View source for OpenWRT Aruba AP-303

The Aruba AP-303 hardware became supported by OpenWRT in its 21.02.0 release.  Since I am all about free software wherever possible, and these are available at low prices on eBay, I have acquired a few.

Documentation of hardware, OpenWRT installation, and network configuration is here.

== About the Hardware and low level things ==
This mostly lifted from the [https://openwrt.org/toh/aruba/ap-303|OpenWRT page describing the AP-303] at openwrt.org.  The SoC is a Qualcomm IPQ4029.  Marketing data sheet can be seen at 
https://www.qualcomm.com/content/dam/qcomm-martech/dm-assets/documents/ipq40x8ipq40x9-productbrief.pdf.   But in short, it is a 4-core 32-bit ARMv7 system integrating 2.4GHz and 5GHz Wifi components.  The AP-303 is equipped with 128MiB NAND Flash memory for persistent storage, and 512MiB of RAM for program code and data.

=== Serial Console ===
Serial console is attached to an external micro B style USB connector wired to the 3.3 Volt 2 wire serial.  The HPE/Aruba cable with integrated FTDI USB to low voltage serial is sold under part number JY728A.  Do not wire standard 12 Volt serial to this connector.  Bad things are likely to happen.

=== Power up, boot loader, etc ===
Not having any of the Aruba power supplies, but having some Power Over Ethernet capable switches here...
# Connect console cable
# Set serial port to 9600bps, 8 data bits, no parity, 1 stop bit
# Apply power to Ethernet port
# Interrupt autoboot when the '''<code>Hit <Enter> to stop autoboot:</code>''' message appears.

=== Bootloader stuff and things ===
'''<code>mfginfo</code>''' will show hardware information including the access point's serial number:
  apboot> '''mfginfo'''
  Inventory:
  Card 0: System
        Wired MAC           : 90:4c:81:cb:f1:8c
        Wired MAC Count     : 2
        Serial              : CNG9K9T1HP
        Date Code           : 072418
        Country             : CCODE-US-8392f77e514e9c048d2d1e48520555e3ed355812
  Card 1: CPU
        Assembly            : 2010282C
        Serial              : MX87E0634
        Date Code           : 072418
        Major Rev           : 03
        Minor Rev/Variant   : 00
  apboot>
'''<code>osinfo</code>''' will show information about the OS images on the flash storage:
  apboot> '''osinfo'''
  Partition 0:
      image type: 0
    machine type: 48
            size: 22859904
         version: 8.7.1.0-8.7.1.0
    build string: ArubaOS version 8.7.1.0-8.7.1.0 for Ursa (p4build@pr-hpn-build09) (gcc version 4.6.3) #77203 SMP Wed Sep 23 00:55:22 UTC 2020
           flags: Instant preserve 
             oem: aruba
  
  Image is signed; verifying checksum... passed
  SHA2 Signature available
  Signer Cert OK
  Policy Cert OK
  RSA signature verified using SHA2.
  
  Partition 1:
      image type: 0
    machine type: 48
            size: 20639392
         version: 8.8.0.0-8.8.0.0
    build string: ArubaOS version 8.8.0.0-8.8.0.0 for Ursa (p4build@pr-hpn-build07) (gcc version 4.6.3) #79697 SMP Sat Mar 27 05:22:09 UTC 2021
           flags: Instant preserve 
             oem: aruba
  
  Image is signed; verifying checksum... passed
  SHA2 Signature available
  Signer Cert OK
  Policy Cert OK
  RSA signature verified using SHA2.
  apboot>

=== Clearing ArubaOS settings ===
'''<code>factory_reset</code>''' will wipe the AP's configuration.  Execute like so:
  apboot> '''factory_reset'''
  Clearing state... 
  Checking OS image and flags
  
  Image is signed; verifying checksum... passed
  Preserving image partition 0
  Erasing flash sector @ 0x3a0000... OK
  Erasing UBIFS ...done
  
  Purging environment... 
  preserving os_partition (1)
  Erasing SPI flash...Writing to SPI flash...done
  Erasing SPI flash...Writing to SPI flash...done
  apboot>

=== Default admin credentials ===
ArubaOS's administrator user is '''<code>admin</code>'''.  The default password is the access point's serial number.  After wiping the AP's config with the factory_reset boot loader command (above), feel free to login with those on the console port and poke around.  But we're not super interested in ArubaOS today, so let's move on to OpenWRT.

== OpenWRT installation ==
=== OpenWRT installation image acquisition ===
OpenWRT is a free Linux distribution primarily designed for WiFi access points and similar devices.  Its web home page is https://www.openwrt.org/.

OpenWRT's wiki page for the Aruba Networks AP-303 is https://openwrt.org/toh/aruba/ap-303.  See that site for the most current information.  But, for our purposes here:
# Acquire the OpenWRT installation image from https://downloads.openwrt.org/releases/24.10.0/targets/ipq40xx/generic/openwrt-24.10.0-ipq40xx-generic-aruba_ap-303-initramfs-uImage.itb
# Save this image to a location on a TFTP server


=== OpenWRT installation procedure ===
=== Basic OpenWRT configuration ===