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FAQ - Frequently Asked Questions

1. I installed FreeWRT and now my device is not working anymore, what to do?

If you want to fix the system, keep cool. Try following stuff in this order:

• Does the device response via ICMP on LAN/WAN or WLAN? If yes, try to connect via secure shell.
• Go into failsafe mode to start a telnet daemon and connect via telnet 192.168.1.1
• Get a serial connection to the device and see what is wrong. You can see the output of the bootloader, kernel and system. You get a command line prompt in the bootloader and you can reflash.
• Not very often it happens that your bootloader is deleted. If this is the case, you can try to fix it via JTAG recovery method.

2. Is support for Kernel 2.6 on Broadcom devices planned?

Yes, it is. But the wireless driver for the Broadcom wireless chip is closed source and not available for 2.6. There is a reversed engineered driver and we will try to make a brcm-2.6 port for 1.1 with this driver included.

3. My make version is too old?

If you use Debian GNU/Linux 3.1, you can issue the following command to override the version check of GNU make:
$ make prereq-noerror
Do this only if you know what you're doing - normally, GNU make 3.81 is required, because GNU make 3.80 does not work correctly. The Debian team seems to have patched their version of GNU make 3.80, so that it works.

4. Device is pingable, but ssh is not working''

• We have a multi-user system. Please connect as unprivileged user "admin" and use "su -" to get superuser (root) privileges. If you fill in a public key in the menu based configuration, you can login directly through ssh public key method as root.
• Optional you can copy your public key to /etc/dropbear/authorized_keys to login as root directly.

5. How do I configure the device?

• The default password for the "admin" user is "FreeWRT", unless you changed that in the ADK menu-based configuration. The WIB does not yet support changing passwords.
• No, there isn't a web interface (yet).
  
  Maybe you should read the handbook.

6. How do I flash BIN files?

First, get the flash.sh script. You also need either mksh (recommended) or GNU bash on your computer. Connect one of the router’s LAN ports with the PC and configure the PC’s network interface (eth0, vr0, etc.) as 192.168.1.2 or similar (the router, in TFTP mode, will have the IP 192.168.1.1). Then power on the router while holding the RESET button pressed. The POWER LED will blink slowly.
Type $ mksh flash.sh -F freewrt-*.bin (substitute bash for mksh if you don’t have the Korn shell)
Do not use the -F option if you want to retain your changes to /etc already done. Always use -F if upgrading from the original firmware, OpenWrt?, DD-WRT, x-WRT or so. Afterwards, follow the instructions on the screen.

This method is relatively new. You can also use the alternative method below, which does not require the PC, but is sometimes much slower. On the other hand, flashing via mtd does not have the 4MB size limit on images some Linksys models have when using TFTP/flash.sh.

Just use mtd to flash the files. mtd will convert the file automatically. If you update from another distribution please use this version of mtd: http://www.freewrt.org/downloads/tools/mtd-static

To upgrade, use something like
$ mtd -e linux -r write freewrt*.bin linux
$ mtd -e fwrt_all -r write freewrt*.bin fwrt_all
$ mtd -e linux -e fwcf -r write freewrt*.bin linux
The first command is for upgrading from OpenWrt? (includes erasing of fwcf, as OpenWrt? does not use fwcf), or upgrading FreeWRT while retaining the fwcf partition. The second command is for erasing the FWCF partition as well, like flash.sh -F. The third command is the same as the second command, but used in case the system was running FreeWRT 1.0 until now, as the fwrt_all partition is new in FreeWRT 1.1.

7. I have already tried some of the other *WRT distributions, how I make an update to FreeWRT?

We have no web interface, so be really sure you want FreeWRT. If you still decide to use FreeWRT, the only reliable update is via the original firmware. If you try to update via TFTP, there is a very good chance that FreeWRT will not boot. So use the documentation of your old distribution to revert back to the original firmware of the vendor. After that use the web update mechanism from the vendor to install FreeWRT.