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README.md

Firmware Tools

HOW-TO

  1. Install the dependencies squashfs-tools, binwalk, xxxd, cksfv.

  2. Download the manufacturer's firmware from http://riga.corp.ubnt.com/file/stable/AFi-R.qca956x.v{VERSION}.bin.

    • {VERSION} can be found in the information section of the router's mobile application, for example 3.1.2.0-g5de4b81633.

  3. ./unpack_firmware.sh vanilla.bin vanilla.bin.squashfs

    • vanilla.bin is your firmware file downloaded from the manufacturer.

  4. ./unpack_squashfs.sh vanilla.bin.squashfs

  5. Make your changes to the firmware files in squashfs-root.

  6. ./pack_squashfs.sh vanilla.bin_custom.squashfs

  7. ./make_firmware.sh vanilla.bin vanilla.bin_custom.squashfs vanilla_custom.bin

  8. vanilla_custom.bin is your custom firmware!

unpack_firmware.sh

unpack_firmware.sh extracts the OpenWRT firmware, which is in the format of a SquashFS file, from the manufacturer's firmware file.

Arguments
Name Explanation
vanilla_firmware Path to the manufacturer's firmware
output_squashfs_file The path for the resulting SquashFS file we've extracted
Return codes
Code Explanation
0 Successfully extracted the OpenWRT firmware SquashFS file
1 Invalid arguments or file doesn't exist
2 Output file contains no or multiple SquashFS filesystems
3 SquashFS filesystem header and wc reports different sizes
4 SquashFS filesystem has wrong blocksize (expects 262144)
5 SquashFS filesystem is not compressed with xz
6 vanilla_firmware contains no or multiple SquashFS filesystems

unpack_squashfs.sh

unpack_squashfs.sh extracts the SquashFS filesystem using unsquashfs to the squashfs-root folder.

Arguments
Name Explanation
squashfs_file Path to the SquashFS file to extract
Return codes
Code Explanation
0 Successfully unsquashed the SquashFS file
1 Invalid arguments

pack_squashfs.sh

pack_squashfs.sh makes a SquashFS filesystem using mksquashfs from the contents of the squashfs-root folder.

Arguments
Name Explanation
out_squashfs_file The path for the resulting SquashFS file
Return codes
Code Explanation
0 Successfully squashed squashfs-root into a SquashFS file
1 Invalid arguments or squashfs-root doesn't exist

make_firmware.sh

make_firmware.sh takes the manufacturer's firmware and replaces the current OpenWRT firmware SquashFS file in it with the one passed to the script.

Arguments
Name Explanation
vanilla_firmware Path to the manufacturer's firmware
squashfs_file Path to an OpenWRT firmware SquashFS file
output_firmware The path for the resulting firmware
Return codes
Code Explanation
0 Successfully created the firmware
1 Invalid arguments or file doesn't exist
2 squashfs_file contains no or multiple SquashFS filesystems
3 squashfs_file filesystem header and wc reports different sizes
4 squashfs_file filesystem has wrong blocksize (expects 262144)
5 squashfs_file filesystem is not compressed with xz
6 vanilla_firmware contains no or multiple SquashFS filesystems