[LEDE-DEV] Is there a Image for TP-Link TL-WA854RE (WiFi Range Extender) ?

[Alberto Bursi]

On 02/19/2017 11:41 AM, Daniel Golle wrote:
> Hi Alberto,
>
> On Sun, Feb 19, 2017 at 10:12:04AM +0000, Alberto Bursi wrote:
>> On 02/19/2017 09:49 AM, Daniel Golle wrote:
>>> This still leaves us without failsafe mode and hard-to-access UART, so
>>> it'd make more sense to revive
>>> https://github.com/openwrt/packages-abandoned/tree/master/utils/restorefactory
>>> for those devices (or is there an easy way to have wifi enabled in
>>> failsafe mode?)
>> There are some dedicated scripts that get triggered to bring the device
>> in failsafe mode (just search with "failsafe" in LEDE's github), but I
>> don't know how exactly the startup scripts work so I can't really do it
>> myself.
>> For example this is a script that should allow failsafe by disabling
>> vlans in the onboard switch for a list of boards/targets that have this
>> issue
>> https://github.com/lede-project/source/blob/master/target/linux/ramips/base-files/lib/preinit/07_set_preinit_iface_ramips
>>
>> Maybe a similar one that does what the "force enable wifi" script did
>> would do the trick?
>
> Well, it's not as simple as that. We need to generate a config for
> hostapd which matches the wifi hardware in terms of capabilities and
> band and launch it and bring up the interface (configure IP address and
> stuff) once hostapd comes up... possible, but quite a lot of work...
>

Then how was that "force enable wifi" script working in the first place 
if it just added a one-liner to uci setting to enable wifi by default?

Afaik failsafe mode is using squashfs /rom and a ram /overlay so it 
should work the same as a firstboot situation (where overlay is empty), 
so if it worked for firstboot it would work also for failsafe.

By searching around the sources, it seems that that basic uci 
configuration for a unencrypted wifi on LAN interface is written 
automatically (or can be summoned easily, I don't know how these scripts 
are triggered)
https://github.com/lede-project/source/blob/master/package/kernel/mac80211/files/lib/wifi/mac80211.sh

With the settings written by that script you only need to enable the 
wifi and everything will work.

-Alberto