Possible GPL violation in Canyon CN-WF514 WLAN router [rt.gpl-violations.org #107]

[xerces8]

Hi!

Jan Harkes (I'm CCing him) found some more useful info. I'll quote
his text :

I don't speak russian (ukranian?), but it looks like this guy has been
working on dissecting some very similar firmware images.

    http://vlad.org.ua/adm5120/


---

So if you take the .bin file and run,

    dd if=WL*.bin of=vmlinux.bin.gz bs=1 skip=65548

---


> You get a nice gzip compressed vmlinux image, which some random data
> behind it which is (I guess) the ramdisk image. And after decompressing
> vmlinux.bin.gz there are nice strings such as,
>
>     /home/EdiLinux/linux-2.4.18-adm/include/linux/dcache.h
>     /home/EdiLinux/linux-2.4.18-adm/include/linux/sched.h
>     Linux version 2.4.18-MIPS-01.00 (root at RexLinux) #768 30 22:53:58 CST 2005

Ramdisk image is at offset 0x175000 in the vmlinux.bin file.

    dd if=vmlinux.bin of=ramdrive.img.bz2 bs=1 skip=1527808
    bunzip2 ramdrive.img.bz2
    mount -oloop ramdrive.img /mnt

Looks like it contains busybox, uclibc, etc.


Regards,
David

-----Original Message-----
From: Harald Welte <laforge at gnumonks.org>
To: xerces8 <xerces8 at butn.net>
Cc: tech at lists.gpl-violations.org
Date: Wed, 4 Jan 2006 12:37:17 +0100
Subject: Re: Possible GPL violation in Canyon CN-WF514 WLAN router [rt.gpl-violations.org #107]

> On Tue, Jan 03, 2006 at 08:31:41PM +0100, xerces8 wrote:
> > Hi!
> > 
> > I posted [1] on the GPL-violations mailing list, but got no response, so I'll
> > try here.
> 
> Sorry, I am always extremely busy, so the latency for replies tends to
> be high.
> 
> > What :
> > 
> >   It seems Canyon [2] distributes [3] a firmware update file [4]
> >   for their CN-WF514 WLAN router that contains the linux kernel
> >   image. nmap scan guesses the router is running "Linux 2.4.X|2.5.X"
> >   There is no mention of used GPL software and no source code.
> >   A direct enquiry to Canyon was responded with : 
> > 
> > This product is not using GNU GPL license.
> 
> Interestingly, we've already had gpl enforcement with Canyon Technology,
> but on the CN-WF512.  You can clearly see that from the
> http://www.canyon-tech.com/products/show.cfm/Networking/Net/Wireless_Products_IEEE_802.11g/CN-WF5
> 12
> page.
> 
> However, the CN-WF514 page does not have any such information.
> 
> Interestingly, I've analyzed the CN-WF514 about a year ago, and I could
> find the serial console:
> 
> device has serial 3.3V port on pcb, runs at 19200 bps, pinout: 
>         1 ground
>         2 TxD of device
>         3 +3.3V supply
>         4 ground
>         5 ground
>         6 RxD of device
> 
> botloader supports tftp operation
> auto-boot can be interrupted at boot by keypress
> runs proprietary OS (presumably
> has isl3880 miniPCI WLAN adapter
> 
> > What I need : 
> > 
> >  Help disecting the FW package [4]. It is a ZIP archive containing 
> 
> I've analyzed the Firmware
> http://www.canyon-tech.com/files/Canyon/Networking/WiFi_U/CN-WF514/WF514-200713T5.zip
> and that one is definitely not Linux.  It seems to be using a
> linux-related bootolader or maybe even the linux uncompression code
> (because of the "Uncompressing Linux" message).
> Try "dd if=WF514-200713T5.img bs=8264 skip=1 | zcat >! vmlinux"
> 
> But looking at the other firmware (208, for a different hardware
> revision), it actually is linux.  Try
> "dd if=WF514_208.bin bs=65548 skip=1 | zcat > vmlinux"
> and you will end up with a kernel image.
> 
> It seems like that that 208 firmware is for a hardware revision that
> runs linux.
> 
> I'll investigate further and hand it over to my lawyers.
> 
> -- 
> - Harald Welte <laforge at gnumonks.org>          	        http://gnumonks.org/
> ============================================================================
> "Privacy in residential applications is a desirable marketing option."
>                                                   (ETSI EN 300 175-7 Ch. A6)
>