Under the Hood of the LinkSys RV082 VPN Router

I have just acqutired a LinkSys RV082 VPN router and I want to put custom firmware on it. I love the custom firmwares for the LinkSys WRT54G (e.g. OpenWrt, DD-WRT) but they don’t run on the RV082. After much searching on the internet, I found a project which might eventually lead to custom firmware. The project is OpenIXP. Currently, it’s targetted at the LinkSys WRV54G but the goal stated on the homepage is “to produce a Linux based open environment for the Intel IXP4xx processors”. The project leader also has some great background information on his other site.

Anyway, I was talking to the project leader and he said that in order to port OpenIXP to the RV082 (and possibly RV042?) the first step is to open up the box and figure out what hardware it has. So, I did that. Below is a summary of how I opened the box and what I found inside.

To open the box, start by using a small knife or similar device to gently pry back the back panel (the dark grey plastic panel that has the power plug). Next, you have to remove the top part of the metal case. It has four L-shaped clips on both sides which hook into the bottom part of the metal case. Starting from the back, use a knife to gently pry out each clip. Once you have pried out all eight clips, you should be able to remove the top part of the case by flipping it upwards from the back (like opening a door — the front plastic panel is like the door hinge).

Once I got inside, here are the main chips I found:

1. Intel FWIXP425BD – The CPU. Intel describes it as “IXP425 network processor, 533 MHz”. Another marking on the chip is “L4450377″.
2. Infineon ADM6999 – Infineon describes this as “a high performance, low cost, highly integrated (Controller, PHY and Memory) 9-port 10/100 Mbps TX/FX switch with 8-ports supporting 10/100Mbps TX/FX + 1 MII/GPSI/7 wire Ethernet switch controller port.” My guess is that this switch manages the 8 LAN ports. More info.
3. Infineon ADM6996L – Infineon describes this as “a high performance, low cost, highly integrated (Controller, PHY and Memory) six-port 10/100 Mbps TX/FX switch with 5-ports supporting 10/100Mbps TX/FX + 1 10/100 MAC port Ethernet switch controller”. My guess is that this switch manages the 2 WAN ports. More info.
4. 2 x Mira P2V28S40BTP – I’m pretty sure this is the RAM. Interestingly, it appears that there are two spots on the board to solder on two more RAM chips!
5. Intel TE28F128 – I believe this is a 16 MB flash chip.

Here are the unused interface connectors I found:

1. JP2 – 2 rows of 5 pins – 10 pins total. The pins do not have solder pads, rather, they are holes. Only pins 4, 6, 8 and 10 appear to be “connected” to the board (I can see traces coming from these pins). My guess is that this might be a serial port or a USB port.
2. JP4 – identical to JP2 except that none of the pins appear to be connected to the board.
3. JP5 – 2 rows of 20 pins – 40 pins total, with solder pads. No idea what this is for. For looking at the tracing coming out of it I think this is some sort of “multi” interface. I see several 4 pins groupings, a 7 pin grouping and a 2 pin grouping. Perhaps the serial port is over here and not at JP2 after all?
4. JP3 – 2 rows of 10 pins – 20 pins total, with solder pads. My guess is this is a JTAG interface.

The LED assemblies are cool. The LED’s are mounted in a plastic grid that has cells where the LED’s are plugged in. There are many empty cells so I wonder if you could plug in more LED’s? That would be cool.

Anyway, below are some photos of the RV082 (thanks to my photo-taking homeboy, JNG). Click on the photo to zoom in.

The first photo shows an exploded view of the back panel, the front panel and the top of the case.

The next photo shows the L-shaped teeth on the top of the case. These teeth connect the top and bottom of the case.

The next photo shows the board and all the chips on it.

The next photo shows the LEDs and ethernet ports that live behind the front panel. Notice the empty slots in the LED grid? I wonder if I could plug in more LED’s into that grid?

Anyway, I’m a long way from having custom firmware for this baby. Any help would be appreciated.