Hello, I was wondering if it is possible to build an openwrt image on the Linksys ea6100 using the source code for the firmware on their website?

I was looking on the wiki on compiling openwrt but it didn't mention whether I can use the source code firmware provided to make openwrt. Or at least I completely misread it.

On a side note i noticed that openwrt has support for the MT7620A chipset found in the Xiaomi MI wifi mini which is similar to that found on this router. In that case would it be possible to just port that to this device?

Thank you

I'm not sure what you mean. Do you want to build and run OpenWRT on EA6100? Or do you want to build Linksys' own firmware and use it? Who and where is "their website"?

If you mean the former, then the answer is "Probably". According to the Table of Hardware, a revision of trunk already supports the Linksys EA6300 v1 variant. See https://wiki.openwrt.org/toh/hwdata/lin … _ea6300_v1

Depending on what the hardware differences are between the EA6100 and EA6300, it might be possible to use the EA6300 as a baseline and port it to work on the EA6100. You would need to wrap your sleeves and do the work yourself, though.

You can use the source code provided by the OpenWRT project to build yourself a firmware image, as long as you adhere to the license restrictions applied by the GNU General Public License v2 (https://github.com/openwrt/openwrt/blob/master/LICENSE).

I'm pretty sure you can port OpenWRT to run almost anywhere. It might not be easy, simple or effortless, and you might face obstacles, learn new things, get frustrated, brick a few routers, break a few circuits and smoke a lot of cigarettes (if that's your vice). But it can be done

Their website: w w w (dot)linksys (dot)com/us/support-article?articleNum=114663

Sorry by the way, the website won't let me link it directly, remove the spaces and replace the word dot with an actual dot

On the ea6100. Maybe I'm confused but is it not possible to copy the source code for the firmware and build an openwrt image with its front end?

Also the ea6300 uses a Broadcom chip unfortunately so I don't think it would be possible with my router.

Where would I start porting? Is there an easier way without risking completely bricking my router?

This is not a problem. I just wanted to know what source code you mean, so that I have reference point.

I believe you have confused something now. OpenWRT is a complete system by itself, containing possible bootloaders, kernel, and lots of packages providing different functionality. There's even the LuCI package which provides the defaut web front end. If you build an "OpenWRT image", you usually get the whole lot. Of course you can customize the package to your heart's content.

I took a peek inside the Linksys source code package, and the source code is comprised of original source code of the packages, paired with a collection of patches to make it work on their target platform. The toolchain seems to be a Marvell ARMv7 cross-compilation toolchain.

From this point of view, OpenWRT and the Linksys source package follow similar philosophies.

You might want to look inside the router and identify the exact system-on-a-chip that is used. It might be a pretty simple process to get OpenWRT running on your router. See https://wiki.openwrt.org/doc/hardware/soc/soc.marvell for details on which Marvell SoCs are currently supported. From the target menu of OpenWRT's Chaos Calmer branch,, I found Marvell Armada 37x/38x/XP and Marvell Kirkwood targets. If your router has any of these SoCs, then your job just got a whole lot easier. All you need is build the default profile of the suitable target and attempt to run it on your router to see if it works.

As for the Linksys front-end, you can certainly extract the package that comprises the front-end from the Linksys sources, and create a new OpenWRT package with this source code, together with a set of patches to modify the sources so that they can properly use OpenWRT's UCI system to read and write settings. You would essentially build a replacement package for LuCI.

Then you cannot use those sources.

Start by identifying the SoC on the router, then getting an OpenWRT build environment running in a virtual machine (https://wiki.openwrt.org/doc/howto/buildvm) and see if there's already a suitable target that you can exploit. Who knows, maybe you get lucky?

It uses a marvell chipset? Really? The OpenWRT data sheet says it uses the MediaTek MT7620A here
wiki(dot)openwrt(dot)org/toh/hwdata/linksys/linksys_ea6100_10

But I will double check regardless and look into running openWRT on a VM and hopefully get results back

Double-check it from the actual hardware.

I didn't know about the OpenWRT data sheet, so my train of thought regarding Marvell was derived from the comments that Linksys engineers had written to their Readme file inside the source package.

Nothing guarantees that those comments are correct, of course. They might've just copy-pasted the skeleton of the file from somewhere else..

EDIT: It seems I was wrong. Even WikiDevi says it's MediaTek MT7620A. Sorry, should've done my own research before jumping to conclusions

(Last edited by Antek on 8 Jun 2017, 20:54)

bookmark

If anyone is interested, currently TigerDirect has this Linksys EA6100 AC1200 Dual-Band Smart Wi-Fi Router – 4x 10/100 RJ-45, USB 2.0, 2 External Antennas, WPA/WPA2, Linksys Smart Wi-Fi App, Parental Control, Beamforming (Refurbished) - EA6100-RM-SEC $29.99 + Free S/H (today - as of this writing) to any US lower 48 addresses.