I'm trying to get OpenWRT onto my Linksys EA7500. It doesn't recognize the
OpenWRT firmware as a valid image, and apparently you can TFTP the image to
it if you connect a serial cable to the headers on the board.

I bought a USB to serial cable with separate leads, but misread the
instructions. The router has a 3.3v ttl serial and I plugged a 5v serial
lead into it.

I looked around and found a proper TTL cable, and I'm trying with it.

Now, when I try to get any output from the serial port, I get nothing. I may
have fried the serial port (or I'm missing something). It's a shame, but
it's a perfectly usable router with the stock firmware.

One nice thing about certain Linksys routers is that they have dual
firmware. If it fails to boot three times, it'll fall back to the secondary
firmware image. Keep a stock image on one side, OpenWRT on the other and you
can switch back and forth by powering it up and down 3 times before it fully
boots.




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On 9/23/2021 7:24 AM, poindexter FORTRAN wrote:
> I'm trying to get OpenWRT onto my Linksys EA7500. It doesn't recognize the
> OpenWRT firmware as a valid image, and apparently you can TFTP the image to
> it if you connect a serial cable to the headers on the board.
>
> I bought a USB to serial cable with separate leads, but misread the
> instructions. The router has a 3.3v ttl serial and I plugged a 5v serial
> lead into it.
>
> I looked around and found a proper TTL cable, and I'm trying with it.
>
> Now, when I try to get any output from the serial port, I get nothing. I may
> have fried the serial port (or I'm missing something). It's a shame, but
> it's a perfectly usable router with the stock firmware.
>
> One nice thing about certain Linksys routers is that they have dual
> firmware. If it fails to boot three times, it'll fall back to the secondary
> firmware image. Keep a stock image on one side, OpenWRT on the other and you
> can switch back and forth by powering it up and down 3 times before it fully
> boots.

Not familiar with your specific device, but as far as I know, many
modern routers will not even load unsigned firmware anymore (FCC).

You may be better off using pfsense or openwrt on your own hardware
(non-router), even an rpi, and using a dedicated AP device for wifi.

Using ubiquity edgemax router and separate ap here.
--
Michael J. Ryan - tracker1@roughneckbbs.com
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