[OpenWrt-Devel] Mikrotik ar71xx -> ath79 port

[Christopher Hill]

Much appreciated. I will check this out when I get home later today.

On Mon, Feb 17, 2020, 14:30 Adrian Schmutzler <mail at adrianschmutzler.de>
wrote:

> > -----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).
> >
> > 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.
>
> Have a look at the annotations I put into your repo. It looks like you
> have mistaken size for partition endings in the DTS.
> I remember @rogerpueyo also had problems booting his device due to a wrong
> partition setup. Maybe fixing the partitions will be enough ...
>
> Best
>
> Adrian
>
> >
> > 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?
> >
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > openwrt-devel mailing list
> > openwrt-devel at lists.openwrt.org
> > https://lists.openwrt.org/mailman/listinfo/openwrt-devel
>
>
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