Hi, i'm interested to flash my new router tp-link td-w8970 with openwrt, it's possible? How to ?

Thank you, it's very important for me.

http://www.tp-link.com/resources/gpl/GP … 970.tar.gz
but i am yet to get this. this product is not available in india as of now. and i must wait till its made available. the source code is there. and when i downloaded the source code to my surprise i saw its openwrt source code. and they are using openwrt. just hold on till i get my hands on to it.
i dont know when will i get it. i am waiting patiently. and i can claim that they are using openwrt as its source. 100% sure. you can download and make your own firmware. give it a shot. thanks.
-paul

OpenWrt Wiki: TP-Link TD-W8970

Could you help me to connect UART to this modem? I have connected TX,RX,GND, diodes are lighting on USB TTL adapter, but nothing appears on console ( The same in other modem shows everything. What's going on?

what usb to ttl are you using?

EDIT: Nevermind. I have now OpenWRT on this device.

All problems collected here: https://dev.openwrt.org/ticket/14439

(Last edited by lpm11 on 7 Nov 2013, 13:30)

Hello, how did you flash it? I've tried the tftp on start of the router but doesn't seem to answer

tftpboot. Set IP to 192.168.1.100 (as I remember). Use wireshark to test your connection.

So serial console i guess? Ok

how can i get openwrt on my tp-link 8970
do i have to open the hardware?

Yes you need to use a serial console (you can buy a cp2102 based usb converter on ebay) but you need to solder its pin as specified in the wiki to make it work. Then you will need to follow the wiki (stop autoboot by using a key and then boot the uImage)
You also need to compile a snapshot of openwrt for this device on your own since it's not yet provided in the snapshots folder.

I got it running on my W8970 but I got several problems with it, like I can't seem to get dsl working and the router lags like hell (getting up to 3.00 of load) so not really usable for me, if there is some dev reading please help to figure out what's wrong

thank you for your answer
i am not comfortable making hardware changes to the device (ironic cause i am an electronic engineer),cause i live in iran and hardware warranty and repair is not as available as other countries.
so is there any chance of getting openwrt the software way?in future?

Oh, dont worry, warranty of a soldered board is not avalaible in no country, they say that you burn the modem.

Well, now a little bit serious. I buy this hardware,  there is a difference, dram and flash chip are winbond, the rest equal.  telnet is available, but you enter in a "jail" enviroment, usual tricks like write sh dont work, so is unuseful. Not very tested.

The boot is done by uboot, maybe is a way to put firmware without serial.

rezad1393, friend, as i can look openwrt in this device is at the moment unusable. Obviusly is our work to transform in something usable, as testers, as coders.. If you now cant use serial, maybe is better to wait. IMHO.

(Last edited by joseba_g on 29 Nov 2013, 07:02)

thank you for your answer

what i meant for hardware warranty ,i know that in most of the world even opening the screws  of back of device voids the waranty ,so.....
what i meant was that here hardware part (spare part ,replacements) is much less available and more expencive than even our neighbor countries.

and about the telnet part ,isnt that available on most routers?
cause i had(dont use it anymore) samphony modem (which is a rebrand of bilion modem) and i could telnet it and get a more info than web interface.

so the answer right now is that there is not an openwrt available for 8970 ?even unstable or limited one?
cause i saw this link  from the link of Poland forum from openwrt web-page of 8970.
http://ecco.selfip.net/trunk/lantiq/
and it has these?
packages/        2013-11-29 07:39:33
md5sums    152    2013-11-29 07:39:10
openwrt-lantiq-xrx200-TDW8970-sysupgrade.image    5.7M    2013-11-29 07:39:11
openwrt-lantiq-xrx200-TDW8970-uImage    1.2M    2013-11-29 07:39:12

anybody tested these?

Wifi is not as stable as in previous compat-wireless snapshot.
I am going to prepare image with old compat-wireless, from Jun 2013; it was very stable in this device.

again can some body tell me if anybody has tested this images in urls given?
cause the router upgrade tool from web interface doesnt allow these

Yes, I have tested them.

Upgrade firmware using tftp server - from u-boot. See the page http://wiki.openwrt.org/toh/tp-link/td-w8970 - you will know the reason.

plz
can you be more specific.
i am a noob in this area
i look at tftp page on openwrt site but it was too confusing
you didnt even say if bootloader of 8970 contains tftp client or server(in tftp wiki its separate case)

plz if you can explain some steps of it
and plz dont give riddles (like See the page http://wiki.openwrt.org/toh/tp-link/td-w8970 - you will know the reason) .i have looked at it but there is no info to how to install an image on it or how to "Upgrade firmware using tftp server - from u-boot"

OK..

"Firstly - DO NOT upgrade to the 28.08.2013 (or newer) firmware on TP-Link website. It has modified u-boot, and applies a NEW UNKNOWN header - first byte is 0x03. We don't know how is it working. " - this is the problem. TP-Link introduced a new format of image files. It is diffrent than in other TP-Link firmwares, so that is the reason we can't do the correct image file, upgradable by http.
Good for us is that u-boot accepts both format of headers. So you have just to put image on the right place, and router with newer u-boot will also boot OpenWRT image. But to do this, you have to acccess u-boot.
So first thing is a console.. I had serious problems with communication. But when you enter command tftpboot, u-boot will automatically start TFTP client. It will try to connect to the TFTP server on address 192.168.1.100, and try to download file uImage. I don't know the commands for flashing image, I did a trick:
1) create image with initramfs support (whole filesystem is compressed in memory)
2) rename this image to uImage (I can send you that image, I have built it)
3) enter the u-boot, type tftpboot to download this uImage file, and next type bootm
4) OpenWRT will boot directly from RAM. Login into it (telnet), you can now backup original paritions
5) I downloaded another (standard) image to the router RAM, and typed  cat </tmp/image >/dev/mtdblock1 (as I remember) - this is the essential of writing firmware to flash
6) Reboot device - that is it.

It is not the optimal method, but it works.

again plz assume i know nothing about openwrt
like "enter u-boot"?how do i do that
i can just telnet the router thats all i know how to do
and this doesnt work  on my linux os "tftpboot"? i have tftp but this is not recognized
on the router the telnet interface has very few commands and tftp is not one of them

the only part i have understood is the "not upgrading part" which i have grasped from the openwrt page of router ,which is a surprise that is useful explicit info on that page.
as far as i searched the openwrt pages of wikis  is written for those  who already are familiar with it not for novices
so i am stuck.

(Last edited by rezad1393 on 5 Dec 2013, 04:40)

Sorry, but this device is for advanced users now. You are the end-user, waiting for complete solution..
For you, it is NOT supported. Wait for a stable version and now use the OEM or change device.

thanks
again sorry for asking noob questions
i just wanted to use openwrt for downloading and such
but you ARE right
is there any time-frame that stable version (or a trunk version) for this router will be available?
and as a side note i have the habit of trying to learn the more advanced use of my devices(i use linux basically because of that), so i don't think learning about uboot and other advanced use of openwrt is not needed.

again thanks for your patience  in answering my questions

(Last edited by rezad1393 on 6 Dec 2013, 03:27)

Ask about the next stable OpenWRT version. Maybe in 2014, maybe not - it is some work to do now.
Now we don't have even alpha/beta/rc. It would be easier to work on stable version, I know it too.

(Last edited by lpm11 on 12 Dec 2013, 17:35)

I've compiled from trunk the last sources (clean trunk branch rev 39424) with the following config improvements:

- Disabled some kernel debug symbols, so image is smaller and optimized
- Added nano editor
- Configured busybox with mtime support, so scripts can manage files older than... (good for usb storage)

Link to the image: https://drive.google.com/folderview?id= … sp=sharing
(i will update image with improvements over time).

To program it from uboot you need these simple steps:

1)  setenv ipaddr 192.168.1.254; setenv serverip 192.168.1.5 (set ip to your needs)
2)  tftpboot 0x80800000 openwrt-lantiq-xrx200-TDW8970-sysupgrade.image
3)  sf erase 0x20000 0x7a0000           -    this clean the kernel and rootfs partitions
4)  sf write 0x80800000 0x20000 0x680004

then turn off and on TD-W8970
Enjoy OpenWRT

RyLoS

(Last edited by RyLoS on 30 Jan 2014, 09:48)

If I install the two files, one Web des OEM panel and the other when you already have openwrt, openwrt firmware worked on?