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Edgecore ECW5211 L T

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Jakov Petrina edited this page Jun 11, 2021 · 1 revision

Introduction

Edgecore ECW5211-L (T) is a managed network acess point featuring a quad-core Cortex-A7 ARMv7-A SoC, concurrent dual band 802.11ac Wawe-2 radios, 2x 1G RJ45 copper network ports, 1x Type-A USB port.

Building

To build firmware for the ECW5211-L (T) using Replica.one, first clone the main repository as described in docs/QUICKSTART.md.

Next, invoke the build process using make:

make CTARGET=armv7a-unknown-linux-gnueabihf package_ecw5211-l-t

Sample (cached) build can be seen here:

asciicast

Firmware

A successful build will generate the following files in the output/ directory:

  • gentoo-arm-ipq40xx-ecw5211-l-t.ubi — a UBI packaged root filesystem image for installation and updating
  • sysdesc-arm-ipq40xx-ecw5211-l-t.txt — a description of the system installation, including installed packages, package sizes, list of root filesystem contents, etc.

Flashing

The gentoo-arm-ipq40xx-ecw5211-l-t.ubi UBI packaged root filesystem image is used for installation and updating.

UART flashing method

This method requires UART acess as described below.

UART access

ECW5211-L provides serial console connection via 4 pin header on the PCB.

Device needs to be opened in order to connect to the UART console.

Device can be opened via removing 4 screws on the bottom of the device and then popping the plastic clips.

UART console is then easily visible as a 4 pin already soldered header near the ethernet ports.

Pins are marked on the PCB silkscreen at the header.

3.3V UART to USB adapter is then needed (5V version may damage your device).

It can then be accessed with the following settings:

Baud rate: 115200
Data bits: 8
Stop bits: 1
Parity: None
Flow control: None

Loading OpenWrt intermediary image

Prebuilt and verified image to be used is: openwrt-ipq40xx-generic-edgecore_ecw5211-initramfs-fit-uImage.itb

TFTP server should be running and connected to the device via the Ethernet port with PoE support.

Initramfs image should be stored in the working directory of the TFTP server.

TFTP servers that can serve images via DHCP are also supported.

Device IP address: 192.168.1.11 Server IP address: 192.168.1.2

But please note that they can vary according to your environment.

Steps are as follows:

  1. Enter U-boot command console:
    • Power on the device, an once Hit any key to stop autoboot is visible hit Enter key
  2. Set device and TFTP server IP addresses
    • Set the desired device IP address with: setenv ipaddr 192.168.1.11
    • Set the desired TFTP server IP address with: setenv serverip 192.168.1.2
  3. Load the initramfs image via TFTP
    • Load the image with the following command: tftpboot 0x84000000 openwrt-ipq40xx-generic-edgecore_ecw5211-initramfs-fit-uImage.itb
  4. Run the image from RAM
    • Run the initramfs image from ram with: bootm

You may now proceed to the Flashing the Replica image which is shared for both methods.

Flashing from TIP firmware

This method doesnt require UART acess or opening the device case, but it requires a custom OpenWrt image for migrating off TIP FW.

Migrating from TIP to OpenWrt

Due to partition layout differences when migrating from TIP FW to OpenWrt a custom image is required for the first flash. Prebuilt and verified image to be used is: openwrt-ipq40xx-generic-edgecore_ecw5211-squashfs-nand-sysupgrade.bin

Steps are as follows:

  1. Connect your PC/notebook to the port marked Eth2(non PoE) ECW5211 port
  2. Setup a fixed IP on your device with the following:
    • IP: Any IP in the 192.168.1.X subnet except for 192.168.1.1
    • Subnet mask: /24
  3. Power it on
  4. After booting up, the power LED stops blinking with stable orange light.
  5. SSH into the AP at 192.168.1.1, username is root password should be blank. If no password doesnt work then try openwifi as password
  6. scp the openwrt-ipq40xx-generic-edgecore_ecw5211-squashfs-nand-sysupgrade.bin to /tmp.
    • Example: scp openwrt-ipq40xx-generic-edgecore_ecw5211-squashfs-nand-sysupgrade.bin [email protected]:/tmp
  7. Trigger sysupgrade:
    • sysupgrade -n /tmp/openwrt-ipq40xx-generic-edgecore_ecw5211-squashfs-nand-sysupgrade.bin You will see the yellow power LED blinking while its flashing. Now, due to a bug in the TIP FW the device wont ever reboot itself after the flashing is done. To correct that just pull the power and power it back AFTER the yellow power LED stops flashing.

OpenWrt will now boot and you may now proceed to the Flashing the Replica image which is shared for both methods.

Flashing the Replica image

After the OpenWrt image is booted, flashing Replica is possible.

First, an SSH connection to OpenWrt is required:

  1. Connect your PC/notebook to the port marked Eth2(non PoE) ECW5211 port
  2. Setup a fixed IP on your device with the following:
    • IP: Any IP in the 192.168.1.X subnet except for 192.168.1.1
    • Subnet mask: /24
  3. Power it on
  4. After booting up, the power LED stops blinking with stable orange light. The PC should receive an 192.168.1.xx network segment from the ECW5211-L Eth2
  5. SSH into the AP at 192.168.1.1, username is root password will be blank.

Flashing steps are as follows:

  1. Place the gentoo-arm-ipq40xx-ecw5211-l-t.ubi image into /tmp
    • To do so, SCP may be used like in the Migrating from TIP to OpenWrt section
  2. Verify partition layout
    • Run cat /proc/mtd
    • Layout should be the following:
    root@OpenWrt:/# cat /proc/mtd 
dev:    size   erasesize  name
mtd0: 00040000 00010000 "0:SBL1"
mtd1: 00020000 00010000 "0:MIBIB"
mtd2: 00060000 00010000 "0:QSEE"
mtd3: 00010000 00010000 "0:CDT"
mtd4: 00010000 00010000 "0:DDRPARAMS"
mtd5: 00010000 00010000 "0:APPSBLENV"
mtd6: 00080000 00010000 "0:APPSBL"
mtd7: 00010000 00010000 "0:ART"
mtd8: 04000000 00020000 "rootfs"
mtd9: 0c000000 00020000 "replica"
  3. Write the image to replica partition
    • Run: ubiformat /dev/mtd9 -y -f /tmp/gentoo-arm-ipq40xx-ecw5211-l-t.ubi
  4. Setup the U-boot environment
    • Run: fw_setenv active 'replica'
    • Run: fw_setenv mtdparts 'mtdparts=nand1:64m(openwrt),192m(replica)'
    • Run: fw_setenv run1 'ubi part ${active}'
    • Run: fw_setenv run2 'ubi read 84000000 kernel'
    • Run: fw_setenv set_openwrt_bootargs 'setenv bootargs ubi.mtd=rootfs'
    • Run: fw_setenv set_replica_bootargs 'setenv bootargs ubi.mtd=replica root=ubi0:rootfs rootfstype=ubifs rw'
    • Run: fw_setenv bootcmd 'run set_${active}_bootargs && run run1 && run run2 && bootm'
  5. Run reboot

Device notes

By default booting is switched to Replica.One image after flashing, but by changing the active U-boot variable it is possible to switch booting to OpenWrt again by: fw_setenv active 'openwrt'

Then to switch back to Replica, just run: fw_setenv active 'replica'

The custom OpenWrt prebuilt image that gets used for migrating of TIP and then flashing Replica is needed only for that. After you have flashed replica you may sysupgrade to a prebuilt OpenWrt ECW5211 image from OpenWrt buildbots or use your own.

The recording below shows the procedure for flashing the Replica.one firmware:

asciicast

Lastly, the recording below shows the entire boot process:

asciicast

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