[PLUG] Firebox M300 with OpenWrt (was: Re: Interesting D-Link Gigabit Ethernet Switch Fail)

[Russell Senior]

On Wed, Aug 7, 2024 at 7:34 AM Ted Mittelstaedt <tedm at portlandia-it.com> wrote:
>
> It would be interesting to know if anyone ever tried building Snort3 for that box.

I have not.

>
> It seems as though you are unable to use opkg with the QorIQ platform and that
> Any apps must be compiled into the image before it's written to the SD card.  At least
> Per this:
>
> https://forum.openwrt.org/t/howto-install-on-watchguard-m300/133072/19

It does seem to be source-only at the moment. I didn't notice that
because I build from source anyway.

>
> This also does not inspire confidence:
>
> https://forum.openwrt.org/t/newbie-tried-install-openwrt-on-watchguard-firebox-m300/187341/2
>

The installation instructions did change at some point. The forum
thread you are pointing at seem to describe a person who used the old
instructions with a new version. The current instructions work with
the current images. I just followed them yesterday and they worked.

> Nor does the dead link here:
>
> https://openwrt.org/toh/watchguard/firebox-m300
>
> "FIT Images" point to
>
> "doc/uImage.FIT/howto.txt" did not exist on "master"

Looks like u-boot moved the information to:

  doc/usage/fit/howto.rst

on about June 23, 2023 in this commit: 51de69cda390f645dc69046703340d0780f52e46

You don't need to understand FIT, it is just there as a background
informational link. And, it is a wiki, you are permitted to fix broken
links. I just fixed it, should work now.

>
> I dunno.  I have 40 wifi AP's in production use running OpenWRT but I've also been burned by OpenWRT.  The most recent time
> Was with a Linksys E3000 that was running dd-wrt just fine.  Installed OpenWRT on that, worked perfectly.  Enabled wifi interface #1 - still worked perfectly.  Enabled the ac wifi interface - router crashed and is now stuck in a bootloop and I'll have to take it apart and serial recover it.

https://openwrt.org/toh/linksys/e3000_v1 has a gigantic BEWARE warning
at the top. It uses a broadcom radio which is always fraught.

>
> Really stupid to provide an image on the OpenWRT site that allows you to brick a unit just by clicking an "enable" button with no warning message "do not enable this wifi interface" or some such.

You are, of course, entitled to a full refund. ;-)

-- 
Russell Senior
russell at personaltelco.net