Recent Linux on the D-Link DIR-890L
(Last boot 2023-10-06 with the v6.1 kernel, using OpenWRT as rootfs)

This is a fairly well designed piece of hardware, very nice heatsinks are mounted on the PCB. However as noticed in several places the firmware for the device is ages old and vulnerable, and also not getting updated.

I am working on bringing up OpenWrt on this router instead. At one point there was a DD-WRT port but it is since lost and/or bitrotted.

There is an installable preview image available on this page as I am busy merging my code to the upstream projects and OpenWrt.

Beta OpenWrt Firmware

• openwrt-bcm53xx-generic-dlink_dir-890l-squashfs.bin (2023-10-06)

Installing Beta Firmware

The image is preinstalled with the LuCI web UI.

• Download the openwrt-bcm53xx-generic-dlink_dir-890l-squashfs.bin file from this webpage.
• Connect an ethernet cable between wired ethernet on a host computer and one of the LAN sockets on the DIR-890L
• Set host computer wired network to static IP 192.168.0.2 netmask 255.255.255.0.
• Hold down the RESET button on the back of the device with something like a toothpick (it is in a small hole) while powering on the device.
• The top LED should start blinking red, you can now release the RESET button
• On your host direct a web browser to http://192.168.0.1, a firmware upgrade web UI should come up.
• Select the openwrt-bcm53xx-generic-dlink_dir-890l-squashfs.bin file and hit "Upload"
• The router should reboot and OpenWrt is running, connect to a LAN port using DHCP (remove the static config) and when your computer gets an IP number from the router, you can browse to http://192.168.1.1

Status

• 2023-01-22 I managed to boot OpenWrt using U-Boot directly from NAND flash.
• 2022-11-07 Device Tree DTS file merged to the Linux kernel

OpenWRT TODO

• Get the image Makefile into OpenWrt
• Figure out how to cook the OpenWrt-built U-Boot into the SEAMA image (currently using a precompiled binary...)
• Get the U-boot patches into OpenWrt
• Get the DIR-890L DTS patches into OpenWrt
• Support BCMA rev 11
• Figure out what is wrong with the WLAN (fixed itself?)

Links

• Hacking the D-Link DIR-890L is a 2015 blog post showing the problems with the firmware in this router.
• D-Link file archive for DIR-890L