More than willing to acknowledge your credit.

[brightplastik]

Hello, sorry for opening an issue, but I hope this will make us communicate.

Since months I'm looking for a way to build an up to date firmware for the GL-AR300M.
A you stated, the last known version of pineapple fw is 2.4.2, and I can't even say if it works or not.
Your repo here looks very promising!
Could you teach me how to port the latest version of pineapple firmware to the AR300M?

I think you're my only chance. The community is quite chaotic about these ports. Yours looks like the most systematic I encountered, but I have a different model to work with.

I congratulate for your excellent up to date work, and hope to learn how to replicate this excellence on another model.

[brightplastik]

Hey, I thought about it...and you know what?
Who cares about the credits! I will pay, the equivalence of a new AR300M, if you teach me how to implement the same you did with the AR150. I paid mine 37,10€ on aliex...well, you know where. I can obviously prove it.

It is fair to pay for knowledge. More than for services. I'm not rich (otherwise I would buy the actual product with closed eyes!) but considering that the price of two boxes (mine and the value given to you) is still lower than the actual pineapple, it is good for me.
The value of learning to do something very useful out of simple tools in invaluable, in my opinion. So I'd be very happy if you accepted my offer.
Let me know if you're willing to do this with me!

My sincere congratulations,
Gabriel

P.S: I'm not stupid, and I have several tools including uart, but not very accustomed with the guts of linux and compiling. I only scratch the surface, but on a regular basis. I couldn't figure out what to do with the files in picture, for example. They are needed for compiling an old version (2.4.2 as you correctly pointed out) by @bugsysundayTHOT, but I couldn't make it. Unfortunately I need a guide, being an apprentice. It seems to me I need to learn how to build a buildroot, and have no clue of what an SDK and imagebuilder are, or how to include patches and kernels.

[xchwarze]

In my fucking country it became quite expensive to bring hardware even from China...

I'll tell you how anyway.

1. Use this config https://github.com/xchwarze/AR150-WiFiPineapple-2019/blob/master/gpl/config and change the target
2. With FMK extract from my fw the panel, the crack and the configuration files, boot and first start
3. Bring it all together in a new fw with FMK

Surely you have to use WinMerge or some similar tool.
The build is done with OpenWrt 19.07.2.

Keep in mind that making a port takes a lot of time and a lot of work.
And it really can be quite frustrating.

[brightplastik]

Firmware-mod-kit by brianpow.

Got it.
Honestly, I spent a considerable amount of time on duckduckgo only to understand this little detail.
Gosh, I'm such a noob.
Despite that, I'm super excited to face this method, as it already seems a shortcut, related to a whole build process.

Question: do I still need to make a 19.07.2 openwrt image with "make" and buildroot?

...still trying to interpret your indications, maybe. I'll have some attempts at it.

I'll keep you informed, if it doesn't annoy you.

And about shopping merch from your Country...well...you totally deserve an AR300M to tinker with. I would be proud to send you one, flashed by me with a 2.7.0 pineapple fw, once I manage to make it.

My name is Gabriel, and I'm glad to know you. My pleasure.

May you have a gorgeous life, xchwarze!

[brightplastik]

@xchwarze, just for a confrontation:

FMK:
extract-firmware.sh yourfw
Error: no supported file system found!

Old-extract.sh yourfw
Error: filesystem not extracted properly.

Tried many forks of the original FMK, as it seems outdated. Now on the kali fork, but
none is suiting what you mentioned.

Any ideazzzz? 🤦‍♂️

EDIT: found this tip
"some people have had issues running firmware-mod-kit on their favorite distro, personally I have had no issues with Linux Mint 17.3 Cinnamon (64bit) from http://www.osboxes.org/linux-mint/"

Will try that and report.

Regards,
Suchanoob

[xchwarze]

mmm try that:

git clone https://github.com/rampageX/firmware-mod-kit fmk-tool
sudo apt-get install git build-essential zlib1g-dev liblzma-dev python-magic bsdmainutils

and use like this:

fmk-tool/extract-firmware.sh nanofw.bin

[brightplastik]

New episode of "Suchanoob on the conquer of None".

I succeded installing and using FMK, but it refuses to extract both your normal and optimized .bin
FMK is partly based on binwalk. So I installed and launched binwalk to exclude a malfunction of the one included in FMK.
Binwalk as problems recognizing the filesystem of your images. The same happens to the GL.inet images, but not with a normal openwrt image.
So by now, the only image I was able to extract is a trivial 19.07.4 openwrt.

Maybe this is caused by ubi? What is ubi?
Really dunno what is going on. Please master, teach me.
I attach a log of terminal:
osboxes fmk-tool # ./extract-firmware.sh '/home/osboxes/Desktop/gl-ar150-nano-2.7.0.12-optimized.bin' ar150
Firmware Mod Kit (extract) 0.99, (c)2011-2013 Craig Heffner, Jeremy Collake

Scanning firmware...

Scan Time: 2020-11-16 01:30:39
Target File: /home/osboxes/Desktop/gl-ar150-nano-2.7.0.12-optimized.bin
MD5 Checksum: 4c0231e3eed974c6bfe155083f59e555
Signatures: 344

DECIMAL HEXADECIMAL DESCRIPTION

22 0x16 HTML document header
18213 0x4725 Unix path: /github.com/xchwarze/AR150-WiFiPineapple-2019/commits/master.atom" rel="alternate" title="Recent Commits to AR150-WiFiPineapple-
19298 0x4B62 Unix path: /github.com/xchwarze/AR150-WiFiPineapple-2019/blob/master/gl-ar150-nano-2.7.0.12-optimized.bin" data-pjax-transient>
19466 0x4C0A Unix path: /api.github.com/_private/browser/stats">
19558 0x4C66 Unix path: /api.github.com/_private/browser/errors">
19669 0x4CD5 Unix path: /api.github.com/_private/browser/optimizely_client/errors">
22611 0x5853 Unix path: /github.com/xchwarze/AR150-WiFiPineapple-2019/blob/master/gl-ar150-nano-2.7.0.12-optimized.bin","user_id":null}}"
48242 0xBC72 Unix path: /github.com/xchwarze/AR150-WiFiPineapple-2019/blob/master/gl-ar150-nano-2.7.0.12-optimized.bin","user_id":null}}"
49179 0xC01B Unix path: /github.com/xchwarze/AR150-WiFiPineapple-2019/blob/master/gl-ar150-nano-2.7.0.12-optimized.bin","user_id":null}}"
50516 0xC554 Unix path: /github.com/notifications/beta/shelf">
52761 0xCE19 Unix path: /github.com/xchwarze/AR150-WiFiPineapple-2019/blob/master/gl-ar150-nano-2.7.0.12-optimized.bin","user_id":null}}"
54429 0xD49D Unix path: /github.com/xchwarze/AR150-WiFiPineapple-2019/blob/master/gl-ar150-nano-2.7.0.12-optimized.bin","user_id":null}}"
55968 0xDAA0 Unix path: /github.com/xchwarze/AR150-WiFiPineapple-2019/blob/master/gl-ar150-nano-2.7.0.12-optimized.bin","user_id":null}}"
56790 0xDDD6 Unix path: /xchwarze/AR150-WiFiPineapple-2019/network/members" class="social-count"
63783 0xF927 Unix path: /xchwarze/AR150-WiFiPineapple-2019/security/overall-count" accept="text/fragment+html">
68126 0x10A1E Unix path: /xchwarze/AR150-WiFiPineapple-2019/blob/a3dd0404e3bca795857c6fb4e861348337166cc8/gl-ar150-nano-2.7.0.12-optimized.bin">Permalink
69611 0x10FEB Unix path: /github.com/xchwarze/AR150-WiFiPineapple-2019/blob/master/gl-ar150-nano-2.7.0.12-optimized.bin","user_id":null}}"
70915 0x11503 Unix path: /github.com/xchwarze/AR150-WiFiPineapple-2019/blob/master/gl-ar150-nano-2.7.0.12-optimized.bin","user_id":null}}"
72286 0x11A5E Unix path: /github.githubassets.com/images/modules/site/home/astro-mona-alpha.jpg">
72527 0x11B4F Unix path: /github.githubassets.com/images/modules/site/home/astro-mona.jpg">
73745 0x12011 Unix path: /xchwarze/AR150-WiFiPineapple-2019/refs/master/gl-ar150-nano-2.7.0.12-optimized.bin?source_action=show&source_controller=blo
75616 0x12760 Unix path: /xchwarze/AR150-WiFiPineapple-2019/find/master"
76619 0x12B4B Unix path: /github.com/xchwarze/AR150-WiFiPineapple-2019/blob/master/gl-ar150-nano-2.7.0.12-optimized.bin","user_id":null}}"
78029 0x130CD Unix path: /xchwarze/AR150-WiFiPineapple-2019/contributors/master/gl-ar150-nano-2.7.0.12-optimized.bin" class="commit-loader">
79125 0x13515 Unix path: /xchwarze/AR150-WiFiPineapple-2019/raw/master/gl-ar150-nano-2.7.0.12-optimized.bin" id="raw-url" role="button" class="btn btn-sm
80302 0x139AE Unix path: /xchwarze/AR150-WiFiPineapple-2019/delete/master/gl-ar150-nano-2.7.0.12-optimized.bin" accept-charset="UTF-8" method="post"><inp
81532 0x13E7C Unix path: /xchwarze/AR150-WiFiPineapple-2019/blob/master/gl-ar150-nano-2.7.0.12-optimized.bin?raw=true">View raw
91057 0x163B1 Unix path: /docs.github.com/en/github/site-policy/github-subprocessors-and-cookies">Learn more
91761 0x16671 Unix path: /docs.github.com/en/github/site-policy/github-subprocessors-and-cookies">Learn more
92520 0x16968 HTML document footer

Extracting 0 bytes of header image at offset 0
ERROR: No supported file system found! Aborting...

(facepalm)

P.S: if you feel like you what to keep teaching and helping me, is there a place to talk about these matters? Dunno, like a forum, or even a personal email? You can find me as "beplastik", on the gmail address.

[brightplastik]

But still, I think all problems are related to a very, very long list of "ftruncate" errors during the preliminary make of FMK. This bloody python is always making huge problems to me. I run (with positive result) "deps.sh" in src/binwalk, but nonetheless I have a lot of errors during make. Hundreds of errors like this one:

mksquashfs.c: In function ‘write_file_blocks’:
mksquashfs.c:2449:12: warning: ignoring return value of ‘ftruncate’, declared with attribute warn_unused_result [-Wunused-result]
ftruncate(fd, bytes);

[xchwarze]

maybe you dont have installed squashfs
try this:
https://www.howtoinstall.me/ubuntu/18-04/squashfs-tools/

what OS are you using?
i use ubuntu 18 in a VM

[brightplastik]

Illustrius xchwarze, thanks for answering.

Squashfs is correctly installed. /home/osboxes/fmk-tool/src/binwalk-2.1.1/deps.sh is taking care of this and all other needed packages.
My VM is now Linux Mint 17.3 Cinnamon x64, as suggested by Patrick Sapinski here.
I tried as well to build a correct environment in OSX, using this git since I have a hackintosh, but same errors occurred during make all
Do you have a working FMK folder? Can you help me replicate your environment?

I know this is getting ridiculous...but I'm willing to learn. Yet, the learning curve is quite steep. I won't fall in frustration though. I know there's a lot to do, and I'm only getting the needed tools to begin.
I'm on my third VM, and counting...

[brightplastik]

Dear @xchwarze,
after many, many noob attempts, I now have a working FMK, on 18.04 VM.

I finally extracted all files from your optimized fw.

Do you think the optimizations will apply on the AR300M as well?

But mainly, now that I have extracted all files, what do I select precisely?

2\. With FMK extract from my fw the panel, the crack and the configuration files, boot and first start

Could you explain me this step?

Keep in mind that making a port takes a lot of time and a lot of work.
And it really can be quite frustrating.

I do! And I can't say how much admiration I have toward people like you. It's a sort of modern craftmanship. It takes a very long time, and most of time people don't value it correctly.
I know how long you must have spent in front of the pc, and the huge difference between me and you is that you sit in front of the pc doing smart things, while I spent days only to make FMK work without errors. The last 10 days have passed trying to understand why FMK wouldn't extract. See how smart I am?
Therefore, I hope you can help me, because the difference in knowledge is enormous.

So, take care of yourself, and take my compliments!

Hope to hear from you soon,
Gabriel

P.S: do you have a profile on openwrt forum?

[brightplastik]

2. With FMK extract from my fw the panel, the crack and the configuration files, boot al in a new fw with FMK

Dear xchwarze, as I mentioned earlier I extracted all needed from your firmware...could you please detail a little more what are the bits I have to merge?

I have all ready and working. I only need a little tip on what to merge together.

It would be very very useful to me and all people trying to do the same port of your excellent work!

Happy Christmas, as possible in these days!

[brightplastik]

Hello!

A tiny 2021 advice, so that I can begin this year with an unusual sense of satisfaction? 😂😂😂

[xchwarze]

Hello! Basically you have to merge your build with the rootfs folder of fmk.
Your build has the support for the new board and that has to be added to the rootfs.
For this use WinMerge in windows or Meld in Ubuntu

[4dvn]

Hello! Basically you have to merge your build with the rootfs folder of fmk.
Your build has the support for the new board and that has to be added to the rootfs.
For this use WinMerge in windows or Meld in Ubuntu

I know how to patch the pineapd on newest version!

[TeslaXT]

I know how to patch the pineapd on newest version!

Are you saying you have this ported across to the ar300M?

[TeslaXT]

A tiny 2021 advice, so that I can begin this year with an unusual sense of satisfaction?

If you manage to port this could you please share your work on here also? I, Like you, have been looking for this for months however I am not inclined to the same degree of "programming" as you.

[brightplastik]

Hello Tesla, I will surely share the endeavours. As you can clearly see from the previous posts, this is all hugely thanks to xchwarze's help. If I manage running a working and recent PineAP I won't miss to alert you all.
I'm not clever. Only stubborn. But I'll probably need some time, meanwhile. 😅

[4dvn]

I know how to patch the pineapd on newest version!

Are you saying you have this ported across to the ar300M?

yes

[brightplastik]

Hello! Basically you have to merge your build with the rootfs folder of fmk.
Your build has the support for the new board and that has to be added to the rootfs.
For this use WinMerge in windows or Meld in Ubuntu

I know how to patch the pineapd on newest version!

That would be useful too, 4dvn!
i sent you an email on hanv@dzus.edu.vn, hope to hear from you.

[brightplastik]

Hello @4dvn, I'm here asking for anyone's help.
Yesterday I even received an email from a github member...he asked me to explain him how to flash @xchwarze 's FW on his ar150. Well, the little I know I share. I told him how.
But regarding the ar300m fork I'm in deadspot. Dunno what to merge, and why. Simply not a connoisseur of firmware builds.

@xchwarze , I am quite embarassed. You are very generous telling me what to do, but I lack the fundamental knowledge, and I might brick the box, merging and damaging the rootfs folder with inappropriate files from the owrt fw. I understand, but only in theory. In practice I should know precisely what I'm doing, but I don't. The rootfs folders are very similar, but what precisely gives support for the AR300M? I just don't know. There are a lot of subfolders in rootfs, and I can't target what to merge.

@4dvn, do you have a firmware for AR300M? Could you share it with us please? I made a fork of your fork, and invited you to collaborate in it. If you can help, having time and knowledge, I would be very grateful.
I made the fork of the fork only because your fork hasn't got issues section enabled. So we can talk, as here on xchwarze's. Maybe xchwarze is fed up with these requests.

[xchwarze]

for build a custom firmware use this toolset https://github.com/xchwarze/wifi-pineapple-cloner

[xchwarze]

@brightplastik I think the gl-ar750s is the correct hardware for what you wanted to do. Even quite superior to the original.
I haven't tried it yet but I'm pretty sure about it xD.

[brightplastik]

I totally agree with you.
Nonetheless, I'm still in the noob area.
I tried some months ago to build an image for the AR300M, and failed. Had to recover using UART.
At the moment I own one AR150 and one AR300M. I could sell them on marketplace with PineAP installed and buy the AR750S, but apparently I'm unable to use owrt build environment.
facepalm