How to flash ARV7519RW22 with LEDE/OpenWRT

This is a complete howto to use LEDE/OpenWRT on ARV7519RW22

Pre-requirements:

* Pay attention to details. Don't rush up in copying/pasting + some steps are case sensitive !
* UART-to-TTL usb cable.
* Basic soldering skills (you need to do it once)
* GNU/Linux machine (I use Arch Linux) and basic skills using it.
* Usb memory stick formatted with FAT16/FAT32
* Install these packages:
tftp-hpa : tftp server
picocom : terminal emulation program
lrzsz : xmodem, ymodem and zmodem file transfer protocols

to install them in Arch: pacman -Sy tftp-hpa picocom lrzsz

First of all, many thanks to the first OpenWRT/LEDE explorers who have dealt with this router.

You need to solder these pins

Most UART cables come with four connector. Don't connect the one named VCC or 5v.

Only connect GND, RX and TX !!

If not sure, use a multimeter to identify the 5v/VCC connector in your UART cable.

Download these:
uboot.bin - this is the bootloader
lede-arv7519rw22.bin - this is the LEDE (OpenWRT) firmware built May, 27 2016.
lede-arv7519rw22.bin - this is the LEDE (OpenWRT) firmware built June, 20 2016 (rev 750)
lede-arv7519rw22.bin - this is the LEDE (OpenWRT) firmware built July, 03 2016 (rev 865)

After you have soldered those pins, installed required packages and connected the UART usb cable to your Linux machine, open Terminal and issue this command.


I - Making backup of the original firmware

picocom -b 115200  /dev/ttyUSB0

Note: if it tells you you don't have permissions to access /dev/ttyUSB0 then use sudo or associate your user account with the group uucp.

1. Copy this password (ctrl+c or ctrl+shift+c): Oh!123Go

2. As soon as you power up the router quickly hit space bar 3 times

3. When asked for the key/password paste the previously copied password (ctrl+v or ctrl+shift+v)

4. Press  !

5. Press  j  and wait till it finishes booting up

6. Connect a Fat16/32 formatted usb memory stick and wait a few seconds till it gets detected and mounted automatically

7. Type in these instructions one by one followed by enter

cat /dev/mtd0 > /tmp/usb/a1/mtd0.bin
sync
cat /dev/mtd1 > /tmp/usb/a1/mtd1.bin
sync
cat /dev/mtd2 > /tmp/usb/a1/mtd2.bin
sync
cat /dev/mtd3 > /tmp/usb/a1/mtd3.bin
sync
cat /dev/mtd4 > /tmp/usb/a1/mtd4.bin
sync
cat /dev/mtd5 > /tmp/usb/a1/mtd5.bin
sync
cat /dev/mtd6 > /tmp/usb/a1/mtd6.bin
sync
cat /dev/mtd7 > /tmp/usb/a1/mtd7.bin
sync
cat /dev/mtd8 > /tmp/usb/a1/mtd8.bin
sync
cat /dev/mtd9 > /tmp/usb/a1/mtd9.bin
sync
cat /dev/mtd0 > /tmp/usb/a1/mtd0a.bin
sync
cat /dev/mtd1 > /tmp/usb/a1/mtd1a.bin
sync
cat /dev/mtd2 > /tmp/usb/a1/mtd2a.bin
sync
cat /dev/mtd3 > /tmp/usb/a1/mtd3a.bin
sync
cat /dev/mtd4 > /tmp/usb/a1/mtd4a.bin
sync
cat /dev/mtd5 > /tmp/usb/a1/mtd5a.bin
sync
cat /dev/mtd6 > /tmp/usb/a1/mtd6a.bin
sync
cat /dev/mtd7 > /tmp/usb/a1/mtd7a.bin
sync
cat /dev/mtd8 > /tmp/usb/a1/mtd8a.bin
sync
cat /dev/mtd9 > /tmp/usb/a1/mtd9a.bin
sync

8. Now check the signature of the mtd files

md5sum /tmp/usb/a1/mtd*

Every mtdX.bin must have the same signature as mtdXa.bin . Ex: mtd0.bin == mtd0a.bin
if not redo the operation of backing up the original firmware.

9. Unmount and remove the usb afterwards

umount /tmp/usb/a1

Later, you can generate a full dump from those mtd files in case you want to restore the original firmware.

To do that copy them in a folder on your machine, open Terminal from that folder and run this:

cat mtd0.bin mtd1.bin mtd2.bin mtd3.bin mtd4.bin mtd5.bin mtd6.bin mtd7.bin mtd8.bin mtd9.bin > dump.bin

10. Power down you router and press ctrl+a followed by ctrl+q  to  quit picocom

II - Replacing the bootloader with U-Boot

! Pay attention to case sensitivity !

1. On your Linux machine, put the uboot.bin file in a folder and start Terminal from that folder.

2. run picocom with Xmodem support like this:

picocom -b 115200  /dev/ttyUSB0 --send-cmd "sx -vv"

3. Copy this password (ctrl+c or ctrl+shift+c): Oh!123Go

as soon as you power up the router quickly hit space bar 3 times

4. When asked for the key/password paste the previously copied password (ctrl+v or ctrl+shift+v)

5. Press  !

6. Press  U

That's a capital u

7. Press  0

That's a zero

8. Press Y

That's a capital y

9. Then press ctrl+a followed by ctrl+s  and write down uboot.bin as filename and hit enter to start sending it

The process will take 2 to 3 mins to complete. Don't interrupt the process !

At the end of it you will get something like this

Xmodem sectors/kbytes sent: 2533/316kRetry 0: NAK on sector

Retry 0: NAK on sector

Retry 0: No ACK on EOT

Transfer incomplete

*** exit status: 128 ***

erase from location B0020000 done

erase from location B0040000 done

Starting to write flash ...write length 0x0004F300

0123456789abcdefghij

Start checking: flash area 0 length 324352 ...Done.

Note: If you are not sure it went well, don't reboot or power off the router, just redo the flashing steps starting from  !  as explained above.

10. Now that you probably have flashed the new u-boot, power off then power on your router.

You should get something like:

U-Boot 2014.01-openwrt1 (May 16 2014 - 00:08:52) arv7519rw

Board: Lantiq ARV7519RW VRX200 Family Board

SoC:   Lantiq VRX288 v1.2

CPU:   500 MHz

IO:    250 MHz

BUS:   250 MHz

BOOT:  NOR

DRAM:  128 MiB

Flash: 32 MiB

*** Warning - bad CRC, using default environment

In:    serial

Out:   serial

Err:   serial

Net:   ltq-eth

Hit any key to stop autoboot:  0 

Wrong Image Format for bootm command

ERROR: can't get kernel image!

11. Type in this command

printenv

You should get something like this:

addconsole=setenv bootargs $bootargs console=$consoledev,$baudrate

addeth=setenv bootargs $bootargs ethaddr=$ethaddr

addip=setenv bootargs $bootargs ip=$ipaddr:$serverip::::$netdev:off

addmachtype=setenv bootargs $bootargs machtype=arv7519rw

baudrate=115200

bootcmd=bootm ${kernel_addr}

bootdelay=2

consoledev=ttyLTQ1

ethact=ltq-eth

ethaddr=00:01:02:03:04:05

ipaddr=192.168.1.1

load-uboot-nor=tftpboot u-boot.bin

load-uboot-norspl=tftpboot u-boot.ltq.norspl

load-uboot-norspl-lzma=tftpboot u-boot.ltq.lzma.norspl

load-uboot-norspl-lzo=tftpboot u-boot.ltq.lzo.norspl

loadaddr=0x81000000

netdev=eth0

serverip=192.168.1.2

stderr=serial

stdin=serial

stdout=serial

update-uboot-nor=run load-uboot-norspl-lzo write-uboot-nor

write-uboot-nor=protect off 0xB0000000 +$filesize && erase 0xB0000000 +$filesize && cp.b $fileaddr 0xB0000000 $filesize

Environment size: 886/8188 bytes

Keep this picocom terminal open for now and carry on with the below steps.

III - Flashing LEDE firmware

1. Copy lede-arv7519rw22.bin to your tftp server folder:

on Arch:

sudo cp -iv lede-arv7519rw22.bin /srv/tftp/

sudo chmod 644 /srv/tftp/lede-arv7519rw22.bin

ls -l /srv/tftp/

2. Start/restart the tftp server

on Arch or any systemd Linux distro:

sudo systemctl restart tftpd.socket

3. (a boring part)

Connect an ethernet cable between your linux machine and your arv7519rw22 router.

On your linux machine type in terminal:

ip link

you should get something like 

1: lo: mtu 65536 qdisc noqueue state UNKNOWN mode DEFAULT group default qlen 1

    link/loopback 00:00:00:00:00:00 brd 00:00:00:00:00:00

2: enp2s0: mtu 1500 qdisc fq_codel state DOWN mode DEFAULT group default qlen 1000

    link/ether 00:26:18:36:e0:c3 brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff

Let's assume enp2s0 is your ethernet card. If not, adjust its name in the following commands.

Setting up a wired connection:

sudo ip link set enp2s0 down

sudo ip link set enp2s0 up

sudo ip addr flush dev enp2s0

sudo ip addr add 192.168.1.2/24 broadcast 192.168.255.255 dev enp2s0

ip addr show enp2s0

Now back to the picocom terminal, copy/paste these lines one by one. Hit enter after each line to validate.

setenv write-openwrt 'tftpboot lede-arv7519rw22.bin && protect off 0xB0080000 +$filesize && erase 0xB0080000 +$filesize && cp.b $fileaddr 0xB0080000 $filesize'

setenv kernel_addr 0xB0080000

saveenv

run write-openwrt

After a few seconds, you should get something like:

ltq_phy: addr 0, link 0, speed 10, duplex 0
ltq_phy: addr 17, link 1, speed 100, duplex 1
ltq_phy: addr 18, link 0, speed 10, duplex 0
ltq_phy: addr 19, link 0, speed 10, duplex 0
ltq_phy: addr 20, link 0, speed 10, duplex 0
Using ltq-eth device
TFTP from server 192.168.1.2; our IP address is 192.168.1.1
Filename 'lede-arv7519rw22.bin'.
Load address: 0x81000000
Loading: T #################################################################
#################################################################
#################################################################
#################################################################
#################################################################
#################################################################
#################################################################
##########
1.1 MiB/s
done
Bytes transferred = 6815748 (680004 hex)
..................................................... done
Un-Protected 53 sectors

..................................................... done
Erased 53 sectors
Copy to Flash... 10....9....8....7....6....5....4....3....2....1....done

arv7519rw #

Now power off and power on your router or type  reset . You are done ;)

Your router should boot up. Wait till it finish up (it takes 190 seconds the first time, afterwards only 35/45 seconds).

Hit enter to login into LEDE console or browse 192.168.1.1 to do web based config.

IV - Restoring original firmware

What if (for whatever reason) you wanted to return to the original firmware?

As I explained above you should have copied all those mtdX.bin files to a folder and run:

cat mtd0.bin mtd1.bin mtd2.bin mtd3.bin mtd4.bin mtd5.bin mtd6.bin mtd7.bin mtd8.bin mtd9.bin > dump.bin

Now that you have that dump.bin

Copy it to the TFTP server folder:

sudo cp -iv dump.bin /srv/tftp/

sudo chmod 644 /srv/tftp/dump.bin

ls -l /srv/tftp/


Set up your wired connection as explained above:

ip link
sudo ip link set enp2s0 down
sudo ip link set enp2s0 up
sudo ip addr flush dev enp2s0
sudo ip addr add 192.168.1.2/24 broadcast 192.168.255.255 dev enp2s0
ip addr show enp2s0

Connect an ethernet cable between you linux machine and the arv7519rw22 router

Connect the UART cable too.

Open a picocom terminal like:

picocom -b 115200  /dev/ttyUSB0


On it type (line by line followed by enter)

tftpboot dump.bin

run write-uboot-nor

reset



That's all !