[LEDE-DEV] Proper way to deal with "dual firmware" ar71xx devices

[Bjørn Mork]

Alberto Bursi <alberto.bursi at outlook.it> writes:

> Can this  "bs" partition be manipulated on installation or later?

Yes.  The only thing preventing that is the default "(ro)" in the LEDE
images.  But by using mtd-rw it can be manipulated.  That's how I fixed
my installation.

I believe there are tools to manipulate it in the original firmware, but
I don't have the details.

> If it 
> can be manipulated it's not that hard to just erase the flash with the 
> first 32bit number so it is 0x00 or maybe add a check in sysupgrade 
> procedure that reads that and automatically erases the cells if it finds 
> them not at 0x00 already.

Yes.  But if we want sysupgrade to fix it, then we should make the
partition writable by default first.

We could maybe add this functionality to the "mtd" utility, similar to
the Linksys "bootcounter" feature?


Bjørn