Wanted to flash it a week ago, but turned out I need tftp for that. Which is easier to do with another router, for me. As I don’t know how to properly set the ip address in my Linux, using just cmd.

Maybe it’s just a simple

sudo ip addr add 192.168.0.66/24 dev enp2s0f0

And that’s it.

To remove it:

sudo ip addr del 192.168.0.66/24 dev enp2s0f0

But I wasn’t sure. Plus, I never set up PPPoE, so I wanted to be sure and to have a back-up router, just for the sake of being safe.

And I had these issues:

  1. The PPPoE password was wrong, somehow I merged two passwords of two different homes, login from the 1st location and the password from another, weird.
  2. I might need the Internet during the debug, which the 2nd router provided.

Flashing the router with OpenWrt:

Using TFTP method

On Linux:

  1. Download the ...squashfs-tftp-recovery.bin as shown in the table above.
  2. Configure a computer with static IP 192.168.0.66/24 and a TFTP server.
  3. Rename the downloaded firmware file to tp_recovery.bin (notice it’s _ not - symbol) and place it in the tftp server’s root directory.
    • If using tftpd-hpa this is /var/lib/tftpboot/;
    • if tftpd, it is /srv/tftp/.
      sudo systemctl start tftpd
    You can test that the file is downloadable with tftp localhost and get tp_recovery.bin.
  4. Connect the computer to one of the router’s Ethernet ports while the router is off. Press and keep pressed the router’s reset button and power it up. After about 7-10 seconds release the reset button. The power LED will flicker rapidly for ~3 seconds, indicating download of the firmware file.
  5. The router will write the firmware to flash during ~40 more seconds of occasional power LED blinks, and then will reboot by itself, ready for use.

Was quick and easy.

Never needed, but let it be here too.

  • Only TFTP is supported for this device.

Warning about bricking your device

You need to use TFTP to install. Do not flash from the stock UI because you will get an lzma kernel decompression error and you’ll have to use serial console to recover from soft-brick. If the serial console shows the device keeps resetting, press on “4” or “1” or “7” during the boot cycle to switch to console command mode or directly into TFTP transfer of a firmware

There is a hardcoded tftp update command in uboot for revision V4:

tftp 0x80060000 tp_recovery.bin;erase tplink 0x20000 0x7a0000;cp.b 0x80080000 0x20000 0x7a0000

As the uboot isn’t flashed, there is no problems to recover the device.

Hardware Info

  • Architecture MIPS
  • Vendor MediaTek
  • Bootloader U-Boot
  • System-On-Chip MediaTek MT7628A - rampis mt76x8
  • CPU/Speed 580 MHz
  • Flash-Chip GD 25Q64CSIG or Winbond W25Q64JV
  • Flash size 8 MiB
  • RAM 64 MiB
  • Wireless 1 MT7628A 2.4GHz (working)
  • Wireless 2 MT7610E 5GHz (only AP)
  • Ethernet 5 x 10/100 Mbit/s w/ vlan support
  • USB likely not fanned out
  • Serial Yes
  • JTAG No

Source: OpenWrt website