The R4Pro is ready to use the MxL86252S-ABE-R chip

Banana Pi Router design BPI-R4/BPI-R4 Pro(MT7988)
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old:MxL86252C new:MxL86252S-ABE-R

Some of these boards will use the MxL86252S-ABE-R. The MxL86252S-ABE-R and MxL86252C are also compatible, the software is universal, and no modifications are required to use them.

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I do not understand the scope of this new IC spec… or better i do not understand what you are trying to communicate at all.

Also, looks like maxlinear opened an account on lvfs and there is work in progress for the new firmware to be released (soon i hope): https://fwupd.org/lvfs/search?value=maxlinear

Can you please clarify?

regards

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It’s just a different MxL chip, but it doesn’t affect the overall usability.

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ok, the S one is for standalone switches. the C one is more for DSA switches.

to me this still doesn’t change the issue. The current version, (1.0.70) which will be replaced soon hopefully, doesn’t work good with the DSA driver implementation that is in the kernel upstream.

in dsa mode in the bpi r4 pro we have no way to access the web interface of the mxl862XX so that is the issue, we don’t need the web interface, we need the driver to be able to talk to the chip in the right way. A firmware upgrade is needed.

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If the new one is for standalone and old (C) for dsa,then new one is more wrong than the old :frowning:

Wonder why this hw change was made and i guess the firmware may be different in future releases…where driver points to C hw and not S…

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Indeed the data sheet for S mentions web-smart support, while C doesn’t have that. Wondering if the new firmware works only for C and can be flashed on S too to strip the web part and still be managed via dsa driver. I think this is what bpi is saying and hopefully validated from Maxlinear.

Or even the new firmware supports WSP (web smart support) considering that the spi where the firmware is stored is 64mbit big…maybe Daniel knows if the new firmware supports both DSA and WSP.

maybe @dangowrt can comment.

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@hyf why do you/bpi plan to use the non-dsa variant on a system require dsa driver? Webbased switch configuration from firmware is potential security issue as it cannot controlled by host OS.

Is this change already made on some boards? How can users check without removing the heatsink on their board?

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DSA and Web-based switch management are mutually exclusive features, can’t have them both. The DSA driver disables the microcontroller’s networking interface, applications like STP, LLDP, … are done by the DSA host rather than the microcontroller when using the switch with DSA. All this applies to both, ‘C’ and ‘S’ variants of the chip, which differ in security and precision-time features – both potentially support being a web-managed standalone switch (The DSA doesn’t currently cover the ‘S’-features, ie. no MACSec, no IEEE1588/PTPv2, no SyncE, …)

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Well then… I don’t see issues if the board is shipped with the DSA firmware even if the S variant is mounted.

@hyf are all the old boards shipped with C variant? I want to avoid removing the heatsink just to check.