Albert: firmware

Saturday, August 24, 2019

Flash OpenWrt on the A5-V11 Pocket Router

Step-by-step guide to replace the stock Qualcomm firmware on an A5-V11 pocket router (~$5) with OpenWrt, giving you a fully hackable Linux device.

What you need

A5-V11 pocket router (Qualcomm variant)
FAT-formatted USB flash drive
PC with Ethernet port
Ethernet cable
5 V USB power source

Step 1 — Prepare the USB drive

Download and unzip a5-v11-openwrt.zip onto a FAT-formatted USB flash drive.

Important: Do not just copy the .zip file — extract it so the folder containing openwrt-factory.bin, the bootloader, and update scripts sits at the root of the drive.

Step 2 — Connect the hardware

Wire up the A5-V11, USB drive, PC, and power as shown:

A5-V11 hardware setup: router, USB drive, Ethernet cable, and power

Hardware setup: A5-V11 router with USB flash drive, Ethernet to PC, and 5 V power.

Step 3 — Power on and wait

Apply 5 V power. The RED LED stays on for a few seconds, then the BLUE LED starts blinking (takes about 1 minute from power-on). Your PC should receive an IP in the 192.168.100.x range from the router's DHCP server.

Step 4 — Verify Qualcomm firmware

Open the router's web UI and confirm it shows the Qualcomm interface:

Qualcomm OEM web interface — confirm your router shows this page before continuing.

Qualcomm firmware detail page.

Stop here if your router's web page looks different from the screenshots above. You may have a Chinese firmware variant — follow this other guide instead.

Step 5 — Telnet in and flash

Open a telnet session to the router using PuTTY or a terminal:

Telnet session to the A5-V11 router.

Run the firmware flash commands as shown:

Running the OpenWrt flash commands via telnet.

Step 6 — Reboot into OpenWrt

After reboot, wait about a minute. OpenWrt will boot and your PC will get an IP in the 192.168.1.x range. Open a browser and you should see the OpenWrt LuCI interface:

OpenWrt LuCI login screen — use the default root user with no password.

OpenWrt dashboard. From here you can flash your own custom OpenWrt variant via System → Backup/Flash Firmware.

Next step: You can now overwrite this base OpenWrt image with your own custom build via the System → Backup/Flash Firmware menu.

DOWNLOADS

github.com/hackboxguy/downloads — a5-v11-openwrt.zip

Sunday, January 07, 2018

Flash XMPP ChatBot Firmware onto A5-V11 Router

Step-by-step guide to replace the stock Chinese firmware on an A5-V11 pocket router (~5 EUR) with an OpenWrt-based image that includes an XMPP chat-bot daemon for IoT applications.

What is A5-V11?

A low-cost (~5 EUR) Wi-Fi router capable of running OpenWrt Linux.

What is a5v11-xmpp-image?

A customized OpenWrt image that includes a C++ based XMPP client daemon for IoT applications. See this blog post for details on using it as a smart-home gateway.

Setup

As shown below, items 1–3 are required. Items 4–6 (USB-to-I2C converter and SSD1306 display) are optional — they help display the router's IP address on boot if you can't find it via your home router's DHCP client list.

Setup overview: A5-V11 router, Ethernet cable, PC (required), plus optional USB-to-I2C converter and SSD1306 display for IP readout.

Flashing steps

Step 1 — Download a5v11-xmpp-factory.uimg to your PC.

Step 2 — Connect an Ethernet cable between the A5-V11 and your PC.

Step 3 — Power on the A5-V11 with 5 V DC and wait ~1 minute until your PC gets an IP in the 192.168.100.x range.

Step 4 — Open 192.168.100.1 in your browser. You should see the Chinese OEM firmware page:

Chinese OEM firmware web interface — confirm your router shows this page.

Stop here if your page looks different. You may have the Qualcomm firmware variant — follow this other guide instead.

Step 5 — Click the language dropdown to switch to English:

Switch the web UI language to English.

Step 6 — Navigate to Admin → Firmware Upgrade → Choose File, select a5v11-xmpp-factory.uimg (downloaded in Step 1), then click "Upgrade".

Step 7 — Confirm by clicking "OK":

First confirmation dialog.

Step 8 — A second confirmation is needed — click "OK" again:

Second confirmation dialog.

Step 9 — The firmware upgrade begins:

Firmware flashing in progress.

Firmware flash completing.

Step 10 — Wait about 40 seconds, then remove power and disconnect the Ethernet cable from the PC.

Step 11 — Connect the A5-V11 to your home router via Ethernet. Make sure your PC is also on the same network.

Step 12 — Power on the A5-V11 and wait until the red LED stops blinking.

Post-flash configuration

Step 13 — SSH into the router using hostname my-a5v11 with credentials root / brb0x.

If you can't find the router's IP, connect an I2C display to the USB port — the router prints its IP on boot:

A5-V11 displaying IP address on I2C OLED display

Optional: SSD1306 I2C display showing the router's IP address after boot.

Step 14 — Change the default password:

passwd

Step 15 — Set your XMPP (Jabber) login credentials (replace with your own):

echo "user: test-slave-account@xabber.de" >/etc/xmproxy/xmpp-login.txt
echo "pw: chatbotpw" >>/etc/xmproxy/xmpp-login.txt
reboot

Step 16 — After reboot, your device should appear online in your smartphone's Xabber chat client.

Next steps: Follow this blog post to use the A5-V11 XMPP chat-bot as an IoT gateway for home automation.

DOWNLOADS

github.com/hackboxguy/downloads — a5v11-xmpp-factory.uimg