FCC ID: A8J-ESR900
Engenius ESR900 is an indoor wireless router with
a gigabit ethernet switch, dual-band wireless,
internal antenna plates, and a USB 2.0 port
**Specification:**
- QCA9558 SOC 2.4 GHz, 3x3
- AR9580 WLAN PCIe on board, 5 GHz, 3x3
- AR8327N SW 4 ports LAN, 1 port WAN
- 40 MHz clock
- 16 MB FLASH MX25L12845EMI-10G
- 2x 64 MB RAM
- UART at J1 populated, RX grounded
- 6 internal antenna plates (omni-directional)
- 5 LEDs, 1 button (power, 2G, 5G, WAN, WPS) (reset)
**MAC addresses:**
Base MAC address labeled as "MAC ADDRESS"
MAC "wanaddr" is not similar to "ethaddr"
eth0 *:06 MAC u-boot-env ethaddr
phy0 *:06 MAC u-boot-env ethaddr
phy1 *:07 --- u-boot-env ethaddr +1
WAN *:6E:81 u-boot-env wanaddr
**Serial Access:**
RX on the board for UART is shorted to ground by resistor R176
therefore it must be removed to use the console
but it is not necessary to remove to view boot log
optionally, R175 can be replaced with a solder bridge short
the resistors R175 and R176 are next to the UART RX pin
**Installation:**
Method 1: Firmware upgrade page
OEM webpage at 192.168.0.1
username and password "admin"
Navigate to Settings (gear icon) --> Tools --> Firmware
select the factory.bin image
confirm and wait 3 minutes
Method 2: TFTP recovery
Follow TFTP instructions using initramfs.bin
use sysupgrade.bin to flash using openwrt web interface
**Return to OEM:**
MTD partitions should be backed up before flashing
using TFTP to boot openwrt without overwriting flash
Alternatively, it is possible to edit OEM firmware images
to flash MTD partitions in openwrt to restore OEM firmware
by removing the OEM header and writing the rest to "firmware"
**TFTP recovery:**
Requires serial console, reset button does nothing at boot
rename initramfs.bin to 'uImageESR900'
make available on TFTP server at 192.168.99.8
power board, interrupt boot by pressing '4' rapidly
execute tftpboot and bootm
**Note on ETH switch registers**
Registers must be written to the ethernet switch
in order to set up the switch's MAC interface.
U-boot can write the registers on it's own
which is needed, for example, in a TFTP transfer.
The register bits from OEM for the AR8327 switch
can be read from interrupted boot (tftpboot, bootm)
by adding print lines in the switch driver ar8327.c
before 'qca,ar8327-initvals' is parsed from DTS and written.
for example:
pr_info("0x04 %08x\n", ar8xxx_read(priv, AR8327_REG_PAD0_MODE));
Signed-off-by: Michael Pratt <mcpratt@pm.me>
