Getting Started

Connect

Connecting to Carambola is pretty easy. There are several ways of doing this. My personal recommendation is:

Serial: picocom for Linux and OSX, putty for Windows.
Ethernet: ssh for Linux and OSX, putty for Windows.

Serial

putty (Windows)

Straight forward. Run program, enter COM port number, select baudrate 115200 and click "connect".

picocom (Linux, OSX)

picocom -b 115200 /dev/ttyUSB0

Picocom man
To exit, press and hold CTRL, a, q.

Ethernet

putty (Windows)

Putty can be used for SSH, Telnet and Serial connectivity. It's a Swiss knife tool for Windows. Usage is as simple as in serial mode. Run, enter IP address, select protocol and connect.

ssh (Linux, OSX)

SSH is not enabled by default. In order to enable enter on your Carambola:

passwd

Then enter password and repeat. After this Carambola can be connected:

ssh root@192.168.0.2

Where root is your default root user and 192.168.0.2 IP address.

telnet (Linux, OSX)

This option is enabled in fresh OpenWrt. Connecting to Carambola is straightforward.

telnet 192.168.0.2

Where 192.168.0.2 is your Carambola's IP address.

Advanced

Connect to Carambola Advanced

Build firmware

This procedure must be performed on your computer. We use Xubuntu and Ubuntu but many other distributions should work. It is also possible to build on OSX. Building on Windows platform is not recommended.

Install packages to your computer

In order to build OpenWrt, you will need few software packages on your computer. Some are mandatory, some optional.

sudo apt-get install subversion g++ ncurses-term zlib1g-dev gawk flex patch openssh-server minicom picocom tftp tftpd gettext libncurses5 libncurses5-dev unzip quilt git git-doc git-gui

Get latest sources

Get latest sources from 8devices OpenWrt branch.

git clone https://github.com/8devices/carambola carambola

Prepare to build image

This step let's you configure OpenWrt according yo your needs.

cd carambola

Add and install feeds

./scripts/feeds update -a
./scripts/feeds install -a

Enter firmware configuration menu

make menuconfig

You should see configuration window like this:

Let's leave everything untouched for now and and exit.

Build image

Building OpenWrt firmware takes some time. On moderate computer it might take 1 to t 3 hours. CPU load during this process is usual close to 100%. By default make uses only one CPU core, but it's easy to force it use as many cores as you wish. For more details look in advanced section.

make

You should see build log like this:

Advanced

If you feel like something is missing or looking for some goodies, this section is for you.

Advanced build options

Useful links

Openwrt building (official web page)

Upload firmware

This section covers few methods how to upgrade firmware on Carambola. Some methods require only serial connection, some only LAN, some LAN and Serial. Also you might need to install/setup other software to perform these tasks.

sysupgrade

scp test@192.168.0.105:/home/test/carambola/bin/ramips/openwrt-ramips-rt305x-carambola-squashfs-sysupgrade.bin /tmp

Perform upgrade procedure.

sysupgrade -v -n /tmp/openwrt-ramips-rt305x-carambola-squashfs-sysupgrade.bin

Or if you wish to save configuration files:

etc/ethers
etc/config/wireless
etc/config/system
etc/config/network
etc/config/dropbear
etc/config/firewall
etc/config/dhcp
etc/dropbear/dropbear_rsa_host_key
etc/dropbear/dropbear_dss_host_key

type:

sysupgrade -v -c /tmp/openwrt-ramips-rt305x-carambola-squashfs-sysupgrade.bin

TFTP

Copy build firmware to TFTP directory. You should use openwrt-ramips-rt305x-carambola-squashfs-sysupgrade.bin file. It is located in carambola/bin/ramips folder For your own conveniency rename to shorter name. For example fw.bin.

Reboot or power up Carambola with serial console running and connected to PC.

Please choose the operation: 
   1: Load system code to SDRAM via TFTP. 
   2: Load system code then write to Flash via TFTP. 
   3: Boot system code via Flash (default).
   4: Entr boot command line interface.
   9: Load Boot Loader code then write to Flash via TFTP.

Press <2>

2: System Load Linux Kernel then write to Flash via TFTP. 
 Warning!! Erase Linux in Flash then burn new one. Are you sure?(Y/N)
 Please Input new ones /or Ctrl-C to discard
        Input device IP (192.168.0.104) ==:192.168.0.105
        Input server IP (192.168.0.111) ==:192.168.0.104
        Input Linux Kernel filename (test.bin) ==:fw.bin

You should see some progress on your screen. After it finishes upgrading firmware, press enter. You should see welcome screen.

BusyBox v1.19.3 (2012-01-21 21:06:55 EET) built-in shell (ash)
Enter 'help' for a list of built-in commands.

   ..|'''.|     Powered by 8devices.com        '||              '||                       
 .|'     '   ....   ... ..   ....   .. .. ..    || ...    ...    ||   ....
 ||         '' .||   ||' '' '' .||   || || ||   ||'  || .|  '|.  ||  '' .||
 '|.      . .|' ||   ||     .|' ||   || || ||   ||    | ||   ||  ||  .|' ||
  ''|....'  '|..'|' .||.    '|..'|' .|| || ||.  '|...'   '|..|' .||. '|..'|'

Probably you will see slightly different welcome banner.

Advanced

Advanced firmware upload uptions