Openwrt (kamikaze)/Asterisk on a Netgear WGT634U

The Serial Cable

The first thing you need to do is get a hold of an old floppy power supply cable. Snip it from an old computer case or an extension cable you might have or buy a new one. (Seriously who uses floppies anymore?) You'll notice on the picture to the right I've labeled how we are going to use to cable on the pinouts to the serial terminal on the wgt634u (click the image for a larger view). Yellow is ground, black next to the yellow is RX, black next to the red is TX and the red is unused. Once you've clipped and stripped the floppy power cable you'll need to find a cellphone serial data cable that you can "upgrade". I use the sony cellphone serial data cable. Splice together the floppy power cable and the serial cable. On my sony data cable that would be connecting the yellow/GRD to black, first-black/RX to white, and second-black/TX to blue. This leaves the red unused. You can just snip the red competely away. If you are using a regular serial cable the pin-outs are: Pin 5 connects to yellow/GND, Pin 2 connect to first-black/RX, Pin 3 connects to second-black/TX leaving all other pins disconnected. If you want to get fancy you can add a Max3232 RS232 Serial to 3.3v level converter

Openwrt Kamikazi

The Image: You will want to either build your own kamikaze subversion of openwrt or you can use this (2007-08-06) pre-compiled image. Once you have your image, upload it to your tftp server. Double check the permissions so that the file is available.

The Netgear:Unscrew the four screws on the bottom of the netgear and remove the plastic coverings. Connect your modified serial cable to the netgear and to your computer. Connect the wan port of the netgear to your network (or your tftp server).

terminal settings:
With kermit:

• set line /dev/ttyS0


• set carrier-watch off


• set speed 115200

The CFE Prompt: At the CFE> prompt type the following commands:

ifconfig eth0 -addr=ip_address_on_your_network -mask=your_network_mask
flash -noheader ip_of_your_tftp_server:openwrt-wgt643u-2.6-squashfs.bin flash0.os

The netgear will download the image and then sit at a "Programming..." prompt for some time. Once finished the CFE> prompt will return. Type 'reboot' Be patient! The first time the netgear boots with openwrt it takes anywhere from 5-10 minutes. So, after typing reboot walk away and go make a cup of green tea.

Configuration: I like to configure the router as a simple bridging access-point. By default the wireless card is disabled. This is what you need to do to turn the router into a bridge (including the wireless).
cd /etc/config
vi network
# add 4 to the vlan0 line
# change "4 5" to "" on the vlan1 line (don't remove this line
# it causes a kernel panic)
# change IP/netmask on the lan block
# comment-out the wan block (with #)
# save

vi wireless
# change the channel from 5 to 06
# comment out the option disable line (with #)
# change ssid to sjcnet
# save
cd /etc/rc.d
# edit or remove the S45firewall
# edit or remove the S50qos
rm S50telnet
rm S50httpd
passwd
# set the root password

reboot
Put the netgear back together.

You can now access your netgear with the ip address you gave it via ssh

Asterisk