RedBoot sources and cheap/safe upgrade procedure

[PerseoInf]

Hi,

could you provide the RedBoot sources in order to have more freedom degree in development? The Gateworks or Meraki provide the RedBoot src and also the Gateworks sales a simple jtag adaptor with whom upgrade the bootstrap environment. If yes exists a cheap (the hardware should be cheap of course) upgrade procedure?

I know that I can perform an upgrade in this way:

RedBoot> load -r -b %{FREEMEMLO} redboot.rom
RedBoot> fis create RedBoot
An image named 'RedBoot' exists - continue (y/n)? y

but it's very dangerous without a jtag and the Abatron BDI 3000 is too expensive for me.

Thanks
Andrea

[UBNT-Mike.Taylor]

For upgrading safely, use the built-in recovery feature with images provided by us or OpenWRT builds. I would recommend you not mess with RB partition to avoid bricking your board.

We do not support third party boot loaders and we do not provide source for the boot loader. If there is something missing from our boot loader, suggestions are welcome, however.

Thanks,

Mike

[PerseoInf]

Hi Mike,

I asked the source code only to try to fix the problems that I have recently discovered end reported in http://lists.openwrt.org/pipermail/openwrt-devel/2009-February/003876.html.

Bye bye
Andre

[UBNT-Mike.Taylor]

PerseoInf,

The problem you are seeing is not likely to be fixed in software. If you can write to the other blocks without verification errors, this one should be no different.

It is possible you might have no problem with this error, if it only affects parts of this block that go unused (most of it). We write the entire block before verification, so if you are lucky this error is harmless.

To check the thing out - you might try using tftp and fis write, or the Linux mtdblock device and dd command - to read/write blocks of data to the flash and verify them. I'd be interested to hear what results you get.

In either case, however, you should probably contact Mike Ford in support to get this resolved.

Thanks,

Mike

[GregAWoods]

We do not support third party boot loaders and we do not provide source for the boot loader. If there is something missing from our boot loader, suggestions are welcome, however.


This is very troubling. According to the RedBoot copyright license you must provide the source code for your version of RedBoot, i.e. along with any modifications you've made to it directly.

[steinmb]

Heh your right. Redboot uses http://ecos.sourceware.org/license-overview.html licence that are a regular GPL 2 licence with one exception.

[vlx]

We do not support third party boot loaders and we do not provide source for the boot loader. If there is something missing from our boot loader, suggestions are welcome, however.

Thanks,

Mike

Hi Mike,

I've one idea that is worth implementing IMHO..
As there is no opensource driver for AR8316 switch released. I'd be very grateful if you could extend RedBoot with possibility to configure this switch for RouterStation Pro during intitialzation phase. I know there is problem with Atheros as they don't want to release source code for their drivers but you can still implent this in firmware or not?
It would be enough to have option just to enable all 4 ports to be independent not 1 port and 3 joined together in switch, like it's now.

I know this is not the proper solution, proper one is impleneting the driver in Linux (switch framework in kernel) but this is not going to happen very soon (as reverse-engineering is only option with Atheros products) but as intermediate solution it would be great...

Mikrotik have already very neat features for swich programming in RB450G, which is same chipset AR7161/AR8136.

What do you think?

Regards,
Vlado

[TEG]

For upgrading safely, use the built-in recovery feature with images provided by us or OpenWRT builds. I would recommend you not mess with RB partition to avoid bricking your board.

We do not support third party boot loaders and we do not provide source for the boot loader. If there is something missing from our boot loader, suggestions are welcome, however.

Thanks,

Mike

Auto-MDI/X is still not working in the latest UBNT-generated RS firmware that we have been able to find.

It needs to be enabled at the boot loader stage so that one 'flavour' of cable can be used always. If UBNT has produced RS firmware with it enabled by its RedBoot derivative then would you please let everyone know its URL. A request was first made way back in February as far as we can tell, with others later.

Lack of this basic expected (in 2009) functionality is a show-stopper / deal-breaker because it's unacceptable for our customers to have to fiddle with different flavours of network cable in various places to get a simple device operating.

Being prevented from fixing important problems in closed stuff is a major reason for us moving to things that use Free (Libre) Software. Not least of which because compliance with the Free Software licences (such as the GPL) is almost always not optional.

Looking forward to very soon having Auto-MDI/X enabled at the boot loader stage on our four development RSes. Then we'll be a little more comfortable planning production runs using them.

TIA
TEG Devels

[KanjiMonster]

Heh your right. Redboot uses http://ecos.sourceware.org/license-overview.html licence that are a regular GPL 2 licence with one exception.

Actually, the redboot version (0.9.something) suggest that this is a version from before the GPL switch (which happend somewhen around 1.3), which is licensed under the old licence (http://ecos.sourceware.org/old-license.html).

Which would not help Ubiquiti either, as it states under 3.2:

Any Modification which You create or to which You contribute must be made available in Source Code form under the terms of this License via an accepted Electronic Distribution Mechanism to anyone to whom you made an Executable version available and to the Initial Developer; and if made available via Electronic Distribution Mechanism, must remain available for at least twelve (12) months after the date it initially became available, or at least six (6) months after a subsequent version of that particular Modification has been made available to such recipients.


So yeah, everyone having an RS Pro (or downloading the archive with the bootloaders (http://www.ubnt.com/downloads/RS/RS-r1665-BETA/RSx.ar7100.OpenWrt.r15349M-BETA.tgz)) is entitled to get the source code.

So, Ubiquiti, pretty please? I don't mind voiding my warranty ;)

[key4078]

For upgrading safely, use the built-in recovery feature with images provided by us or OpenWRT builds. I would recommend you not mess with RB partition to avoid bricking your board.

We do not support third party boot loaders and we do not provide source for the boot loader. If there is something missing from our boot loader, suggestions are welcome, however.

Thanks,

Mike

We need to load our kernel image from SD in RedBoot.
(Our network engineers prefer VFAT, but EXT2 also will be fine.)
When are you going to release a new RedBoot image?

[GregAWoods]

Indeed, having Redboot support for configuring the ethernet ports would be a huge step in the right direction!

[JimWright]

Actually, the redboot version (0.9.something) suggest that this is a version from before the GPL switch (which happend somewhen around 1.3), which is licensed under the old licence (http://ecos.sourceware.org/old-license.html).

Which would not help Ubiquiti either, as it states under 3.2:


So yeah, everyone having an RS Pro (or downloading the archive with the bootloaders (http://www.ubnt.com/downloads/RS/RS-r1665-BETA/RSx.ar7100.OpenWrt.r15349M-BETA.tgz)) is entitled to get the source code.


It's amazing how many customer complaints would disappear if Ubiquity would just release their modified source as they are supposed to be doing, so that these software issues could be fixed.

[KanjiMonster]

I made an interesting discovery today:

# ====================================================================
#
# hal_mips_ar7100.cdl
#
# MIPS AR7100 SOC HAL package configuration data
#
# ====================================================================
######ECOSGPLCOPYRIGHTBEGIN####
## -------------------------------------------
## This file is part of eCos, the Embedded Configurable Operating System.
## Copyright (C) 2003 Atheros Communications, Inc.
##
## eCos is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under
## the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free
## Software Foundation; either version 2 or (at your option) any later version.
##
## eCos is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY
## WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or
## FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License
## for more details.
##
## You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along
## with eCos; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc.,
## 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307 USA.
##
## As a special exception, if other files instantiate templates or use macros
## or inline functions from this file, or you compile this file and link it
## with other works to produce a work based on this file, this file does not
## by itself cause the resulting work to be covered by the GNU General Public
## License. However the source code for this file must still be made available
## in accordance with section (3) of the GNU General Public License.
##
## This exception does not invalidate any other reasons why a work based on
## this file might be covered by the GNU General Public License.
##
## Alternative licenses for eCos may be arranged by contacting the copyright
## holders.
## -------------------------------------------
######ECOSGPLCOPYRIGHTEND####


I think this speaks for itself.

[dfarrell]

So you (KanjiMonster) have discover some AR7100 redboot source somewhere, please post the link.

In ubnt's defense. If they are under NDA for portions they may add to redboot (this is hypothetical) they probably cannot release these portions and the balance we can all download from ecos.

[KanjiMonster]

So you (KanjiMonster) have discover some AR7100 redboot source somewhere, please post the link.

I found it in a place I least expected them, in the sources for a Belkin router (http://www.belkin.com/support/opensource/files/F5D8232v1-1.00.16-GPL.tar.gz).

There seems to be a complete tarball of an ecos/redboot for ar71xx from Atheros. Its version is 1.02, which is quite close to Ubiquiti's. This makes me think Ubiquiti's is just an older one from Atheros. Btw, readmes/changelogs indicate it is based on ecos 2.0.


In ubnt's defense. If they are under NDA for portions they may add to redboot (this is hypothetical) they probably cannot release these portions and the balance we can all download from ecos.

They could still go the route Belkin chose, release most parts in source form (everything from ecos itself, and probably most code from atheros, which seems to be GPL'd), and everything else as binary objects, which get included in the build process.

The modified GPL states that they don't have to release the sources to anything not already under GPL and only including headers/using macros. But afaik it still must be buildable and result in the same binary as supplied on the router, which sort of requires to have the non source code portions as binary objects.

KM