[LEDE-DEV] Support for TP-Link Archer C7 1750 v4.0

[Alberto Bursi]

On 10/23/2017 09:43 PM, Emmanuel Grumbach wrote:
> On Mon, Oct 23, 2017 at 9:50 PM, Emmanuel Grumbach <egrumbach at gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Mon, Oct 23, 2017 at 8:30 PM, Baptiste Jonglez
>> <baptiste at bitsofnetworks.org> wrote:
>>> Hi,
>>>
>>> On 23-10-17, Emmanuel Grumbach wrote:
>>>> I just bought a TP-Link Archer C7 AC1750 and got the v4.0 version. I
>>>> haven't found any image in
>>>> https://lede-project.org/toh/views/toh_fwdownload that claims it
>>>> features that version. I can see v1 and v2, but not v4.
>>> Support for this board has just been merged: https://git.lede-project.org/9887afb1afcf387f6892315413e610a6816df463
>>>
>>> So, there is no support in 17.01 but snapshot images should work, and the
>>> ToH at actually links to downloadable images :)
>>>
>>>    https://lede-project.org/toh/hwdata/tp-link/tp-link_archer_c7_v
>>>
> Hmm... Broken link.
> I took v4 at the end, but I couldn't get the webUI. The device did
> respond to SSH though.
> I tried to sysupgrade back to the stock firmware, but I screwed it up
> apparently.
> Now it doesn't even boot. Leds blink a bit and shut down immediately.
>
> Seems like it is a brick now :(
>
>

Snapshot images don't have webUI, you need to install it from ssh (so 
that part was normal).
Snapshot images also have other limitations (you can't install 
driver-related packages after a few days and you need to do a full 
upgrade first, or use the Image Builder to integrate all packages in the 
firmware, see the wiki 
https://lede-project.org/docs/user-guide/imagebuilder )

That said, most modern routers have a bootloader with a recovery mode 
you can use to send over another firmware image for it to reflash. If 
you did not hose the first blocks of the onboard flash, the bootloader 
is still alive and you should be able to recover the router without 
factory flashing tools.

The v2 version of that router seems to have it (should be the same or at 
least very similar to yours, imho), see here 
https://mikepalmer.net/tp-link-archer-c7-ac1750-v2-tftp-recovery/
or google around for similar instructions for your device. (the "Make 
the router think its getting a normal recovery firmware" part is 
renaming the openwrt factory flash firmware into the name the recovery 
is looking for)

If you don't know how to set up a tftp server, see the wiki here 
https://lede-project.org/docs/user-guide/tftpserver

-Alberto