Entware (software packages) for R7500

Impression of R7500: very good hardware, but very bad software (I mean official fw). Firmware from NETGEAR is too dirty. Made from OpenWRT, a lot of scripts/configs which are not used (left from OpenWRT codes). It is possible to use R7500 more or less comfortable if to disable practically all features of official fw and enabling what is needed by use of Entware and chroot-ed Debian.

Currently I have more or less good environment. Dropbear from Entware (SSH daemon) is started automatically from external HDD after each reboot or attaching HDD to router. It allows me to enter to router console for installation anfd configuration of Entware programs/daemons and/or  Debian packages like nginx, ownCloud, Transmission.Waiting for opensource fw...

Automatization is possible by modification of /sbin/hotplug2.mount script from official fw. It is executed every time when you connect HDD to router. So changing mount options (disabling noexecute) and adding call of own script from HDD I got SSH daemon and start of chroot-ed Debian daemons.

Also, seems official fw underclock R7500 CPU. It works from 800 to 1000MHz. Very strange for me. Script /etc/init.d/powerctl set such freq. I modified it to use full power of R7500 (1400MHz). CPU benchmark of R7500 with 1.4GHz vs overclocled ASUS RT-AC68U (1.0GHz) displays what could be expected. R7500 is faster in 1.35-1.4 times. It also means that R7500 faster than R7000 and R8000 in 1.35-1.4 times. So perhaps goal of underclocking R7500 is to push R8000 and R7000 to the market.

Now my R7500 serves ownCloud server, nginx web-server, proftp, bit-torrent Transmission, minidlna with enabled thumbnails, SSH daemond, samba daemon with my settings/permissions, OpenVPN with tun and tap. True 1.4GHz CPU.

Waiting for opensource fw...
I can share my experience with R7500 environment setting if there is an interest.
 

Hi Dennis,
I'm afraid, there is no free space w/o external storage to install Entware:

root@nighthawk:~# df
Filesystem 1k-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on
tmpfs 512 0 512 0% /dev
ubi0:ubifs 4012 56 3716 1% /overlay
overlayfs:/overlay 4012 56 3716 1% /

Only 3.7MB are available. My minimal installation of Entware (wget, mc, dropbear (==SSH), samba, swaputils) takes about 21MB... So external HDD/USB stick is needed. R7500 have enough flash space, but I do not know where/ho it is used and why is not available.
In general, you can unlock CPU frequency w/o SSH (dropbear) installation. It is enough to use telnetenable (see my first post), enter by telnet to router, modify the file /etc/init.d/powerctl by vi editor.
Modify the line at the end of this file:

config_get mode powerctl mode "auto"

to

config_get mode powerctl mode "turbo"

That's all. Reboot after modification. Now your router will be always with 1.4GHz CPU.

If you want to use USB stick or so, it is better to format is as HPS+ (Apple FS). By unclear for me (yet) reason R7500 mounts ext2/ext3/ext4 filesystems with permissions 777 (full control). SSH does not like such permissions.

If any questions - welcome.

Be carefull with modification of /etc/init.d/powerctl. You can brick your router in case of incorrect manipulations.

It is difficult to share all what I made. I do not know concrete needs. Most of people are interested in OpenWRT or DD-WRT. But in general all what I need from firmware:

1) Usual router functionality (fast LAN/Wi-Fi, port forwarding). This is provided by official FW from Netgear.

2) Support of USB/eSATA HDD (to have possibility of Entware and Debian use from them).

3) SSH/Telnet access to router command line for Entware/Debian setup/confiruration.

I am not much interested in exactly OpenWRT/DD-WRT. Because w/o software packages such FW are useless. When Entware/Debian provide more than enough.

I am interested in stable opensource FW only because there is no normal access to command line in official FW. This is why I made all these hacks.

Now I succeeded to install dropbear (==SSH) to official FW (w/o needs in attached external HDD/stick). Fortunately, dropbearmulti binary from ASUS RT-AC68U (Merlin build) is compatible with R7500. Takes only about 200KB of space. So in case of problems with external HDD I have possibility to enter to router Linux and repair them.

So if you are interested in something concrete - please concrete questions. I really do not know what for example you want to have at the end of all. How to install Entware to official FW is described. It is more easy to do with OpenWRT I guess using the same instruction. I have SSH access to router with official FW mod. It is practically what I need from FW. All "advantages" of official FW (samba, minidlna, FTP server, OpenVPN etc) are disabled (turned off) in FW by me and I use Entware and chroot-ed Debian analogs. More stable. More possibilities. More flexible. No dependence on FW bugs.

OK, small instruction (from my experience) how to install dropbear to R7500 (to have SSH server) with official FW. W/o external HDD/USB-stick.

NOTE: I assume basic experience with Linux tools and console. If you do not have such experience - better do not do all this. I am not responsible for bricked routers due to wrong manipulations.

You need (at the first step) telnetenable to your router.

1) Download https://yadi.sk/d/vDHnWo9LgWKFM (dropbear.tar.gz)

It contains usr/bin/dropbearmulti - binary compatible with R7500 and with symbol links in the same directory (dbclient, ssh, dropbear etc. which are (important!) symbol links to dropbearmulti). Also etc/init.d/powerctl - modified init script which:

a) Sets R7500 to turbo mode (1.4GHz)
b) Runs dropbear (SSH daemon) at the boot time
c) Modifies /etc/passwd changing its home from /tmp to /root (see below why)

2) Copy files from TAR-archive to corresponding place (/etc and /usr/bin). Using console tools by telnet to your router. With keeping +x (executable) attributes for /usr/bin file/links. Use links to dropbearmuli to keep free space of router flash.

To enter it by SSH client you need some additional manipulation (again, I assume basic knowledge of Linux tools including SSH):

3) Create own SSH key and store it in the /root/.ssh/authorized_keys file. Make sure that this file has 600 mask. We do not have root password so SSH key authorization is IMO most proper case. See google re: how to create/use SSH keys.

4) The reason why I change the root's home from /tmp to /root in powerctl is that /tmp has 777 attribute. Not acceptable for SSH login with SSH key.

5) Reboot and after this you will have dropbear (SSH daemon) started. Port 22.

IMPORTANT: For test and checking that your SSH keys are workable I suggest to run dropbear manually from console, changing /etc/passwd manually

root:!:0:0:root:/tmp:/bin/ash --> root:!:0:0:root:/root:/bin/ash

and by creation of /root/.ssh/authorized_keys before reboot. Just run "dropbear -p 22 -a" and try to enter by SSH with keys to your router's root. If something is wrong: better to return all back and check what is wrong.

That's all.

Hi Zdenko!

Concerning your questions:

Q1. Is it possible to use packages from http://qnapware.zyxmon.org/binaries-armv7/Packages.html ? Or else is there any other packages repository for that router?
A1. Yes of course you can use packages from this link (many thanks to Zyxmon). It is exactly Entware repository.

Q2. In your first post you have not described how to manage Entware installed apps. Do I have to for instance stop a service, edit config file for that service save it and start service again.? Or else do I have a web interface for any (Samba, FTP server, VPN service..)
A2. Entware is managed from router console (by telnet or ssh after having ssh access). With use of opkg program. For example: "opkg install dropbear" will install dropbear. "opkg remove dropbear" removes it. There is no web interface for these packages, just config files.
The reason why I published already installed Entware (with small subset of installed applications) is that standard wget from Netgear environment fails to download packages from Entware repository (Zyxmon site). It is just to simplify initial environment of Entware. I used this environment on my ASUS RT-AC68U router.

Q3. Power loss - Do I have to manually start entware with login through SSH? SSH service is Entware, so can not be started remote.
A3. Please see my post #7. It describes how to use SSH even w/o Entware and external USB HDD/stick. I do use such approach now, and I do not use SSH from Entware. Only other packages such as samba, midnight commander etc.

Q4. The must be on my R7500 are:
A4. All this is available from Entware. Plus official FW functionality. Only you need USB HDD/stick for Entware.

Q5. Additions missing on original FW that I would like to use
A5. Also available from Entware. Only necessary to understand how to configure all daemons you need. Not so dufficult if you are familiar with Linux console, tools.

I have now:

SSH daemon started with router boot even w/o external storage
Samba server from Entware with different right for users (my config)
Set of chroot-ed Debian daemons:
Transmission
ProFTP daemon with SSL
nginx Web server
OpenVPN with two my own configs (TUN and TAP)
ownCloud
minidlna
etc etc etc

I suggest you to try Entware, then (maybe) you will be interested in chroot-ed Debian. The last is just normal Linux. I even compile my own packages under Debian and for this Debian if necessary. Directly on router.

Also I wrote above that I suggest to use external storage (USB HDD/stick) with HFSPLUS filesystem. Native ext2/ext3/ext4 FS are mounted with 777 access attributes for all files. I do not know why. Maybe with OpenWRT it is not so.

To start Entware daemons automatically after reboot and to mount external USB HDD I changed /sbin/hotplug2.mount script. Removing "noexec" option in mount command. And adding such condition after mounting:

if [ -f /mnt/$1/autorun/scripts/post-mount.sh ]; then
/mnt/$1/autorun/scripts/post-mount.sh $1 &
fi

So if I have in my external HDD script post-mount.sh in /autorun/scripts directory, it will be executed after reboot or after plugging HDD to already started router. hotplug2.mount is executed after attaching HDD to router automatically (or after reboot).

Have a nice day too.

Chris

Installation of chroot-ed Debianis described here:

https://www.asuswrt.eu/how-to-install-debian-wheezy-arm/

It is for ASUS ARM routers, but practically the same is for R7500 if you understand what you are doing. Instruction from link above contains also link to archive with Debian itself. Only thing is how to start Debian services after router reboot. In instruction above you can see reference to scripts which are started during boot from /jffs/scripts directory. No such possibility in R7500. So there should be trick with other startup scripts from R7500. For example I suggest to use something like I pointed above with modification of hotplug2.mount script from /sbin directory. And note about use of HFS+ for your external HDD/stick where Debian and/or Entware will be used. Mount of your HFS+ external partition should be done w/o "noexecute" option and with removing the command after mount "chmod -R 777" which sets 777 permission for all files in official FW.

From the other hand, if you need only OpenVPN and all the rest is not interesting, I do not think that you need Debian. Entware IMO is enough. I use Debian because of a lot of daemons I need from Debian. Including my own.

Concerning OpenVPN itself. Does not matter Debian or Entware. There is Netgear FW specific needed to be solved to run your own daemon. First, I modified openvpn script from /etc/init.d to force it creation of needed interfaces always, even if OpenVPN is disabled in WebUI of R7500. Part of /etc/init.d/openvpn script after my modification:

start() {
set_up_ethernet_bridge

# open the door to let client in
net-wall rule
net-wall start
}

I.e. I removed all checking "is OpenVPN is enabled in WebUI".

Second, Netgear has own strange specific for firewall rules. It does not use "iptables" directly, and changes firewall too often sp even if you run "iptables" manually it can be spoiled. Netgear runs its own program net-wall. Logic of program is:

1) Execution of "net-wall rules" generates file /tmp/netwall-rules to open ports.

2) Execution of "net-wall start" uses this generated file /tmp/netwall-rules to start firewall according to /tmp/netwall-rules.

So I patched this firewall strange scheme:

a) Rename /usr/bin/net-wall to /usr/bin/net-wall-prog (it is precompiled binary)

b) Create own script /usr/bin/net-wall:

----------------------------------------
#!/bin/sh

/usr/sbin/net-wall-prog $*
if [ "$1" = "rule" ]; then
if [ -f /root/firewall-start.txt ]; then
mv /tmp/netwall-rules /tmp/netwall-rules.txt
cat /root/firewall-start.txt > /tmp/netwall-rules
cat /tmp/netwall-rules.txt >> /tmp/netwall-rules
rm /tmp/netwall-rules.txt
fi
fi
----------------------------------------

to add my rules which are in /root/firewall-start.txt text file. My rules are added to /tmp/netwall-rules every time when R7500 runs "net-wall rules" so I can open ports I need.

Concerning use of OpenVPN with your settings - I am not a very big specialist in OpenVPN. If you have your own workable configs of OpenVPN and CA/CRT/EY files, all should work. Maybe you need neither Entware nor Debian. Just your own configs, modification of /etc/init.d/openvpn as above to create OpenVPN ethernet bridge, then open your ports using modification of net-wall above and run openvpn included to official FW with your configs.

Zdenko? I'm glad if my experience with R7500 could help.
Also, glad to see Linux user.

My experience: SCO->IRIX->HP-UX->AIX->Linux  and then Windows, Windows, Windows, Windows.... So R7500 is a kind of rest.

Chris, good luck!

My yesterday's answer still is not published. Censorship? If this forum is working under Netgear control - I do NOT write anything what could be estimated as something against your (Netgear) production. Vice versa, I think that possibility to tune/modify such raw FW would help Netgear with R7500 sales.

Dennis,
Just also create for example dropbear RSA host key and put it into /etc/dropbear directory. I.e. you should have:

/etc/dropbear/dropbear_rsa_host_key

NOTE: Create exactly dropbear host key, not OpenSSH or so. This key is binary file, not text. Google should help to find how to create your own unique dropbear RSA hostkey. Or run

dropbear --help

to see option for host keys creation.

Voxel

wholly,

See my answer to Dennis (SSH). Add /etc/dropbear/dropbear_rsa_host_key to your router.

To check that your CPU is always 1.4GHz - I do not know exactly how to help you. I used benchmarks to check this. You cannot run my benchmarks w/o Debian installation.

Try to run "cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_setspeed", you should get:

root@nighthawk:~# cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_setspeed
1400000

and for second core:

root@nighthawk:~# cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu1/cpufreq/scaling_setspeed
1400000

Voxel

2all:

This forum is often frozen. My answers sometimes are not published or published with delay. Write me PM if you need more fast answer. I'll try to help when have a time frame.

Voxel.

Hi Dennis,

Just create /etc/dropbear directory:

mkdir /etc/dropbear
cp dropbear_rsa_host_key /etc/dropbear
chmod 600 /etc/dropbear/dropbear_rsa_host_key

Voxel

Forgot to add, how to easely generate RSA host key:

cd /tmp
/usr/bin/dropbearkey -t rsa -f dropbear_rsa_host_key

then:

mkdir /etc/dropbear
cp dropbear_rsa_host_key /etc/dropbear
chmod 600 /etc/dropbear/dropbear_rsa_host_key

Voxel