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FREETZ TYPE 549X 7490

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Introduction[edit]

Some kind person of the IPPF forum donated a FRITZ!Box 5490, a fiber model. Looking at its Webinterface i directly saw the limited features in comparison to DSL models. Like many cable models the 5490 does not provide an IP-Client mode. There are onlyrouting modes, either with an external or the builtin fiber modem. Without an IP-Client mode there's also no full functionality of a Mesh-Repeater possible. Besides this the firmware is pretty left behind (7.12 only while the 7490 has 7.12 and frequent labors).

So why not write a freetz alien to adapt the 7490 firmware for the 5490. The 5491 just has a differung fiber port but all info here applies to it too.

Download[edit]

This alien will be checked into Freetz-ng, for those who can't wait or want to integrate it in another fork here the tested patch to download:

To test the alien do:

umask 0022
svn co -r 17719 http://svn.boxmatrix.info/freetz-ng/trunk 549x
cd 549x
wget https://boxmatrix.info/hosted/hippie2000/FreetzType_549X_7490-0.1.patch
svn patch FreetzType_549X_7490-0.1.patch
make menuconfug
make

Set user experience to Advanced, select the 7490 and Compile for alien hardware and then select your 549x model.

Comparison[edit]

Both models nearly have the same design, with these differences:

Switch-Chip[edit]

The 5490 uses a switch chip while the 7490 uses 2 PHY chips for the LAN. Fortunately the 7490 kernel supports this chip, but without special initialisation 2 ports remain dead. On 7.12 it works fine to copy E46-net from the 5490 firmware to have 4 ports. On 7.21 3 commands attached to the config (initscr) to activate the 2 ports and bring up eth2.2, eth3.3 and the so far unrelated vlan_master0 interface. Tested with 7.12 and 7.21.

ip link set up dev vlan_master0
ip link set up dev eth2.2
ip link set up dev eth3.3

TFFS-Partitions[edit]

The 5490 uses TFFS2 (2 partitions) while the 7490 uses TFFS3 (single partition nand-tffs). Fortunately the 7490 kernel TFFS3 driver detects that it can't initialise the nand-tffs and switches back to a TFFS2 legacy mode. It works fiine when replacing the tffs startup script S08-tffs with the script from the 5490 firmware (copied to tffs (initscr) on 7.21), otherwise the tffs gets damaged. Tested with 7.12 and 7.21.

Install-Script[edit]

Since the 7490 install script contains a lot of code for nand-tffs the 5490 install script has to be used. It just needs adaption if the firmware version is not 7.12. Tested with 7.12 and 7.21.

LED-Layout[edit]

Both models have a different LED layout:

  • 5490: Power - Fiber - WLAN - Fon - Info
  • 7490: Power/DSL - Tel. VoIP - Tel. PSTN - WLAN - Info

On 7.12 it helps to copy kernel.image from the 5490 firmware (if replace-kernel is switched off) to fix the layout, but the power LED does not stop blinking in IP-Client mode. Otherwise the LEDs will act like on a 7490, and the power LED stops blinking in IP-Client mode. This is just a cosmetic issue and must be patched in replace-kernel (TODO).

Firmware[edit]

The latest firmware available for *both* models is 7.12, so I made a Firmware-Diff of it:

Internet[edit]

The 5490 has a fiber port while the 7490 has a DSL/ISDN/POTS port. Since both models use the same DSL chip the 5490 can pretend to be a DSL router without any problems. The IP-Client is a feature of a DSL router and works fine, with a full featured Mesh-Repeater mode. The FPGA does not need bitfile_isdn.bit and bitfile_pots.bit but works fine with the bitfile.bit and the S11-piglet script from the 5490 firmware. Tested with 7.12 and 7.21.

Fiber-Stack[edit]

TLDR - it's possible to start the 7.12 fiber stack on 7.21, however, this does not mean that it works.

The fiber stack consists of:

Simplified E40-fiber starts the stack like this:

modprobe avm_fiber_if
fiber_monitor -d
avm2fiber_xdsld -d
modprobe ltq_eth_oam_handler ethwan=wan
ifconfig eoam up
eth_oam -ieoam -wwan -t0 -D

Simplified e40-fiber stops the stack like this:

killall eth_oam
ifconfig eoam down
modprobe -r ltq_eth_oam_handler
killall fiber_monitor
killall avm2fiber_xdsld

fiber_monitor is a modified dsl_monitor, and it will not run on 7.21 until dsl_monitor is killed, which even runs in IP-Client mode.
avm2fiber_xdsld runs fine on 7.21 but eth_oam lacks the -w option, so the eth_oam from the 5490 has to be used which runs fine.
Since 7.21 uses supervisor systemd replacement and does not start scripts in /etc/init.d automatically a service fiber.service is created from a modified dsl.service.

TLDR - it's possible to start the 7.12 fiber stack on 7.21, however, this does not mean that it works.

Feedback[edit]

For bug reports or feature requests please get in touch or use this forum thread (german or english language please):

Known Bugs

  • It seems that each Firmware update a new Webserver certificate is created, so you have to accept it as a new untrusted site. May be a TFFS issue.
  • The page System >> Region and Language hangs when setting the language. After rebooting the box the selected language is used. May be a TFFS issue.
  • The page Diagnostics >> Security does not list the name of the service running on each port. May be an I14N issue.
  • Creating new telephone numbers fails, since there are no providers to choose from, not even "other". May be an I14N issue.
  • Same applies to internet providers, there is just a selection between other and mobile on the Account Information page. May be an I14N issue.