt/pull/2733

Don't know whether this will help in your case, though.

Best

Adrian

> 
> The area I'm looking for guidance / tips on is getting the lzma-loader
> to boot the new kernel. I have compiled a new image* and I can tftp boot
> this and see on the serial console the lzma-loader running and
> decompressing the kernel and then starting it... but then nothing
> happens next.
> 
> I have two questions below that I would be grateful for any opinions over.
> 
> Thanks,
> Chris
> 
> 
> * The new dts file and makefile changes are here:
> https://github.com/ch6574/openwrt/tree/rb493g
> 
> 
> 
> This is what I see on the serial console:
> 
>   OpenWrt kernel loader for AR7XXX/AR9XXX
>   Copyright (C) 2011 Gabor Juhos <juhosg at openwrt.org>
>   Decompressing kernel... done!
>   Starting kernel at 80060000...
> 
> That's it.
> 
> I've tried adding extra bootargs "earlycon" and "earlyprintk" in the dts
> "chosen" section however I still don't see anything. Running binwalk on
> my new ath79 image vs the 19.07 ar71xx initramfs image reveals some
> differences:
> 
> 19.01 ar71xx:
> 
>   DECIMAL HEXADECIMAL DESCRIPTION
> 
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>   0       0x0         ELF, 32-bit MSB MIPS-I executable, MIPS, version 1
> (SYSV)
>   9580    0x256C      Copyright string: "Copyright (C) 2011 Gabor Juhos
> <juhosg at openwrt.org>"
>   9788    0x263C      LZMA compressed data, properties: 0x6D, dictionary
> size: 8388608 bytes, uncompressed size: 7543556 bytes
> 
> New ath79:
> 
>   DECIMAL HEXADECIMAL DESCRIPTION
> 
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>   0       0x0         ELF, 32-bit MSB MIPS-I executable, MIPS, version 1
> (SYSV)
>   9532    0x253C      Copyright string: "Copyright (C) 2011 Gabor Juhos
> <juhosg at openwrt.org>"
>   9740    0x260C      LZMA compressed data, properties: 0x6D, dictionary
> size: 8388608 bytes, uncompressed size: 12739582 bytes
> 
> So my ath79 image is quite a lot bigger, almost double.
> 
> 
> Question 1 -  Am I running into size issues and simply clobbering other
> areas of memory?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Next using binwalk to extract and unpack the LZMA data reveals their
> content is very different:
> 
> 19.01 ar71xx:
> 
>   $ tree
> _openwrt-19.07.0-ar71xx-mikrotik-vmlinux-initramfs-lzma.elf.extracted/ |
> head -20
>   _openwrt-19.07.0-ar71xx-mikrotik-vmlinux-initramfs-lzma.elf.extracted/
>   ├── 263C
>   ├── 263C.7z
>   └── _263C.extracted
>       ├── 45DB88.xz
>       ├── 4F2D34
>       ├── 4F2D34.7z
>       └── _4F2D34.extracted
>           ├── 0.cpio
>           └── cpio-root
>               ├── bin
>               │   ├── ash -> busybox
>               │   ├── board_detect
>               │   ├── busybox
>               │   ├── cat -> busybox
>               │   ├── chgrp -> busybox
> 
> 
> New ath79:
> 
>   $ tree
> _openwrt-ath79-nand-mikrotik_routerboard-rb493g-initramfs-
> kernel.bin.extracted/
>   ├── 260C
>   ├── 260C.7z
>   └── _260C.extracted
>       ├── [
>       ├── [[
>       ├── 00-netstate
>       ├── 00_preinit.conf
>       ├── 00-sysctl
>       ├── 00-wifi-migration
>       ├── 01_leds
>       ├── 02_default_set_state
>       ├── 02_network
>       ├── 02_sysinfo
>       ├── 0b26f36ae0f4106d
>   <snip>
>       ├── 540B28.xz
>       ├── 5D3B84.cpio
>   <snip>
>       ├── cpio-root
>       │   ├── bin
>       │   │   ├── ash -> busybox
>       │   │   ├── board_detect
> 
> 
> Question 2 - are these differences in how the image is being packed
> causing problems?
> 
> 
> 
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