First off I must apologize for not understanding 98% of everything I’ve gotten myself into on this new firmware upload. I was under the impression that this was a GUI interface similar to Tomato and DD-WRT.

I downloaded the appropriate file for my WRT54G and the upgrade from Tomato 1.13 went fine. After pulling my hair out and not gaining access to the router with 192.168.1.1, I attempted a Telnet session as a last resort and connected with the little screen that mentioned something like a drink recipe if I remember right. The first thing that caught my eye was the notation that said if you change the password with “passwd† that it would disable Telnet sessions and be accessible via “SSH† which I assumed that I would be able to login to the GUI via an https://192.168.1.1 session.

After hours of looking for, and attempting to run a “freebie† “SSH† program I gave up. I hate to do so, but I have. Is there anyone that can point me in the right direction to re-flash this WRT54G back to “anything†? I’ve tried all of the steps suggested in other web site to “re-brick† or re-flash the unit. It will respond to pings, however after timing the up load via a TFTP session the router still will not accept a new/different *.bin file.

Kind regards,

John

John, you have a few options.  The tftp on reset *should* work.  Be sure it's a proper bin file and send it 1-2seconds after power up.

The two windows apps I use:
SSH: PuTTY http://www.putty.nl/download.html
So you're aware, SSH looks like telnet.
File-Explorer-like: WinSCP http://winscp.net/eng/index.php
Great for editing things for the non-Linux user.  You need the right /etc/config/network setting to make a connection on an existing LAN network.  Holler if you need help but get to the point you can edit /etc/config/network first.

Here's a sequence that may help.  Be sure you get the right file.  It's all commandline AND you must have a connection to get the firmware:

##### work in the temp directory:
cd /tmp

##### get the firmware.bin (I'll use firmware.bin, change this to whatever it is):
wget http://(URL to get the firmware.bin)

##### make a .trx file from the .bin file (note names, may as well leave of=firmware.trx but change the if=whatever you got):
dd if=firmware.bin of=firmware.trx bs=32 skip=1

##### You now have firmware.trx ready to flash... with this:
mtd -r write firmware.trx linux

##### It will reboot when done.  Give it a lot of time.

It's not without risk, of course.  A smaller firmware may be safest.

EDIT: Instead of getting the internet connection going you can alternately get the .bin file to /tmp by WinSCP (drag-n-drop interface).

I tried to figure out the simplest path.  For example, I know of no other firmware that supplies .trx files but .bin files are common.  I do not think you'll be the first to be in this situation so I invite everyone to come up with the simplest and safest recovery steps for a non-Linux user.

(Last edited by Bill_MI on 8 Dec 2007, 15:31)

Recommended ssh client for windows systems (on other systems use a terminal window with standard openssh):
http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/

if you plan to update the firmware using the command line, you can use a trx rather then downloading a bin file and stripping off the header..

there IS a web interface for openwrt, available as an optional package: http://x-wrt.org/