Unofficial Ubiquiti AirOS SDK 5.3.3

Hello,

This post is for all the people waiting for ubiquiti to release the SDK 5.3.3 for the AirOS Firmware.

At Ninux.org we run a 100+ ubiquiti powered wireless network, which has proved to be very stable and performing. In our network we use OLSRD and IPv6, so we normally flash our devices with a version of the Ubiquiti firmware derived from the SDK.

The last 5.3 SDK of the Ubiquiti firmware was buggy, as we all know. Ubiquiti promptly released a 5.3.3 firmware to correct the bug but, despite our continuos efforts and their very same declaration of availability on demand, they ignored our requests to obtain the 5.3.3 SDK. For it I resolved to create by myself an unofficial but working 5.3.3 SDK, which is presented in this article.

Of course my hope and interests are that ubiquiti will soon come back to the godwill policy of public avalilability of their official SDK. Up to that (very welcomed) moment, the Open Source community will make its best efforts to grant the widest performance of Ubiquiti’s excellent products.

The SDK for 5.3.3 can be downloaded here: http://goo.gl/An4fk

Now I will describe how I created this unofficial SDK. Of course I assume the reader is a little familiar with the SDK and the OpenWRT toolchain.

I started from the following 3 files:

  • GPL.UBNT.v5.3.3.tar.bz2
  • XM-v5.3.3.build9634.bin (b72c73be64f32d6da57db9e061c3fff1)
  • SDK.UBNT.v5.3.tar.bz2 (not available anymore on ubnt.com, find it here)

At the byte 943973 of the file XM-v5.3.3.build9634.bin you fill find the header of the SquashFS root partition of the firmware. So I used the hex editor bless to cut the binary image and start from the squashfs header.

At this point using the command line tool “unsquashfs” I was able to have a folder with the files.

After this step the rest of the work was very easy,
I unpacked the 5.3SDK, and I ported the ubnt-base-files and ubnt-web packages to the GPL.UBNT.v5.3.3 GPL archive. After porting, I upgraded all the binary files with the new ones that were inside the SquashFS partition of the firmware image of 5.3.3

I cleaned up everything and repacked. Make sure with “make menuconfig” you select the ubnt-base-files package.

I tested successfully this SDK with NanoStationM5. Feedback on other devices is highly appreciated, either commenting on this blog or writing an email to contatti@ninux.org

If you want to know how we use this SDK at Ninux to improve the firmware with IPv6 and olsrd you can have a look to our wiki.

Saverio

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27 Responses to Unofficial Ubiquiti AirOS SDK 5.3.3

  1. Sunya says:

    The ubnt-web content have the hard code “/110726.1142” in many files.
    It should be replace with “FULL_VERSION_LINK”.
    I’m testing with Nano loco M5.

  2. Saverio says:

    Thanks ! I think this bug will not affect the functionality of the device, however is better to fix.

    If you can provide a patch to fix the ubnt-web package please share it with the community 🙂

  3. Saverio says:

    I found that just running:

    sed -i s/110726.1142/FULL_VERSION_LINK/g *

    in the ubnt-web/src directory should be enough to fix the problem

    I’m now repacking the SDK with this fix

  4. rene says:

    Thanks for your work. Now you must replace “/FULL_VERSION_LINK” with “FULL_VERSION_LINK” (without the slash) in the ubnt-web/src directory and it will work perfect. Otherwise the web-frontend will not work.

    Regards, Rene

  5. Saverio says:

    did you test this ? because the double / should not be a problem for the browsers. Right now I don’t have a device for testing

  6. Saverio says:

    Thanks for feedback Rene. I finally fixed the bug of the double /. I updated the file on the server so if you download again the SDK you will have the newer version 🙂

  7. Saverio says:

    Ubiquiti just released on their website the official SDK 5.3.3 🙂

  8. Alexandre says:

    Friend, using the same procedure fails to isolate the changes to version 5.3.5 because this version with the solution to the bug skynet the SDK is not available. Or a patch for 5.3.3 against skynet.
    Thank you.

  9. Saverio says:

    Alexandre you do not need to reverse the firmware.
    Use the official 5.3.3 SDK at this point and apply this patch that corrects the security bug

    http://www.ubnt.com/downloads/XN-fw-internal/tools/lighttpd-mod-airos-exploit-fix.patch

    regards

  10. Alexandre says:

    Thank you friend, I had searched a lot and had not found. Hugs.

  11. Mo says:

    Thanks for youre work! is a SDK for 5.3.5 Available?

  12. Saverio says:

    To the best of my knowledge it was never released, you have to use the previous SDK and apply the security patch

  13. Juklin says:

    Hi,
    Please help me…
    i like find my Airos(UBNT Nano Station Loco 5) password! (Hack it)
    i really need it.
    my loco firmware is upgraded to last version
    hint: i can’t reset radio! (because my ISP block me for ever!)

    i can change Radio MAC Address for Ever?
    by MAC Changer (NMac_2) i can change it, but when reset my radio changed again to
    default factory…

    Mr saverio please help me
    Location : Qatar – Iran

  14. Saverio says:

    I dont understand. You have a problem to reset your device to factory default ?

  15. legend says:

    Hi ,,
    dear kindly if u can advice me how i can create new page and add it in the tap of the Nanostaion ….. let we assume the page name (XYZ) and i want to put inside this page box that’s i can put inside it the MAC for AP then i press lock bottom to lock the nanoation on this AP …
    So i will be grateful for ur advice ..

    Regards

  16. legend says:

    plz ,, any update ????

  17. Martin Ericson says:

    Could AirOS V be compiled for ar2316 ?
    We have still 30 old devices running AirOS 4 and all other run this airos v version moddified to fits our need. we made custom script for 5.3.3 which are not compatible with our airos 3 & 4 is built.

    In make menuconfig I see there is a ar23xx option but I’ve never got it to compile

    is this possible ?
    thank you

  18. nano user says:

    hi everyone
    i have a problem in nano m5 the new soft restrict access to the freq. lower than
    5800 MHZ the only way is to use the (compliance testing) and i find it have many problems and not reliable
    !! so can someone help me to edit the AIR OS since i heard it is open source and can be edited !!
    my e-mail (m.a10aac@gmail.com)
    thanks…

  19. Farhang says:

    Hi Saverio.
    Thanks for your work.
    I have NanoStation Loco M5, and want to change logo of ubnt and airos in web interface.
    My airos version is 5.3.2.
    I have no information about SDK and How can use it.
    Please Help me.
    Thanks for your attention.
    Farhang.

  20. Buganah says:

    Hi Saverio.
    is it possible to hack the firmware to unlock the country code ?

  21. hari says:

    hi
    i need to change the mac of nanostation m5 loco.
    i tried putty it didnt worked.
    i searched nmac_2 i didnt found it.
    any body please solve my problem.
    thank you in advance.

  22. Umf says:

    Hello is there any posibility of installing un captive portal on in this version of AirOS.
    Thanks,

  23. waleed says:

    Hello
    Please help
    I would like to modify the ubnt version of the nanostation
    at frequency 5.8
    I want to open different frequencies
    thk

  24. Sevario says:

    The SDK for 5.3.3 can be downloaded here: http://goo.gl/An4fk <– this link is dead?
    any other place to get one of this? thx

  25. bashar says:

    hi
    Possible helper because the file does not exist
    Please provide me SDK

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