Snort on Linksys WRT54G Wireless Router Help

[aktizol]

The wolf-alchemy is a firmware from sveasoft.com
Nothing - happened means that i upload a firmware which was unusable (no telnet / no ping / no web interface)

After following the REVIVAL instructions and tapping pins 15-16 the Linksys became unusable. The WLAN LED is always OFF while the POWER LED always blinking.

The tftp2.exe is a TFTP Client for windows.

[Void Main]

I would try the real LinkSys firmware if you can't use OpenWRT. I don't trust sveasoft and will not use their firmware or carry on discussion about them here. I have heard that on the v2.0 router pins 15-16 do not work and you do have to short other pins so what you are saying sounds normal. I have not tried this on a 2.0 router though (although I do have one). There are threads over at openwrt.org on this very subject. If you can successfully upload a firmware I would say that the router is not dead.

Even if an access point is deader than dead (which it doesn't sound like yours is) I believe you can send it in to LinkSys and have them fix it for a fee. I could be wrong on this so don't quote me on it but I think I have heard of people doing this. I thought I had bricked mine and I just wrote it off as a $70 lesson and got a new one. Later I was able to revive it using the method in my tip. I know it has helped a lot of people but if it doesn't solve someones problem then I have no more expertise to offer any more suggestions. There are a lot of people at openwrt.org who are *far* more knowlegable on this subject than I.

[aktizol]

Okey thank you for your quick reply.

I'm sure that i've made some damage to my linksys.
I'm not sure if it's big or not though.
So i decided to send for service on Monday.

Thank you once again.


p.s. btw i had OpenWRT installed on my linksys working perfect and when i decided to upgrade to Alchemy all bad things happened ;-(

[Void Main]

I'm sure that i've made some damage to my linksys.
I'm not sure if it's big or not though.
So i decided to send for service on Monday.

I would be interested to hear more about the result of this. Things like how you went about sending it in. Whether or not they actually fixed it. How much it cost, etc.

Thank you once again.

No problem, even though I wasn't really any help.

p.s. btw i had OpenWRT installed on my linksys working perfect and when i decided to upgrade to Alchemy all bad things happened ;-(

I would not consider that an upgrade. Sounds like the same kinds of things I experience when I have to touch Windows. :)

[gdubitsky]

Hi Transformer.

I have the same router as you and i did what Void Main said. Still i cannot tftp to my router to upload the firmware. Everytime i do tftp i get Transfer Timedout.

I need help. Any suggestions? Can you tell me what did you do exactly to upload the firmaware once its in failsafe mode?

[inkspoof]

Well, my friends wrt54g died the other day and I took it from them to see if I could fix it. They're not technically inclined and don't play with the firmware at all (so it had the stock firmware on it). This is a v2 wrt54g btw.

Here's what it was doing when I picked it up: The wrt54g stopped serving dhcp and started acting in some type of pass thru mode. In other words, whatever was connected to the internet interface would pass straight thru to the LAN interfaces. So a computer would pick up an external ip address from the cable modem. The odd thing was, the wireless interface died and there was no way I could get to the GUI on the wrt54g.

Having tried everything (reset, short pins 15-16), nothing worked, I decided to start shorting the DMTEK AMD6996L chip. After a little fun and smoke, I decided to go methodically instead of haphazardly on shorting. I started to short the pins facing the LEDs and this magically brought up the wireless interface LED... longer story short, I connected wirelessly and got the thing working again.

Weird stuff. Give it a try.

[Void Main]

Heh heh, I wonder if I can fix my car that way. My check engine light came on and I'm thinking about just shorting all the fuses until it goes out. :) That's a pretty good story though. Maybe it will help someone else. I have to tell you that on one of my WRT54Gs I had a similar problem where the wireless interface was not working. I am not quite sure what I did to get it working again but after about a month of not having it work it started working again. I think I had something wrong in the configuration though.

[inkspoof]

Heh heh, I wonder if I can fix my car that way. My check engine light came on and I'm thinking about just shorting all the fuses until it goes out. That's a pretty good story though. Maybe it will help someone else. I have to tell you that on one of my WRT54Gs I had a similar problem where the wireless interface was not working. I am not quite sure what I did to get it working again but after about a month of not having it work it started working again. I think I had something wrong in the configuration though.

I know! The strangest thing is that these friends of mine don't do anything with the router so I can't figure out why it just went kaputz. Anyway, I got a pic of the general area I shorted. I wish I kept track of which pins I was shorting, but I was too dead tired to be that scientific.

[Void Main]

I like the way you zoomed the box with the chip in it in your image. I should have done mine that way.

[Void Main]

Hmm, someone has compiled snort with mysql support and it's available in an ipkg:

http://nthill.free.fr/openwrt/tracker/p ... hp?id=1771

I installed it and it actually works. Now, it doesn't actually work on the wireless interface itself but it sniffs the other interface(s) just fine. You can also install the mysqlshow and mysqladmin commands with this package:

http://nthill.free.fr/openwrt/tracker/p ... php?id=480

This ipkg repository has all kinds of goodies:

http://nthill.free.fr/openwrt/tracker/p ... p?rep_id=1

Of course with a normal "G" router you'll want to move most of the bigger commands off to an nfs share as room is tight on the router itself. You can install a lot more stuff if you use nfs (of course).

[mkvyper]

Just when I thought my wrt54g v2 was dead for sure, I stumbled upon the info on this page.

I don't know if my problem is exactly the same as others.

Some months ago, my girlfriend while cleaning plugged and unplugged repeatedly my routers power supply. The result, a router that blinks the power light constantly, has the wan LED always on when the cable is connected to the modem, and lights each lan led when connected to some lan card/computer/etc.

This brick does not accept flashing, nor responds to pings. I've tried jumping pins 15 and 16 together while pinging it, and the only difference is that instead of receiving "Destination Host Unreachable" messages, they change to "Request timed out" as soon as I plug the power.

I haven't been able to find "tried and true" info on any other pins that may enable the recover mode on this version 2 router, as I understand most of the info provided has been tested on earlier versions, and I don't want to risk totally frying my router unless it is really the last option I have.

Has anyone revived one of this routers with this problem? Is this the behaviour most people have when the software has been erased or corrupted? I have thoroughly checked all the router's board and find no traces of burnt or damaged components, so I assume its flash has been wiped out, since "the hardware" connections are always detected correctly"

Thanks for any help!

MKV

[XdreamX]

I have the same problem on my WRT54G, nothing is working, no DHCP, no PING, no Wireless, but POWER LED is blinking.
I have OpenWRT on, and I did some changes in the Webinterface, when the router hang up.

So I read several posts on this topic but nothing did help (Pin 15-16).
So I decided to check the datasheet by Intel´s 28F320 flash chip.
I tried a lot of things with the chip but even nothing gave me my ping back.

Even at 0400 a.m. I tried to ground (real ground to antenna jack) Pin 16, and hey, I just have my ping to 192.168.1.1 back.
I tried to put up a new Firmware file but I didn´t succeed till now.
Maybe I couldn´t do the work with the TFTP program.
Can anybody tell me a good TFTP program with download link?

CU Mike

[Void Main]

The basic tftp program that comes with Linux has always worked perfectly here.

[mkvyper]

Thanks for your answer XdreamX.
I'll try directly grounding some of the data pins, and see if I have luck with that.
The thing I found strange (my network knowledge is quite poor), is why the ping responses change (although I still have no succesfull pings) when I power on the unit.
I found some info on using JTAG to reflash the chip, but I'm quite confused with it, since I see that several (at least four) different "parts" of the software can be downloaded to the unit, and you need the "correct image". I've seen some people that have asked for a certain part of the flash (some have asked for "CFE"), but they are difficult to obtain.
Anyway, I've already "prepaired" my unit for JTAG, soldering the required connector... maybe I'll have to wait for some "fool proof" tutorial on the subject. To complicate things further, all my PCs are Windows, and most of the instructions are for Linux users.

Thanks!
MKV

[Void Main]

To complicate things further, all my PCs are Windows, and most of the instructions are for Linux users.

All you are ever going to find on this site are Linux-only instructions since this is a Linux-only site. This is the only site that I know of like that though.