|
WARNING: You may brick your router if something goes wrong. You assume full liability for whatever happens and hold nobody responsible for damages, tangible or intangible, resulting from the use or mis-use of information or software found here. You (the user) assumes all liability. In the event of a bricking of your router, the only possible course for recovery is to hardwire into the board with a JTAG cable, but, quite frankly, if you screwed up the flashing of your router then building a JTAG connection is probably a little more than you should do
It's a known fact that you can change the code in the firmware on a Linksys WRT54G (among dozens of other makes and models) router, but as we all know, flashing can be risky business and it could turn a working component into an over-priced door-stopper within seconds. Although this procedure can be used on numerous types of routers, please bear in mind the the method I'm writing about is that for the WRT54G v5 and v6 router and any attempting this on any other router is not recommended (without further research, of course.)
Before starting, read through and be sure you understand everything in the procedure and download all the necessary files before-hand as you will be loosing your connection temporarily during this process. This is a fairly simple procedure, but a little common sense is needed if you run into problems. I will attempt to explain what is happening to the router during each step and the importance of that step so that, in the event that you run into trouble, you can work your way through troubleshooting without too much trouble. - Download [
 vxworks_prep_v03.zip] and extract. - Download [vxworks_killer_g_v06.zip] and extract, OR create a custom firmware image with your MAC address embedded in it. I recommend the file, but if you want to retain your original MAC address in the router then you'll probably want a custom image.
- Download [DD-WRT micro generic]. You may want to check [DD-WRT] to make sure there isn't a newer version than v23 SP2 beta 08/03/06. Do not use the one labelled 'WRT54G' or 'WRT54GS', use the 'generic' version.
- If you don't know how to use (or don't have) a console mode TFTP tool (i.e. tftp.exe), download the [
 Linksys TFTP transfer tool]. - You will want to assign your network adaptor a manual IP address, since you may loose your automatically configured one and have trouble TFTP'ing the firmware. To do this, go into your network connection settings (this path varies from OS to OS) in the TCP/IP area and deselect the configure through DHCP and do a manual configuration with the following settings: Static IP: 192.168.1.101 Subnet Mask: 255.255.255.0 Gateway Address: 192.168.1.1. Optionally, you can also set the Primary DNS to 192.168.1.1 also, but this isn't really necessary.
- Go to your router's web based interface and enter the 'Administration' tab. Then select 'Firmware Upgrade' and choose the vxworks_prep_v03.bin file. Hit apply. After a minute, your browser window will go blank. At this point, power cycle your router.
- Again point your web browser to http://192.168.1.1. You'll see a different sort of firmware upgrade screen. This is the Management Mode. Select and apply the vxworks_killer_g_v06.bin firmware upgrade. WAIT for your browser window to turn to report 'Success'. Have troubles? Try a different web browser, the http daemon in management mode is very finicky.
- Now unplug the power cord of your router, then plug it back in. The power LED should now be blinking.
- Now you need to do a binary mode TFTP transfer of DD-WRT micro generic to your router. To do this you can use the Windows TFTP console mode utility, the Linksys TFTP Windows GUI utility, or some other TFTP client. You may have to disable your firewall if by some chance it is blocking outgoing connections on port 69. Many TFTP clients don't default to binary mode, so be sure to specify it (i.e. the -i switch with the Windows console mode TFTP utility).
- For Windows TFTP console mode utility (example, adjust accordingly):
- tftp -i 192.168.1.1 put dd-wrt.v23_micro_generic.bin
- For the GUI utility
- simply enter your router's IP (192.168.1.1), select dd-wrt.v23_micro_generic.bin, leave the password field blank, and initiate the transfer.
Do NOT reboot your router after TFTP'ing, this will happen automatically. It takes a couple minutes after the TFTP transfer finishes for the firmware to actually be flashed. |
