[Scottish] Reflashing a BT Home Hub - Advice Needed[Scanned]

[AndyP]

Here Goes,

	BT Home hub, made by Thomson/Inventel and appears to have a model
number of BLUE_7G. Very similar to the Orange/Freeserve/Wanadoo Livebox
BLUE_5G in that it uses a Broadcom BCM6348 ADSL2+ chip and runs a
modified 2.6.8.1 kernel. Unlike the Livebox this has a encrypted boot
image which no-one has yet decrypted, in the same manner as other
Speedtouch modems. See here for options on unlocking the hub
http://www.the-scream.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?s=a81f86d41ec71b1552679033a90bedb1&t=22917
although they all appear to stop the phone working.

	It might be possible to replace the bootloader with either RedBoot or
CFE in the same manner as the other BCM6348 modem/routers. If this is
possible (I haven't tried yet but will sometime as I have used Jtag to
backup the boot loader) it should be able to run other code as all
others based on this chipset have the same code base, only Inventel
being different in using RedBoot on the Livebox and Thomsons own on the
Homehub. This would also stop the phone option from working although it
might be possible to still use the phone binaries as the kernel version
of 2.6.8.1 is the same for most of the boxes.

	Most of the important bits use proprietary binaries or modules
(ADSL/WiFi,Bluetooth,phone,etc) for which there is no source available.
What GPL source there is, is available from
http://www.btyahoo.com/broadband/adhoc_pages/gplcode.html and although
http://Openwrt.org did some work on getting Linux to run on the BCM6348
chip they did not look at getting it on the Homehub.

	I haven't done much with my Homehub as I have been concentrating more
on the Livebox, but will try and help if anyone has any questions on
either.

Cheers,

	AndyP
	

On Fri, 2007-11-02 at 11:42 +0000, Tim Brocklehurst wrote:
> Telnet reveals a few interesting facts (which I can't remember
> off-hand).
> I don't know how to change the OS (and unless you want a firewall on it
> too, not sure if it's worth it), but once you get in via telnet it is
> actually quite configurable.
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> Tim B.
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: scottish-bounces at mailman.lug.org.uk
> [mailto:scottish-bounces at mailman.lug.org.uk] On Behalf Of Arron M Finnon
> Sent: 02 November 2007 11:35
> To: dundee; scottish
> Subject: [Scottish] Reflashing a BT Home Hub - Advice Needed[Scanned]
> 
> Hi Guys,
> 
> Well the time has come when i now need to follow my own advice and ask
> for some of your guys.  I just know that my newbie status will show out
> through this, but what the hey.
> 
> I have a BT Home hub (spare), but what i want to do is reflash the
> thing.  It apparently runs linux, and it's a normal router that's been
> hijacked by BT's own software.  It's a little side project but one that
> i would like to do, as far as i understand the thing has an OS and i was
> wondering if you basically but a new OS on it.  
> 
> I know very little about the router, what really surprised about it is
> that there is absolutely no marking determining who the manufacture is,
> no documentation on BT's site about the manufacture .  I haven't
> telnet'ed into it.  I have done nothing with yet, i thought it better
> that i understand the process of doing it first, rather than going with
> my usual both feet first what the heck attitude that i normally throw at
> these things, there seems to be a few sites going through it, but just
> wanted to ask if anyone had experience with this sort of thing, advice,
> tips that sort of thing.  I'm unsure what the kernel is in it at the
> moment, as it is a modified embedded linux distro.
> 
> Any way guys i thank you in advance for any help you guys give, and he
> questions you need me to answer just ask, i'll do my best to get the
> answer back ASAP.
> 
> Arron
> 
> 
> 
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