Read se515 firmware root_fs using cramfs

The firmware of the SE515 can be decomposed with the SE515 tools. resulting in kernel, hader and root_fs files of which root_fs is the root file system of the embedded linux running on the SE515. A brief howto is found at the SE515 forum.

root_fs is big endian (big value on low adress) cramfs compressed. opening this file on a little endian host (little value on low adress) like intel ix86 PC results in following error message:

# cramfsck: superblock magic not found

So cramfsswap can be used to convert from big endian to little endian.

cramfsswap found at http://labs.fqdn.org/page/cramfsswap swaps file from big endian (mips, se515) to little endian (iX86, Linux)

After swapping endianess cramfsck generates new error message
# cramfsck: memory access error

Yet, after
#modprobe cramfs

(works for suse 9.1 where cramfs support seems to be supported as a module) the SE515 root_fs can be mounted:

#mount -o loop -t cramfs image_file /mount/point

Though, the file structure can be accessed the files can not be opened. They seem to be empty. This is problably due to LZMA compression of the root_fs.

I turned out that we have to use patched cramfs.tools patched by the broadcom sourceforge project to extract the root_fs of the firmware. The patched version of cramfsck can detect and swap endianess on the fly. Moreover it supports LZMA compression wich is used by the SE515 but not implemented in the official cramfs.tools.

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Related Post:
TOS bit manipulation on the Siemens Gigaset SE515

Links:
Broadcom 6345 Linux distribution - Open source firmware project for routers with Broadcom 6345 chipset like the SE515
broadcom router kernel cross-compilation - introduction to cross compilation of kernel and firmware for the broadcom based routers
MIPS toolchain RPMs - precompiled cross compile tools for mips architecture
SE515 forum lots of useful information and downloads concerning the SE515 router
SE515 Wake on Lan - thread on wake on lan for SE515
Download SE515 firmware source code source code download for the Siemens SE515
Darkman firmware release Darkmans inofficial firmware release for the SE515
HPH Firmware releaseHeins Peter Hippenstiels inofficial firmware release. Contains also a firmware archieve with all old and up to date official SE515 firmwares, source codes.

Techorati Tags:
Siemens | SE515 |DSL router |cramfs |Firmware |

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Resizing NTFS partition on a HP-Omnibook XE3-GF to install SUSE Linux 9.1

With only one Windows partition on my laptop I wonted to set up a dual boot system without installing windows new. SUSE v9.1 pro claimed to support dual boot installations over windows installations by default, so it should be a pice of cake. Though, it turned out that this was a harder task than i thought.
During installation, YAST failed to resize the NTFS partition C:\ wich Windows XP was installed to, though I followed the documentation:
I defragmented the hard drive to move empty space to the end of the partition.
I swiched of virual memory because windows defrag cant defragment (pagefile.sys).
Moreover I Figured out that you also have ot disable hibernating
- (Start/settings/Control Pannel-Power Options
Then on page Hibernate uncheck the checkbox "Enable hibernate support") -
since the hibernating file on the harddrive (hyperfil.sys) can not be moved by defrag either.
Though Yast still failed to resize the NTFS partition.

Consulting the 90 days installation support was worthless. They answered my support question by copy pasting the answeres from their faq database. This is pretty much useless since i already read all these faqs before wich didn't help and then decided to contact the support. And they only came up with the same crap. (omg X-() Finaly they said this would be a windows problem. IMHO this could not be true since the resizing algorithm of Yast failed and not the defragmentation. So I had to solve this problem on my own althoug I payed for this worhtless 90day installation support. crazy.

Finally I found out what the problem was. HP Omnibooks have a hidden recovery partition that you cant detect with winows explorer so I wasent aware of it. This recovery partition happens to be the first partition on the hardrive /dev/hda1 Win95 FAT32 LBA. reported to be free and Yast needs the windows partition c:\ to be the first partition.

You can change the size of the windows partition only in expert mode but then it works.

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Links:
SUSE LINUX on IBM Laptops from pro-com
How to use ntfsresize from the command line
Dual Booting Linux and Windows NT/2000/XP
NTFSresize manpage
Techorati Tags:
NTFSresize | Omnibook |

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Advanced Siemens Gigaset SE515 configuration

The Siemens Gigaset SE515 runs some kind of Linux as the operatign system. This is interesting since it fetures a tty terminal to which you could log on using telnet.

using a dos- or unix console type:

#telnet se515

and the SE515 will talk to you.

However, its a little bit difficult to access the console on the SE515. First you have to downgrade to some firmware version (dont remember which one though) and log on as the user admin. The password will be the same as the pass you use to log on using the HTML interface. Then you 'll need to create a new user. If your happy with that firmware, you don't need to bother.

Now you can upgrade and log on again. If you log on as admin again you wont have root rights but if you log on as the new user you created you'll have root privileges.

With root provileges you have some more power over the firewall than you would have using the HTML interface alone if know how to use

#iptables

Now you can activate MSS clamping on the router which comes in handy if you don't want to adjust MTU of your network device but still like to avoid TCP packet fragmentation when using the DSL uplink provided by the SE515 Wlan Router.

# iptables -A FORWARD -p tcp --tcp-flags SYN,RST SYN -j TCPMSS  --clamp-mss-to-pmtu

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