SFT 1200 OPAL openwrt vesion

Router
66

thanks for the context @nijave

small clarification tho from what I've read :d

the switch driver is already upstream (mxl-gsw1xx dsa driver) with its current tag format and dangowrt said it gets gigabit wire speed for bridging/vlans

the missing 802.1Q tagger very likely matters for hnat so its whats holding back routing speed rather than basic support

feel free to correct me if I'm wrong though!

anyway Im going to keep working and poking on this in my free time. first step is getting my repo up and running (duhh) so others can build and test it though GitHub really hates me lol

first my country couldnt receive the SMS verification codes and now my new account got suspended

Honestly getting the code online might end up being the hardest part xd.

67

Coincidentally, I was trying to get newer firmware to work with my Opal device, and I primarily used Claude as well and had a breakthrough around the time scada posted to this thread. My goal was to get the Opal connecting over WiFi to my AX1800 primary home router to form an L2 bridge (for a mostly unrelated project). This needed it to be able to connect to a WiFi network provided by another router (which the stock firmware did not seem to support) and provide an Ethernet bridge into that network.

Claude ultimately did get it working by starting from rctphone’s work and comparing against dangowrt’s known-booting, Ethernet-only build. I have pushed those changes to a fork of rctphone’s fork of the GL-iNet repo on my GitHub account: GitHub - ignirtoq/openwrt-gl.inet-sft1200 at sft1200-fixes · GitHub

I am a software developer by trade, but I definitely do not normally work at the device firmware level, so much of this is beyond me. Claude did mention that it ultimately had 5 patches on top of rctphone’s work to enable this. I can also say Claude attempted to get 802.1Q tagging working and was unable to do so on its first try. I didn’t need that functionality, so I didn’t push any further.

I asked Claude if you would need any specific instructions to be able to build its work:

To build: clone the sft1200-fixes branch, run ./scripts/feeds update -a && ./scripts/feeds install -a, then cp gl-sft1200.config .config && make defconfig && make. For the first install I flashed openwrt-siflower-sf19a2890-glinet_gl-sft1200-squashfs-factory.img through U-Boot web recovery (hold reset while powering on, then browse to 192.168.1.1 from a PC with a static 192.168.1.x address); later updates can use the sysupgrade.tar. Out of the box it broadcasts GL-SFT1200 and GL-SFT1200-5G with the GL.iNet default key, so change that right away. The L2 bridge is not built in; it is regular OpenWrt WDS client configuration, and the upstream AP also needs WDS enabled. Known gaps: the 5 GHz external PA is not configured yet, and 802.1Q DSA tagging (needed for hardware NAT offload) breaks the LAN ports, so hardware NAT is off. Over the WDS bridge I measured about 49 Mbit/s up and 109 Mbit/s down.

69

I'll definitely take a closer look at your code hahah

I'm way too busy with my university and side jobs while also having a really debilitating common cold lol

My immune system is comparable to a stick of icecream

I'll take a closer look and try to get more work done as soon as possible

I've been stretching uploading the code for way too long but I promise literally everything that could go wrong is happening right now xd

70

I only got around to it today, and so far it seems like I’ve successfully bricked my Opal. The LED on the front flashes fast blue, then slowly, and then turns off.

71

The boot sequence suggests the installed image is not starting correctly, but the Opal may still be recoverable through U-Boot:

  1. Download the official GL-SFT1200 U-Boot-compatible firmware from the GL.iNet Download Center.
  2. Power off the Opal and connect a computer directly to a LAN port; disconnect everything else.
  3. Hold Reset while powering it on. Keep holding until the blue LED flashes five times and then becomes solid, then release Reset.
  4. Set the computer’s Ethernet address to 192.168.1.2 with subnet mask 255.255.255.0, disable Wi-Fi/VPN/proxy software, and open http://192.168.1.1.
  5. Upload the official firmware and wait at least three minutes without interrupting power. This erases the current configuration.

Full recovery instructions are available in the GL.iNet U-Boot debrick guide. The community firmware used here is not officially supported by GL.iNet; guidance for it is best-effort, and GL.iNet Technical Support may not be able to troubleshoot or maintain that configuration.

This reply was generated by AI. Please verify its accuracy.

GL.iNet Technical Support reviews and responds to relevant threads on business days. Please allow time for a staff response.

72

I did repeatedly, same problem, router flashes then sems to switch-off. U-boot is working fine.

74

Thats really interesting

I flashed it on both of my sft1200 and my friends sft1200 and it booted after 2-3minutes

I'd love some UART logs I guess

75

To get the U-Boot log, I'd need to open up the router to access pins, and I really don't feel like doing that. The image I used probably has some bug. I'll wait for Github or another image.

76

Tried the following: I installed a clean (U-boot) firmware 4.8.3 and later also an older 4.3.25, and flashed your image. Each time the router stopped working. If you have a different experience, please advise. Maybe you have a different image. I don't have the U-boot log, I don't want to disassemble the router.

77

hey i tested everything turns out i didnt compile the drivers for you for the switch

here is the repo

ill clean it a bit and make some changes that make sense hopefully in the following weeks

79

After getting rid of some stuff I found my opal and thought lets have a look an see if there Openwrt is working on it yet. It was the reason I got it.. to my surprise I found out it is.

So thank you all for your hard work.

Scada, I got the img you created and it is working well.

Connected via lan cable I get

Download Mbps 65.73
Upload Mbps 114.31
Ping ms 10

On wifi I get

Download Mbps 80.48
Upload Mbps 77.64
Ping ms 109

using speedtest.net I have a 10gbps fiber connection so I think Lan speed sholud be a bit higher.

Since I did not do any testing using the original firmware I dont know what it was before.

Thanx and keep up the good work

1 Like
80

Hahah I'm happy to hear that

I can try to further optimize everything but I'm really tight on free time this year

I'll update the forum if anything new happens

1 Like
81

thankfully my tomorrows lecture moved for next week and i have progress with hnat working ill try to clean some stuff up it was not that hard to implement it

also the license for everything seems to be MIT so i think legally im in the clear lol

82

Well I have plenty of free time but no clue how to how to implement it. So if you have some spare time it would be appreciated. Wil test new updates and let you know if the Lan is faster.

83

I got hnat working but I'm trying to figure out why Ethernet ports won't come up when I compile hnat

It'll take some time

Update: fixed everything but performance is still under 300mbit/s which is rather slow also i cant get hnat working for wifi in a proper way

ill try to fix ethernet side first

84

I sugest You are working on issues already, anyway i will send You short summary from test runs:

1. Ethernet switch (MaxLinear GSW1xx) fails to initialize

mxl-gsw1xx stmmac-0:1f: writing PCE microcode failed, -145
mxl-gsw1xx stmmac-0:1f: error -ETIMEDOUT: dsa switch registration failed
mxl-gsw1xx stmmac-0:1f: probe with driver mxl-gsw1xx failed with error -145

  • Happens on every boot, including cold boots, so it is not random and not a power issue.

  • No lan1–lan3 ports are created, so the LAN ports are dead.

  • eth0 is up and works as WAN (connected to an upstream router, internet reachable).

  • 2. 2.4 GHz radio (platform/soc/11000000.wifi) does not work

  • With an AP and a STA interface on radio0, wpa_supplicant fails: nl80211: Could not configure driver mode and phy0-sta0: Failed to initialize driver interface. iw dev shows phy0-sta0 as type AP with txpower 0.00 dBm.

  • After removing the STA interface, hostapd reports: Could not read interface phy0-ap0 flags: No such device. The phy0-ap0 interface is never created.

  • The 5 GHz radio (17800000.wifi, phy1-ap0) works normally.

  • After disable and enabel radio seems to work normaly

I can provide full dmesg, iw list and uci show wireless output if needed.

Thanks for your effort

Thanks.

86

Cindead reported the image working from the repo

can you make sure you're using the latest img from the repo (not the one i sent you) and a good power adapter? on my unit the same build boots with lan1 lan2 and wan every time so it might be an older build or a different hardware revision. if it still fails send the full dmesg

the 2.4ghz issue is siflowers wifi driver, wifi reload after boot should work around it for now

87

also if it still does not work give dangowrt’s repo a try compile it flash it and check if it works

Update: I pushed a new release fixing the speeds for ipv4 no pppoe ipv6 or wifi acceleration for now since those still go thru software but it should be roughly twice as fast

88

Quick status update on the GL-SFT1200 (Opal) port — testing on real hardware.

**Working:**

  • Wi-Fi: both radios come up as APs. 2.4 GHz negotiates 144 Mbit/s, 5 GHz up to
    650 Mbit/s.
  • Ethernet switch: fixed. Our unit is the newer revision with a GSW150 at SMDIO
    address 0 (instead of the GSW140 at 0x1f). With the variant detection applied,
    DSA sets up cleanly, wan/lan1/lan2 are created, and we get 1 Gbps/full on LAN1
    and WAN (link Up, flow control rx/tx).

**Open issues (both block using this as a travel router):**

  1. **STA / client mode.** A manually created managed vif plus our own
    wpa_supplicant (bypassing netif entirely) still fails at the capability check:
    Since travelmate drives its own wpa_supplicant, it hits the same wall.

  2. **TUN / VPN.** TUN is not in the kernel: VPN packages are not working yet.

    Happy to test builds and report dmesg/register dumps. Lot of work is done i am sure positive news will be here soon!