U-boot mod for tp-link mobile routers

I have 3 different TP-Link mobile routers. I always wanted to dig into boot-loader, replace factory one with custom boot-loader from developer pepe2k. Github link

What's so special about this boot-loader? It has very nice killer-features like:

• Embedded micro-http server. It allows firmware upload via browser for system image, boot-loader and radio calibration data named ART
• UDP network console, allows you access boot-loader's command-line without uart-cable
• Overclocking
• Other handy stuff

Nice features, but developer does not offers fresh binary versions of boot-loader. Sad story. But i managed to compile these by myself. All you need to have is some mips-toolchain installed and then compile your own binaries.
I created 32-bit openvz-container(but debootstrap/chroot combination will be ok too) with debian wheezy. After googling for some time i found script for auto install toolchain.

#!/bin/sh
 
#
# Script name: setup_codesourcery.sh
# Version: 2.2 - 2012-07-19
#
# Copyright (C) 2009-2012 Matthias "Maddes" Buecher
#
 
#
# This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
# it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
# the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or
# (at your option) any later version.
# http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-2.0.txt
#
# This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
# but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
# MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
# GNU General Public License for more details.
#
# You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
# along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
# Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307 USA
#
 
 
##
## Script Functions
##
install_toolchain ()
{
BINPATH="${INSTALLPATH}/${VERSION}/bin"
SCRIPTFILE="${SCRIPTPATH}/${SCRIPTPREFIX}${VERSION}.sh"
DLFILE="${VERSION}${SUBVERSION}-${CCPREFIX}-i686-pc-linux-gnu.tar.bz2"
 
echo "Installing ${VERSION}:"
 
# # Download toolchain
[ ! -d "${DLDIR}" ] && mkdir -p "${DLDIR}"
wget -N -P "${DLDIR}" "${DLBASEPATH}/${CCPREFIX}/${DLFILE}"
 
# # Install toolchain (by extracting)
echo 'Extracting...'
[ ! -d "${INSTALLPATH}" ] && mkdir -p "${INSTALLPATH}"
tar -x --bzip2 -f "${DLDIR}"/"${DLFILE}" -C "${INSTALLPATH}"
 
# # Create toolchain environment script
echo "Creating script file ${SCRIPTFILE} ..."
cat >"${SCRIPTFILE}" << __EOF
#!/bin/sh
echo "Type 'exit' to return to non-crosscompile environment"
[ -n "\${CROSS_COMPILE}" ] && { echo "ALREADY in crosscompile environment for \${ARCH} (\${CROSS_COMPILE})"; exit; }
export PATH='${BINPATH}':\${PATH}
export ARCH='${ARCHCODE}'
export CROSS_COMPILE='${CCPREFIX}-'
echo "NOW in crosscompile environment for \${ARCH} (\${CROSS_COMPILE})"
/bin/bash
echo 'Back in non-crosscompile environment'
__EOF
[ ! -x "${SCRIPTFILE}" ] && chmod +x "${SCRIPTFILE}"
 
echo 'Done.'
}
 
 
###
### Install prerequisites
###
 
[ "`whoami`" != "root" ] && {
echo "$0: ABORT!!! Only for root user"
exit 1
}
 
# --> general buildtools & development packages
# wget & bzip2 for downloading and unpacking
# uboot's mkimage & devio for creating uImage
echo 'Installing prerequisites:'
PACKAGES='build-essential linux-libc-dev wget bzip2 uboot-mkimage devio ncurses-dev'
DOINSTALL=0
for PACKAGE in ${PACKAGES}
do
# # special cases
[ "${PACKAGE}" = "ncurses-dev" ] && PACKAGE="libncurses5-dev" ; # package ncurses-dev is virtual on Debian, which can not be found via dpkg
 
dpkg -l | grep -q -F -e "${PACKAGE}"
DOINSTALL=$?
[ "${DOINSTALL}" -ne 0 ] && break
done
[ "${DOINSTALL}" -ne 0 ] && {
apt-get update
apt-get install ${PACKAGES}
}
 
 
###
### Install toolchains
###
 
 
### Mentor Graphics' (ex-CodeSourcery) toolchains
### http://www.mentor.com/embedded-software/sourcery-tools/sourcery-codebench/lite-edition
### (navigation 2012: Products and/or Embedded Software --> Sourcery CodeBench [--> Lean more] [--> Editions] --> Sourcery CodeBench Lite Edition (at the bottom))
### (navigation 2011: Products --> Embedded Software --> Sourcery Tools --> Sourcery CodeBench --> Editions --> Lite Edition Download)
#
### before 2011:
### http://www.codesourcery.com/sgpp/lite_edition.html
### (navigation: Products --> Sourcery G++ --> Editions --> Lite)
#
### Note: the toolchains for the different targets can be installed in parallel
 
## Pathes for toolchains, scripts and downloads
INSTALLPATH='/usr/local/codesourcery'
SCRIPTPATH='/usr/local/bin'
SCRIPTPREFIX='codesourcery-'
DLDIR="/root/work/codesourcery"
#
DLBASEPATH='https://sourcery.mentor.com/public/gnu_toolchain/'
# before 2011: DLBASEPATH='http://www.codesourcery.com/public/gnu_toolchain/'
 
## -> ARM GNU/Linux target
ARCHCODE='arm'
CCPREFIX='arm-none-linux-gnueabi'
## (arm-2011.03-41)
VERSION='arm-2011.03'
SUBVERSION='-41'
install_toolchain
## (arm-2009q3-67)
VERSION='arm-2009q3'
SUBVERSION='-67'
#install_toolchain
## (arm-2009q1-203)
VERSION='arm-2009q1'
SUBVERSION='-203'
#install_toolchain
 
## -> MIPS GNU/Linux target
ARCHCODE='mips'
CCPREFIX='mips-linux-gnu'
## (mips-2011.03-93)
VERSION='mips-2011.03'
SUBVERSION='-93'
install_toolchain
## (mips-4.4-303)
VERSION='mips-4.4'
SUBVERSION='-303'
#install_toolchain
## (mips-4.3-154)
VERSION='mips-4.3'
SUBVERSION='-154'
#install_toolchain

Paste contents from listing above:

# $EDITOR ~/setup_codesourcery.sh

Make script executable:

# chmod +x ~/setup_codesourcery.sh

Execute script, it will install all dependencies automatically. Install additional dependencies for boot-loader compilation - default-jre-headless и git.

# apt-get install default-jre-headless git

Everything is ready, it's compile time! Let's compile loader for 703 model.

# git clone https://github.com/pepe2k/u-boot_mod.git
# cd u-boot_mod
# codesourcery-mips-2011.03.sh
# make tplink_wr703n

If everything's is okay you'll see something like this on your console:

Image Name:   u-boot image
Created:      Tue Feb 11 20:49:16 2014
Image Type:   MIPS Linux Firmware (lzma compressed)
Data Size:    43654 Bytes = 42.63 kB = 0.04 MB
Load Address: 0x80010000
Entry Point:  0x80010000
make[1]: Entering directory `/root/u-boot_mod'
-e
======= Preparing 64KB file filled with 0xFF... =======
64+0 records in
128+0 records out
65536 bytes (66 kB) copied, 0.000749393 s, 87.5 MB/s
-e
======= Copying U-Boot image... =======
114+1 records in
114+1 records out
58458 bytes (58 kB) copied, 0.000249334 s, 234 MB/s
-e
======= U-Boot image ready, size: 65536 bytes =======

make[1]: Leaving directory `/root/u-boot_mod'

Resulted files will be in "bin" directory:

# ls -1 bin/
README
uboot_for_tp-link_tl-mr3020.bin
uboot_for_tp-link_tl-mr3020.md5
uboot_for_tp-link_tl-wr703n.bin
uboot_for_tp-link_tl-wr703n.md5
uboot_for_tp-link_tl-wr720n_v3_CH.bin
uboot_for_tp-link_tl-wr720n_v3_CH.md5

Your freshly compiled boot-loader can be flashed with usb2uart cable using author's instructions
I will left here compiled files, if someone is too lazy to compile them by themselves. Check-sums:

87af702f1b4e241af74ade3b2d5964b0 uboot_for_tp-link_tl-mr3020.bin
cfba9d0299c2cfddcfd21d6b1292617a uboot_for_tp-link_tl-wr703n.bin
b7285673db0d0fa0320e81e37395f0b4 uboot_for_tp-link_tl-wr720n_v3_CH.bin

uboot_for_tp-link_tl-mr3020.bin
uboot_for_tp-link_tl-wr703n.bin
uboot_for_tp-link_tl-wr720n_v3_CH.bin