[ale] Unhalfbricking WRT54GL

[Geoffrey]

I don't know why, but reading this gave me the image of two little kids 
playing in a sandbox.... ;)  Sounds like a fun day.

Charles Shapiro wrote:
> (Apologies to Sandy Denny)
> 
> Well, I'm pretty stupid. But I have smart friends. I've been experimenting
> with radio networking on the Linksys WRT54GL. This is the Linksys router
> which allows you to use openwrt ( http://openwrt.org/ ) to do various
> advanced radio networking tasks. In particular, I want to have a radio
> hotspot with an intro page which'll display the first time you try to use a
> browser to connect to a site through it, as many coffee shops have.  I
> managed to get coova ( http://coova.org/ ) loaded on the WRT54GL the first
> time without difficulty, but I had some troubles and decided to go back the
> the original Linksys firmware to aid in diagnosing them. That's when I
> foolishly destroyed the resident kernel, probably by unplugging the device
> before it had finished writing the new kernel to its NVRAM.
> 
> The device still responded to a ping(1) request, but I couldn't ssh(1) to it
> or get any web pages off of it. Hence, it was pretty much out of control,
> yet not fully bricked.  These routers are designed to let you use tftp to
> load a clean kernel in this situation. I installed the Ubunutu Edgy Eft tftp
> client on my laptop, started the WRT54GL in tftp server mode by holding down
> the reset key while cycling the power, and tried to load a new kernel on it.
> My client said the transfer worked, but the new kernel persistently failed
> to boot -- the power light kept flashing, the "dmz" light never came on, and
> I couldn't bring any web pages up on it.
> 
> Sunday afternoon I went over to Jim's place to hang out and drink homebrew,
> and I brought the recalcitrant router and my laptop with me. We futzed
> around with it for a while, permanently destroying the warranty by
> disassembling it, doing various arcane hardware things (like, shorting
> various pins on the board to other pins) to see if we could figure out my
> problemo. Much entertainment, and yet no joy.
> 
> Finally, it was Jim Kinney who noticed that my tftp client had a "binary"
> mode, but it was not the default. We switched the client to binary, did the
> "hold down reset key and power on" thing, and then transferred a VALID
> kernel onto it. The machine proceeded to write the kernel to NVRAM, boot,
> display a steady power light and a steady "DMZ" light, and display the
> linksys configuration page to my browser.  Then I turned it off and put it
> aside.
> 
> Moral of the story: Make sure you're transferring binary files in binary
> mode (d'OH!).
> 
> -- CHS
> 
> 
> 
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-- 
Until later, Geoffrey

Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little
temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.
  - Benjamin Franklin