While trying to find an LEDE (OpenWRT) 802.11ac supported device, I stumbled upon the FS-WR106. After a bit of back and forth with their representative, I ended up acquiring one unit for testing.

It came preloaded with OpenWRT 14.07, which is old. They were kind enough to send me a build based around 15.05 (not 15.05.1), and it’s stable, but it’s a no-frills build with no enhancements- other than a slightly modified graphic for the router’s name- MediaTek OpenWRT.

As of yesterday, Jiawei Wang’s build for the ZBT-WE1326 were pulled into LEDE’s trunk. Yesterday.

There are minor bugs with this build- the GPIO pins are unknown for the LEDs, and the power light is not controllable at this time.

However, it’s not the right image. The ZBT-WG3526 (16MB) squashfs layout is what is current on this device:

[    2.230000] spi-mt7621 1e000b00.spi: sys_freq: 50000000
[    2.230000] m25p80 spi32766.0: w25q128 (16384 Kbytes)
[    2.240000] m25p80 spi32766.0: using chunked io
[    2.240000] 4 ofpart partitions found on MTD device spi32766.0
[    2.250000] Creating 4 MTD partitions on "spi32766.0":
[    2.260000] 0x000000000000-0x000000030000 : "u-boot"
[    2.260000] 0x000000030000-0x000000040000 : "u-boot-env"
[    2.270000] 0x000000040000-0x000000050000 : "factory"
[    2.270000] 0x000000050000-0x000002000000 : "firmware"
[    2.280000] mtd: partition "firmware" extends beyond the end of device "spi3
2766.0" -- size truncated to 0xfb0000
[    2.320000] 2 uimage-fw partitions found on MTD device firmware
[    2.330000] 0x000000050000-0x00000017e12e : "kernel"
[    2.330000] 0x00000017e12e-0x000001000000 : "rootfs"
[    2.340000] mtd: device 5 (rootfs) set to be root filesystem
[    2.340000] 1 squashfs-split partitions found on MTD device rootfs
[    2.350000] 0x0000006a0000-0x000001000000 : "rootfs_data"
[    2.360000] netif_napi_add() called with weight 128 on device eth%d
[    2.370000] change HW-TRAP to 0x17ccf

Also, I’m still having a wireless issue with this LEDE build, even though it claims I am in -HEAD, rather than 17.01.1. Need to do more research on this:

[   11.640000] firmware init done
[   11.810000] ------------[ cut here ]------------
[   11.810000] WARNING: CPU: 3 PID: 496 at compat-wireless-2017-01-31/net/wireless/core.c:763 wiphy_register+0x58/0x6c4 [cfg80211]()
[   11.820000] Modules linked in: mt7603e(+) ledtrig_usbport mt76 mac80211 cfg80211 compat ip6t_REJECT nf_reject_ipv6 nf_log_ipv6 nf_log_common ip6table_mangle ip6table_filter ip6_tables x_tables mmc_block mtk_sd mmc_core leds_gpio xhci_mtk xhci_plat_hcd xhci_pci xhci_hcd ahci libahci libata sd_mod scsi_mod gpio_button_hotplug usbcore nls_base usb_common
[   11.850000] CPU: 3 PID: 496 Comm: kmodloader Not tainted 4.4.61 #0
[   11.860000] Stack : 00000000 00000000 804c6862 00000036 00000000 00000000 80470000 804e0000
[   11.860000] 	  8fd023ec 8046dc83 803e8be4 00000003 000001f0 804c367c 00000003 8f7f4b78
[   11.860000] 	  8f7f52c8 80063fb8 80470000 804e0000 804721c8 804721cc 803ed50c 8f72fa34
[   11.860000] 	  00000003 80061d04 00000003 8f7f4b78 8f7f52c8 00000000 00000000 0072fa34
[   11.860000] 	  00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000
[   11.860000] 	  ...
[   11.900000] Call Trace:
[   11.900000] [<80016844>] show_stack+0x50/0x84

Ah well.. back to the drawing board. I’ll mess with this later.

Primary roll is ready to go? Yep!

A handful of printers are ready to go, and will have more done as the weekend progresses. There are also a handful of Core2-i3 grade PCs that need repurposing, but those take less actual effort- and a bit more time to get current.

I know- my blogging “every day” has fallen to the wayside- yet again. I find it difficult to find things to share when not that much seems to be happening. That, and I got over the “social media” phase long ago- and the blog took a tumble BEFORE that.

Anyhow, for the last couple days, I’ve been busy:

Rather busy! These are all going to need to be cleaned and likely given new rollers, but the whole lot was quite affordable (much more so than the truck rental). They’re almost all lasers, and a couple are even COLOR laser printers!

Hope to get these handled and sold ASAP!

Although they’ve recently changed the pricing structure, ArubaCloud still has a few less-desired areas where you can setup a 1GB RAM/20GB HD VPS for €1/mo.

First of all, get your account setup and topped off. If your primary phone contact is not a cell phone, they’ll still send you a text of your account password- so ensure you have a valid email address/secondary contact- this may take a few hours.

Now, after your account is setup, create a new Linux based host. I used Debian 7 64 bit, because I am familiar with it, and I know it gives proper virtual SCSI and ethernet interfaces. Install the QEMU package and all necessary updates to the system to ensure you don’t have issues while doing your installation (apt-get dist-upgrade, disable SSH root login). This can be easily accomplished with:

apt-get -y install qemu

Take note of your network configuration- this is NOT advertised via DHCP. You’ll need your IPv4 IP, gateway, and netmask. Usually you are on a full /24. Do an ifconfig/route/netstat -nr – however you usually get your network information should suffice. Of course, the standard way for Debian 7 is to read /etc/network/interfaces.

Download the latest OpenBSD 6 CD installation ISO. At the time of this writing, it’s ‘cd60.iso’. You have a full amd64 virtual host, so use that- or i386 if for some reason you don’t want the 64 bit release.

Now, you are ready to load QEMU w/ OpenBSD. You’ll want to pass it your CD and HD information. I prefer to load the ISO as the primary atapi drive, and the actual HD as secondary, so if I am not thinking it through- it’ll error out.

qemu-system-x86_64 -curses -drive file=cd60.iso -drive \
 file=/dev/sda -net nic -net user

This will load through the terminal curses interface, with an emulated NAT device for passthrough.

Let it boot, partition your disk, do your full installation (noting that the standard drive is wd1, with wd0 being our boot media), and the network interface is an internal DHCP setup. Ensure you update your /mnt/etc/hostname. (in most cases, this should be hostname.em0).

The format for IPv4 in OpenBSD is standardly:

inet MY_IP_ADDR MY_NETMASK MY_BROADCAST_ADDR

Put your gateway in /etc/mygate:
MY_GATEWAY_ADDR

Make sure you get this correct. Triple check, or you’ll end up having to use the rather archaic virtual terminal interface.

Edit /mnt/etc/resolv.conf – and set your proper nameservers, or use the stock Google ones, 8.8.8.8, and 8.8.4.4.

Halt the device from the command line, then press Escape, then the number 2- then blindly type quit to return to your Linux/Debian host.

Reboot the host. If reboot fails, you’re safe to stop and restart the system from the Aruba control panel, as you have safely written and closed your OpenBSD to the real drive.

Reboot the machine, and watch your virtual console session if so inclined. Within a few seconds, you’ll have your OpenBSD 6 VPS online. Make all of your usual changes (adding IPv6 if you wish, et al), and make use of your cheap ArubaCloud Puffy VPS!

A flash from the past.. straight from 1993 by none other than AT&T.

Ever felt old, yet reminiscent of a time when the things in this commercial were Unobtainium? If you were born around 1980 or so, YOU WILL.