Hacking the Netgear DG834

Netgear DG834v2 Hacking Page

This was the families first ADSL modem, it was stable and reliable and I left it alone, until I couldn't resist any longer and began trying to make my own custom firmware for it. For a while I tried to roll my own toolchain to compile my programs for it, but in the end I gave up and used a pre-built toolchain (I couldn't manage to link it with uClibc). It all went horribly wrong however, when one late night, I was tired and really wanted to see it running my own firmware, so I compiled up a later version of busybox to replace the old one and slapped together some firmware.

It didn't work.

I think what happened was that I neglected to ensure that it had all the require programs for it to boot and I'm pretty sure that there's no ifconfig on there. At least all the lights come on I guess.
All I know is, I've learnt my lesson - don't do things that could have bad results when you're tired. We've now got a DG834Gv3 that's not nearly as stable as the DG834v2 was, but I'm leaving it alone.
But this means that my efforts on hacking the DG834 have come to a halt until I can either fix the one I have or get a new one, but if anyone wants to send me one...

The Netgear DG834 is a ADSL modem/router based on the Texas Instruments SoC, the AR7.
It's exactly the same as it's brother the DG834G, the only difference between the two is the wireless interface, which means firmwares are the same for the both of them. At the moment the is support in OpenWRT for the DG834(G), ~~but as far as I know there's still no driver for the wireless.~~ Possibly this driver here will work for wireless.

DG834 Information - Information and tips for the Netgear DG834(G)
DG834 Firmware - Page discussing custom firmware for the DG834(G)

If something goes wrong at any point - a failed firmware update, router won't boot etc, there are still a couple of things you can try. They may or may not work, depending on the damage done, but it's worth a try anyway.
The first thing to try, would be Netgear's own recovery utility (Avaliable here). If you're lucky, it will detect the router and will be able to reupload firmware to it to repair it.

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Since September 1 2007