[OpenWrt-Devel] [PATCH] ath79: drop SUPPORTED_DEVICES for all TP-LINK routers

[Mathias Kresin]

2018-08-19 15:47 GMT+02:00 Chuanhong Guo <gch981213 at gmail.com>:
> These lines are coming from ar71xx to allow using sysupgrade to
> switch from ar71xx to ath79. But a sysupgrade with config preserved
> won't work since some of the config files are incompatible.

To be honest, I don't see that your patch really fixes the issue. Even
if you drop the ar71xx compatible string, it's possible that people
are using a forced sysupgade and therefore have the same problem
again. Means, it's rather a "might work" workaround. Furthermore,
there aren't only tp-link boards affected by this issues. I would
really like to see a treewide handling of the issue.

It isn't that uncommon that something changes and an upgrade of
existing user configs is required. We're usually add uci-defaults
scripts to do so. One example of doing so can be found in the lantiq
target[0].

I'm not yet in a position to say what the correct approach would be
here. I'm only aware that the "option path" in /e/c/wireless has
changed for some(?) boards. No idea what else has changed between
ar71xx and ath79.

>
> This commit removed all SUPPORTED_DEVICES for TP-LINK routers.
> For those who want to use sysupgrade to switch target on TP-LINK
> router you could use the generated factory firmware instead. This
> works because:

Ugh. We do tell the people all the time that a factory image is
intended to be used with the OEM firmware. Forcing people to use the
factory image with sysupgrade will for sure cause a lot of confusion.

> 1. ar71xx doesn't require a image metadata so using a firmware without
>    OpenWrt metadata will skip fwtool checking.
> 2. The differences between factory and sysupgrade image is the metadata
>    and the tail padding.
> 3. Using factory firmware for TP-LINK devices here automatically disallows
>    preserving config files because sysupgrade.tar won't be appended after
>    0xdeadc0de jffs2 mark.
> 4. ar71xx still check the device model in TP-LINK firmware header so an
>    invalid image won't pass sysupgrade checking.
>
> PISEN WMM003N is never supported by ar71xx, this commit also removed
> SUPPORTED_DEVICES for it because it's completely useless.

The PISEN WMM003N change is completely unrelated to the patch
intention. It should be really an own commit.

Mathias

[0] https://git.openwrt.org/?p=openwrt/openwrt.git;a=tree;f=target/linux/lantiq/base-files/etc/uci-defaults

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