[BPI-R3] How to upgrade firmware via web page?

Banana Pi Router design BPI-R3/R3 Mini(MT7986)
1

Hi all,

Currently, I have a BPI-R3 board with official firmware. I follow this page, and we can boot from NAND and EMMC successfully.

I are planning to build our own image from source code.

First, we try to build image from git.openwrt.org Git - openwrt/openwrt.git/summary and we have openwrt-mediatek-filogic-bananapi_bpi-r3-squashfs-sysupgrade.itb. But we can not upgrade itb from web page, any suggestion?

Second, we try another code base to build image from GitHub - BPI-SINOVOIP/BPI-R3-OPENWRT-V21.02.3: BPI-R3-OPENWRT-V21.02.3 and we have openwrt-mediatek-mt7986-BPI-R3-NAND-WAN1-SFP1-squashfs-sysupgrade.bin. But if use sysupgrade.bin to upgrade via web page, rootfs can not to be mount.

I need some suggestions about

  1. which code base is better to develop my own firmware image?
  2. how to upgrade via web page? which image? Please help, thanks.
2

The upgrade mechanism in the image provided by SinoVoip as well as the pre-installed firmware is incompatible with the mechanism in vanilla OpenWrt. Hence, if you plan to use vanilla OpenWrt from git.openwrt.org (which I’d recommend), you have to start again using a micro SD card and install bootloaders to NOR, NAND and/or eMMC. See Banana Pi BPI-R3 OpenWRT image for more details.

3

Hi @dangowrt

Thanks a lot.

First, what is vanilla OpenWrt? is it meaning a model name? Second, yes, I already follow instruction from official wiki page to install NAND and EMMC boot loader. Im looking for a way or a ready codebase to build firmware image. Thanks.

4

It means that it’s the OpenWrt, as in what you find on git.openwrt.org or downloads.openwrt.org, not some downstream fork or modification as the OpenWrt-based images provided by SinoVoip or installed on the board when it comes from factory.

By that you probably mean what’s written here https://wiki.banana-pi.org/Banana_Pi_BPI-R3#OpenWRT, right? Because that is SinoVoip’s downstream modification of OpenWrt…

To use official OpenWrt, please follow the steps here:

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5

Hi @dangowrt

Good, I have what I need now. I will test firmware from banana’s GitHub first. Thanks.

6

So in short the Sinovoip build was only a proof of concept that worked, but now that the BPI-R3 is included in official openWRT its recommended to use openwrt builds? For timely updates and security fixes.

7

yes, bsp-repo will not receive any updates and uses a different (maybe broken) update procedure. so you will have better support with official openwrt…maybe not all hardware is supported (e.g. wifi-leds), but i’m not sure they are working in bsp repo

8

You can run OpenWrt directly from the microSD card or use the bootloader menu in the serial console to install OpenWrt on either the SPI-NAND or the SPI-NOR flash chip (depending on the position of the physical switch on the board).

Which means you need a serial connection to the router to flash from MicroSD Card to NAND? no other way around that?

Edit: shame on me… you need to install the minicom package in software for that to actually work -.-

9

You can also task U-Boot to carry out installation on next reboot by modifying the U-Boot environment. For that, no access to serial console is required. See this post: Banana Pi BPI-R3 OpenWRT image

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