Diensteanbieter: Michael Stürmer · <ms@www.mallorn.de> π

Debian on a SMC WAPS-G

These devices are really neat and not very expensive (EUR 99,95), so I bought one and tried to install Debian on it. Here we go:

Download

Latest version is smc_waps-20070908.tar.gz (3.94 KiB) (3.94 KiB).

New firmware

To access system, we need a new firmware image that allows to run files from an attached disk. SMC provides a package to build a new firmware (well, not theirs but one from another company which uses the same hardware...): http://www.smc.com/files/AX%5CUT_SMCWAPSG_sources.zip.

With the Makefile I provide, a 'make linuxall' creates the necessary links in Debian and builds a firmware. I include patches to enable telnet and some other tools, run a linuxrc on attached disks, don't chmod the attached disks (and perhaps later some pivot_root magic to run Debian from USB).

To actually flash the new firmware, this is unfortunately not enough. The factory-provided firmware images have a structure that can not be recreated with the tools in the source package. Initially, my device had firmware version R400b5, which I updated with the SMC firmware to R400b5v4. Both versions didn't let me install my own image. I found some hints on a firmware image that could be flashed in my device and subsequently allowed to upload my own firmware.

Debian filesystem

Because of the limited space on the firmware-provided filesystem, it's easier to create the new root filesystem on another host with debootstrap (I use sarge, because it actually works in contrast to sid):

debootstrap sarge ./sarge-chroot http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian/

Now run netcat on the WAPS-G in listen mode:

nc -l -p 12345 | tar xf -

and the other end:

cd ./sarge-root && tar cf - . | nc -q 1 waps-g 12345

Now you can make your new system more comfortable:

cd /mnt/sda1
mkdir old_root
pivot_root . old_root
mount -t proc proc /proc
cd /dev
./MAKEDEV pty
cd /etc
rm mtab && ln -s /proc/mounts mtab
apt-get update
apt-get ssh sudo less

Now create /etc/network/interfaces for your network.

Finally, you need a linuxrc script to switch automatically to the new root - I provide a basic setup.

Interne links sind grün, externe links, die nicht unter meiner Kontrolle stehen, sind zusätzlich gestrichelt unterstrichen. Mallorn CA Zertifikat.