RouterTech firmware v20060506 - SWAMR-54108/SWART2/GWART2

Software and Firmware releases made by our in-house development team. You may not post here, but subscribing to this forum will allow you to be notified of all new releases, and this is recommended. Support for releases will be provided in the Software/Firmware forums.
User avatar
RouterTech Team
RouterTech Team
Posts: 2670
Joined: Fri Jan 20, 2006 11:30 am
Location: London

RouterTech firmware v20060506 - SWAMR-54108/SWART2/GWART2

Post by Kieran » Sun May 07, 2006 12:51 pm

Author: RouterTech Development Team (thechief, biro)
Version: 20060506

NOTE: this firmware has been superceded by a newer version. You can get the latest version here: viewtopic.php?p=11060

This firmware has been built for the family of routers based on the TI AR7WRD platform (specifics shown in the compatibility section of this release and in the documentation provided with the firmware). Reading the documentation below, and that included with this firmware is essential to ensure successful flashing. Support for this firmware can only be obtained in the firmware forum of this site. Bug reports should be filed in the same forum, with a prefix to the the thread title of [BUG]. This will allow the development team to read, discuss and fix the bug before updating the firmware and closing the thread.

NB: Use this firmware at your own risk. While the RouterTech development team make every effort to ensure that firmwares released are reliable and functional, testing on all routers in a given family is impossible, and so errors may occur of a minor or serious nature that the developers have no control over.

You should take the precautions listed below BEFORE trying to upgrade your firmware. And even then, things can still go badly wrong.

For FULL compatibility, the following features are required on your router, although partial compatibility should be possible without *some* of the features:-
# The Texas Instruments AR7WRD platform (SANGAM / AVALANCHE)
# TNETD7300GDU - with a MIPS32 processor, DSP-based digital transceiver, ADSL analog
# Texas Instruments TNETW1130 wireless (TNETW1130 (ACX111) converged Single-Chip MAC and Baseband Processor
# The Marvell 88E6060 switch
# MontaVista Linux (2.14.17 kernel) with similar options enabled
# uClibc (0.9.19)
# Busybox (0.61.pre) command shell
# The PSPBoot boot loader (do NOT try to flash this firmware to a router using the Adam2 bootloader)
# Squashfs/LZMA 1.x filesystem
# 4 ethernet ports
# USB port

Functional Routers
From published specifications, some of the following routers may be compatible with this firmware, but ONLY if they are using the PSPBoot bootloader:-
* Netcomm NB5PLUS4W
* Safecom SWAMR-54108/54125; SWART2-54125; GWART2-54125
* Acorp W400G
* Roper FLYNET ADSL2/2+
* Castlenet ASW800
* Lantech AWR-5000G
* Solwise SAR-600EW ADSL2/2+ (uses Adam2 bootloader)
* Aztech DSL 600EW (uses Adam2 bootloader ???)
* Addon SOHOSpeed/GWAR3000 (uses Adam2 bootloader ???)

If your router is using Adam2, then it will NOT be compatible (and you should not try to upgrade to it - otherwise, your router WILL become an expensive brick!).

In order to ascertain the bootloader that your router is using, you should telnet ot ssh to the router, and run the command:

Code: Select all

cat /proc/ticfg/env
If the "bootloaderVersion" is 1.2.x, AND the "PROMPT" contains something like "psbl" then your router is not using the Adam2 bootloader, and would probably be compatible.

you try upgrading to this firmware, you are advised to take the following precautions:
1. Run the "cat /proc/ticfg/env" (as above) to check that the environment variable called "IPA" is set to - and, if not, then set it to (or to whatever you use normally). This is how to do it (from the router's shell command line):

Code: Select all

 echo IPA > /proc/ticfg/env 
2. Get and install a copy of the PCTool (not to make any changes but just connect) to the router with it, so that you can get a 'feel' for the timing etc. You will need the PCTool to recover the router if the firmware upgrade process goes wrong, and "bricks" your router.

You can get the PCTool here: viewtopic.php?t=335

IF SOMETHING GOES WRONG, and your router becomes a "brick"
You will need to attempt a rescue. See the details here: viewtopic.php?t=242

The following have been changed/improved on compared to stock firmwares (from manufacturers):
1. Removed the user "isp" and password "isp" from the default config.xml. The presence of these settings in the default config.xml was a serious security risk, in that it meant that anyone with access to your PC can login to the router as "isp, isp" and the begin to wreak havoc with your settings!
2. Various changes made to the default /etc /init.d/rcS (e.g., the use of a prime number for /proc/sys/net/ipv4/netfilter/ip_conntrack_max - this results in better performance)
3. Default settings provided for several UK ISPs
4. Some buggy code was fixed
5. Several new features:
* Remote web access added to the "Advanced" menu
* WEP turned on by default, and 4 default keys supplied (which should be changed - but it does mean that the router starts with some level of wireless security enabled)
* Extra settings ("Channel Range", and "Hairy Configuration") added to the "Wireless" menu - use with care!
* Extra features added to the "Tools" menu ("Log Settings", "Gateway System Information")
* An "rdate" client added, and set to update the system router's date and time from public ntp time servers (this happens when the router is booted up, and at 10.00 and 22.00 hours)
* A full ftp client ("ftp") added. This allows you when you telnet or ssh to the router, to ftp files in and out
* The "small ftp server" ("sft") added (and enabled on port 5556). This allows you to upload files direct from your PC (via a client-side "sft") to the router's "/var/" directory (ram disk) without having to install an ftp server on your PC
* A telnet client ("telnet") added. This allows you to telnet from inside the router
* A custom uptime daemon ("ud"), which gives more meaningful uptime information, both from the command line, and from the web interface
* A "crond" daemon which allows you to run certain programs/commands at specified times (the crontab file is: "/var/spool/cron/crontabs/root")
* A no-ip mod (by Biro)
* An nbtscan client added. See here for information.
* An ez-ipupdate client added. See here for information.
* An /etc /profile file added.
6. Extra features enabled in Busybox applets
7. Fixed the "manager_get_defaults - !node" bug
8. Several extra commands (some of which have been referred to above). If you are not familiar with Linux/Unix, then you are probably not interested in what follows.

These are the extra commands, and their locations:
* chgrp
* chmod
* chown
* df
* egrep
* grep
* hostname
* kill
* mkdir
* more
* mount
* netstat
* pidof
* rmdir
* sed
* touch
* true
* uname

* basename
* clear
* cmp
* dirname
* du
* expr
* find
* free
* head
* id
* killall
* telnet
* test
* tftp
* traceroute
* which
* xargs

* bunzip2
* bzcat
* cfgconv (converts from binary config to xml and vice versa)
* cpio
* crond
* crontab
* ftp
* ftpget
* ftpput
* gunzip
* gzip
* klogd (kernel log daemon - allows you to log kernel messages)
* logger (allows you to write a message to the system log)
* logread (allows you to read system and kernel logs when directed to the circular buffer, rather than to a file)
* rdate (retrieves date and time from ntp time servers)
* nbtscan
* ez-ipupdate
* sft (small ftp server, running on port 5556 - if you have the sft client, you can upload files from your PC to the router using the same port)
* syslogd (syslog daemon - allows you to have customised system logs)
* top (displays currently running processes and important information about them)
* ud (uptime daemon - reports on system uptime)
* uncompress
* unzip
* zcat

The sourcecode for this release is available under the GPL. If you do not require the sourcecode you should not download it as it is large and hosted on a private server. If you are interested in devlopment you may of course obtain the code. It is available on lara here

You can download this release below. If you don't see the link/description then you are not logged in. You must be registered and logged in to the site to download RouterTech releases.
Last edited by Kieran on Sun Aug 10, 2008 6:00 pm, edited 2 times in total.
User avatar
RouterTech Team
RouterTech Team
Posts: 3583
Joined: Thu Jan 26, 2006 1:09 pm

Post by Neo » Fri May 26, 2006 4:02 pm

To reduce the potential loss of router settings (which some people may wish to avoid) a utility is available that can bring original config files up-to-date with the latest RouterTech firmware above: viewtopic.php?p=5667#5667
RouterTech Team
No support via PM, please ask your questions on the forum!