Hi,

I am new to openWRT but I got references to openWRT in relation to my 'quest'.
I have a dozen used Thomson TG789vn and TG789ivn routers available for reconfiguration.
I hope to use them to facilitate free WIFI access in exchange for a Facebook like (for example).
I have a lot of Java experience and some linux experience.
Questions I have:
- can openWRT help me achieve this?
- can openWRT be loaded on my Thomson routers?
- Is there any other easy and free way to achieve my goal?

any help is greatly appreciated

Well they aren't officially unsupported (http://wiki.openwrt.org/toh/start).
But it seems nobody has tried them.
OTOH Thomson produce a lot of crud.
It is a fairly involved task to port openWRT to new hardware, particularly if the stock firmware on the device isn't open source (as in the Thomson case - I think).
Take a look at the link above and see if there are supported Thomsons with similar chips to those yours contain (yup, screwdriver required!).
Good luck.

Thanks for the quick reply!
I do not care too much how to solve my challenge, as long as I get it done.
I am also looking at a possible Java Proxy solution, but no clue how to auto insert the proxy so any device connecting to the Thomson wifi will go through the proxy and it's facebook like 'barrier'....

As said earlier I am pretty novice still. I am a quick learner and open to any possible solution path. As long as I can reuse my Thomson routers. A separate proxy server or any other type of server is possible too, as long as there is a way to get the thomson to always go through that one server, so I can enforce the facebook challenge before opening the wifi for that device to open internet

Give it 24 hours. Maybe someone has hands on experience with this hardware.
Otherwise it is down to you! Obviously people will try and help, but you have the hardware.
On openwrt.org, check the docs and wiki for flashing, and for recovering bricked routers. Also the links I gave above.
It might well be that Attitude Adjustment (current stable) or Snapshot/trunk (work in progress) will mostly work. But as in most things openWRT, there are no guarantees!

Thomson/Technicolor firmware is based on Linux, but their GPL compliance is laughable at best.
There is a ton of info and great resources about this firmware on Modem-Help forums.

The main problem with ST/TG models for such as OpenWRT is that the CFE is customised - ie non-standard cf std Linux routers. That makes loading their firmware difficult => impossible.

You can find more info about CFE's and the elusive checksum on Alcatel/Thomson/Technicolor firmware.

At least part of what you want is achievable by configuring those boxes via proprietary TELNET CLI. It's not as versatile as linux console, but can do a lot.

edit reason: added a bit more relevant info and link so it doesn't look like a spam

(Last edited by AndyTheLatvian on 16 Feb 2013, 23:24)

Username and password from router thomson tg789ivn please
ip router is 10.0.0.1

(Last edited by tgsilviu on 25 Aug 2013, 07:27)

Hi, if someone interested I could help to bring Openwrt support for this router (without xDSL). I can provide a working bootloader for the router with its own board ID.

Of course a JTAG programmer is mandatory for flashing/testing the new bootloader. Once the new bootloader is confirmed to work, making a working Openwrt firmware should be easy.

Regards.

I'm interested in,could you share this?

Hi obsy, I built a CFE bootloader for this device.

cfe6368.bin

First make a backup of the flash chip before flashing, if you want to have the possibility to back to stock firmware.

I expect this bootloader will work. Let me know if the serial console returns something after flashing, and if the bootloader work, check if you can ping to its address 192.168.1.1, or browse its web interface http://192.168.1.1/

Regards

I'll try the CFE too. I have those TG789xx routers as well, also supplied in The Netherlands by the ISP KPN. I might just directly flash it into the chips. Those thomson routers have no pre-loader, right?

How did you make the CFE by the way? I'm in need of customised CFE's for my own hacking on a few ZTE DSL routers with very similar hardware, but I haven't really looked into it that much since the ZTE routers use a pre-loader that loads before the CFE. I'm working on the devices at: https://forum.openwrt.org/viewtopic.php?id=61480

Hi rqn. I built the CFE using the sourcecode I found from a Netgear router, with a few modifications (nothing really important). This particular router has a SoC with no preloader. The CPU just executes the binary code found in the flash chip at offset 0x0.

The BCM63168 probably is a bit different. No idea if it has a preloader. Looks like your router has two bootloaders ROM and RAM. This is usually found in bcm963xx boards with NAND flashes, but not Parallel or SPI NOR flash chips like yours.

Yeah, mine must be slightly different. It has the same preloader as two other models (same ISP firmware, also made by ZTE). One model above this one and one model below this one. The others have NAND flash, while this one has 2x NOR SPI flash.

ZTE seems to be really bad at following the rules, they don't publish and firmware sources at all, and them being non-western makes it quite hard to squeeze them legally.

The preloader seems common between multiple ZTE devices, I should maybe ignore it and focus on the CFE itself, of figuring out the CFE variables that turn off the console. For now, it's ACS/CWMP/TR069 hacking.

hello, does anyone have the jtag pinout for this board?
not the 14pin header, the 8pin one.