DD-WRT Troubles ...

[PimpingOnWelfar]

I 'lost' the admin password to my wonderful linksys WRT54G running DD-WRT v23 SP2. Is there any way of re-gaining access or resetting the password? Oh yeah, I shot myself in the foot when I disabled the reset button through the firmware and at this point I'm not a big fan of losing all my settings. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[Net2Infinity]

I don't have the answer for you, but DD-WRT does have an extensive forum so I would recommend you begin your search there. If you can't find the answer , then you could always submit your question.

[PimpingOnWelfar]

Suprisingly enough they locked my thread because they can't "help me hack my router". If I wasn't in a tight spot I honestly wouldn't be posting here because I know you all have better things to do than help a noob out but I've searched their forums, your forums, and google. ANY help I can get is plenty because it just seems like its impossible to preserve settings and firmware while disabling/changing the password.

[phishphreek]

You might be stuck on this one...

I also disable the reset button on the back and bricked one of my routers.

You may be able to install a serial port onto your wrt54g to get console access. However, I'm not sure if console access will give you root access or require a password. I'd imagine you'll get root access as thats how you "unbrick" it.

Did you by any chance export/backup your settings for the router? I know that in sveasoft (different distro) you can extract the nvram.tgz file and look for the password (cleartext) in the file "http_passwd" I think your distro does the backup in a .bin file. However, you should still be able to find the password in there?

Maybe try some unbricking techniques.

http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php...om_a_Bad_Flash
http://www.linksysinfo.org/portal/fo...ad.php?t=47259

I actually bricked my wrt54g v2.2 a while ago trying to load HyperWRT Thibor. Since I had several more wrt54g routers so I didn't bother to unbrick it. I'll try to unbrick it tonight and load dd-wrt firmware on it and see what I can come up with. It'll make for a nice evening project. No promises though... sometimes I just get home and am too damn lazy to do anything excep blow some sh1t up fragging.

[phishphreek]

OK, I did some messing around with this tonight. I managed to "unbrick" my router by shorting the some pins on my flash chip which ends up doing the same thing that the reset does. Even though my reset button was disabled in the firmware.

I then loaded the linksys firmware for my wrt54gv2.2
(I was on some HyperWRT Thibor firmware that "bricked" me in the first place.)

When upgrading to dd-wrt from linksys firmware, you have to upgrade using the mini first.

First Uploaded the dd-wrt.v23_mini_wrt54g.bin
I then upgraded from the mini to the standard. dd-wrt.v23_wrt54g.bin
I then disabled the reset button.
I changed my password and "forgot" it.

Pressing the rest button didn't reset the device or my password.
I unplugged it and plugged it back in. No dice. Didn't reset the default settings.
Even holding it for 30 sec or even one min didn't work. Afterall, I did disable it.

Ok, I followed the instructions (again) to manually invoke the reset button. You have to short out some pins on the flash. It depends on your your model... so check the link above and follow their instructions.

After you do that, you should be at the dd-wrt defaults.

Booya!

Oh, just so you know... you can't extract the password from the nvram.bin file that you backup with. Well, not with the latest version. It is encoded...

However, if you want to try to reverse it, you can pull out those functions out of the sourcecode and have a try at it. A guy @ http://www.dd-wrt.com/phpBB2/viewtop...d1963ebe77118c tried to do something similar.

I think it's just easier to short the pins.

So, in the end... disabling the "reset" button is useless. If someone wants to restore default settings, they can do it manually by shorting some pins on the system board which invokes the same results as when you press and hold the reset button. These routers are SO easy to open too... you can literally "pop" them open in 2 seconds. Now, identifying which pins to short is another story. That took me an extra 3 minutes or so because I was cautious and didn't want to brick my router for good.

Side note: sveasoft (the once good open source distro which is now closed) stores its password in clear text when you export the router settings to nvram.tgz They even make it stand out in a file of its own called "http_passwd".

[morganlefay]

I think it's just easier to short the pins.

I think is just easier to go buy a new one.....

MLF

[phishphreek]

Originally posted here by morganlefay
I think is just easier to go buy a new one.....

MLF

Now where is the fun in that?! And you call yourself a geek....

Thats it! You have until 6pm EST to turn in your geek badge, pda, bluetooth headset, 3g cell phone, mp3 player, laptop, broadband internet connection and you have to start using AOHell again on a first generation pentium II with a 14.4 modem without the ability to disable call waiting.

[morganlefay]

I wish I had time for the true geek deep down inside of me.....

I REALLY want to play with my virtual server.....

But too busy fixing a w2k install...........

MLF

[PimpingOnWelfar]

Haven't had much time ... I'm at work right now but I did it last night and it worked perfectly. <3
phishphreek Thanks so much.

[phishphreek]

Originally posted here by PimpingOnWelfar
Haven't had much time ... I'm at work right now but I did it last night and it worked perfectly. <3
phishphreek Thanks so much.

No prob. I like little things like this. Networking is one of my favorite things. Since then, I've taken that dd-wrt and implemented a wlan with several repeaters (WDS). I now get a 100% signal everywhere in my apartment vs a 70% signal... lol