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davidjb / technicolor-tg799vac-hacks

A collection of configuration for detoxing and improving the Technicolor TG799vac modem
MIT License
50 stars 14 forks source link

Upgrade to latest OpenWRT #9

Closed monsieurhannes closed 2 years ago

monsieurhannes commented 2 years ago

Hi, Thanks for your work! I'm curious if it's possible to upgrade to the latest OpenWRT after flashing it according to your tutorial. And do you know if Technicolor did changes in their firmware to prevent flashing with alternative firmware. As your repo is 4 years old I'm just curious if it's worth digging into it :) Cheers

davidjb commented 2 years ago

Thanks for your appreciation.

Upgrading this device is probably infeasible given the proprietary hardware present in the device (e.g. https://forum.openwrt.org/t/technicolor-tg799vac/39937/3). That said, you can upgrade to a slightly newer firmware designed for the TG799vac - see https://hack-technicolor.readthedocs.io/en/stable/Repository/#tg799vac-vant-f for a list of known firmware and their types (which correspond to their hackability).

And do you know if Technicolor did changes in their firmware to prevent flashing with alternative firmware

Yes, they did close the security hole needed for the exploit in newer firmware versions, so you need to be on an older version of the firmware (e.g. 17.2.0261 or older) to be able to get root under current known methods, downgrading first if necessary.

As your repo is 4 years old I'm just curious if it's worth digging into it :)

Whilst cheap as chips, the hardware is pretty old, isn't very powerful, has tiny built-in storage and software is extremely limited. Unless you've got a very specific purpose for this device, or wanted to just hack around with it, there's better hardware out there. Maybe take a look at devices that are either built for or compatible with modern OpenWrt.

monsieurhannes commented 2 years ago

Thank you for the quick and detailed reply! :) I'll look into the option you send.

I agree that the device is quite underpowered for today's standards. I have one here which I want to use as some kind of AP and I was curious if it would work as a wireless mesh device with EasyMesh or B.A.T.M.A.N. Otherwise I'll just use it as dumb AP and replace one of my other OpenWRT-AP. Probably the less frustrating option.

Thank you and have a great day!