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Ruckus AP Firmware Modding Tools

Scripts & tools to modify Ruckus AP software images

Ruckus AP Firmware Notes

Ruckus AP firmwares are delivered as .bl7 files, which are flashed directly onto the target MTD. The .bl7 contains a header, a kernel image, a rootfs image & an optional trailer.

The AP's kernel splits the active MTD into two - a first MTD containing the header + kernel & a second MTD containing the rootfs + trailer.
Because of this, the .bl7 contains padding after the kernel section, such that the rootfs begins on a new MTD page.

The header is 160 bytes. You can use the dump-header tool to display a .bl7 file's header.

The simplest firmwares are unsigned (called UI or USI).

  • The UI header contains an MD5 hash for the kernel + rootfs, and a checksum for the header itself.

Signed firmwares have an appended trailer containing a digital signature.

There are two types of signed firmwares: ISI (intermediate Signed) and FSI (Fully Signed).

  • ISI firmwares sign the kernel & rootfs, with the header MD5 covering the kernel + rootfs + trailer.
  • FSI firmwares sign the header + kernel + rootfs, with the header MD5 covering only the kernel + rootfs.

An AP running UI firmware can only install UI and ISI firmwares.
An AP running FSI firmware will only install ISI and FSI firmwares.
An AP running ISI firmware will allow any type of firmware to be installed.

The shred-package tool will split any type of firmware, but the build-package tool can only create UI images because we don't know the Ruckus signing key.
So if your AP is running FSI firmware (e.g. SmartZone 3.6+, ZoneDirector 10.1+, Unleashed 200.7+ or Solo 110+) then you must first install an ISI image (e.g. Solo 104 or 106) before you can install a firmware modded with these tools.

Alternatively, the existence of a file /tmp/ignore_sign on the AP will bypass the firmware signing checks.

The included mksquashfs and unsquashfs tools are the specific version Ruckus uses to create their lzma compressed rootfs images.

If your AP image is very old (e.g. Solo pre-9.6) then it needs an older squashfs release. I didn't bother getting this to build, sorry, but the source is here.

If your AP is a newer model (e.g. Rx50) then it needs a newer squashfs release. The extract.sh script will use your distro's standard packaged unsquashfs if necessary but I haven't updated rebuild.sh to check for and and use your distro's standard packaged mksquashfs.

Building

This "works on my PC" (Ubuntu on WSL2)

# Prerequisites
sudo apt install build-essential libz-dev

# Build C stuff
cd src
make install
cd ..

Sample - modify Solo AP Firmware to enable Wireless Uplink

The provided mod_example.sh enables wireless bridge/repeater/extender functionality.

If you are here because you specifically require this functionality then there's an easier way.

The sample script will only work on Solo/Standalone 9.6 - 9.8 firmware images.

# Extract firmware from a .bl7 Solo Image
# (download the appropriate Solo image for your AP model
# from https://support.ruckuswireless.com/software)
./extract.sh ~/zf7962_9.8.3.0.14.bl7
# Modify Solo/Standalone firmware to enable wireless uplink
./mod_example.sh
# Build modified Image
./rebuild.sh

Now you can:-

  • Install the modified firmware (packaging/ruckus_package.bl7)
  • Do a factory reset
  • Go to Configuration > Radio 5G > Wireless Bridge
    • Enter your SSID
    • Choose Encryption Method = WPA
    • Enter your Passphrase
  • Press Update Settings & Say OK to the VLAN error popup.
  • Press Update Settings again.

Your AP will now associate instead with the chosen SSID.