Nokia MW1122 - );sse's Personal Open Mind Pages

Nokia MW1122 ADSL Modem

Some notes, some software versions, maybe even something you find useful.

Note that though this page describes the MW1122 modem, probably all information is as well applicable to the M1122 modem - it's the same thing but without the wireless extension.

Before you start asking questions about the information on this page being sufficient for solving problems you might have, please make sure you have read and understood the Nokia manuals.

Nokia MW1122 file system

When you login to a Nokia MW1122 with telnet, you'll be able to see something like the following if you use the command "dir":

MW1122>dir
      file-name       bytes-size      appl-vers
      startup.bak           1156
      image.exe           910126      Gx1x2230.R04
      dhcp.leases            104
      image.bak           798738      Gx1x2210.R03
      startup.cfg           1170
nr-of-files              5
bytes-avail              150788

Having read the Nokia manuals, you probably understand that the following files are important:

image.exe - containing the system software (firmware). It contains both the web interface and command line interface. If you don't have this, nothing works. The file is identical to the software files you can download (Gx1x...).
startup.cfg - containing the configuration. When the modem is powered on, after the POST (Power-On Self Test) it copies this file into its memory so it becomes the running configuration.

So you could just delete the files "startup.bak" and "image.bak" if you feel like it. The file "dhcp.leases" is just a temporary file describing the current DHCP leases. If you delete the file, any normal DHCP client would try to renew the lease after a while, and if your DHCP server is still running the file is recreated.

Note that the file system space is very limited: My modem only has about 1.8 Mb in total. So if you want to upgrade your modem by downloading new firmware to it, you may need to throw away old backup files (the "install" command is doing this for you).

Discover the IP address

Several times I had a modem or a swich of some kind which I had to configure properly, but I had no clue what the IP address was. Most of these devices have a serial port for basic configuration, but what if you don't have a serial cable (or even a serial port on your computer)?

First thing to do is to check if the modem has a standard IP address configured. This should be in the manual. Another way to find out is to restart the modem and scan the network for an initial broadcast message from the device.

Best way to do this is to put your own computer and the modem on a seperate network (ie with no other networking devices attached), start on your computer a network listener (like Ethereal) in promiscuous mode so it is listening to all traffic on the network. Now turn on the modem and check your logs for any kind of message originating from the modem. Big chance it reveals the IP address.

Personal comments

Usage of Linux TFTP server
When I decided to upgrade the modems, I setup my Linux box as a TFTP server (running through TCP Wrappers: /etc/xinetd.d/tftp). But when I logged on to the modem and tried to fetch the firmware, after about 1000 blocks (500Kb) the download became terribly slow, resulting in a timeout.
Tweaking the TFTPd daemon on my Linux box didn't help, so I decided to try out the little Windows-based TFTP server zipped in the file ADSLSW-wireless.zip and everything went smooth.
I do not know if this is a bug in the TFTPd daemon on my Linux box or just a compatibility problem.
Substitute "install" for "rename" and "copy"
With the command "install" you can fetch a new firmware file with TFTP which is then installed automatically as the current firmware. During this installation the original image.exe file is renamed to image.bak, so I guess that the new firmware is just being written directly in the file system as "image.exe".
This leads me to the conclusion that, instead of the "install" command, you could also execute "rename image.exe image.bak" and "copy tftp:/{IP}/{firmware} image.exe". Not that you would have any profit from this.
What happens if you delete "image.exe" and reboot the modem?
When you install new firmware with the "install" command, "image.exe" is being renamed to "image.bak" while you download the new firmware. When you reboot half way, you're left with a broken "image.exe" and a good "image.bak". But the modem comes up again as before! I made the conclusion that if "image.exe" is missing or corrupt, and "image.bak" exists, "image.bak" is being copied/renamed to "image.exe".
But what if you delete both "image.exe" and "image.bak" and reboot? Well, following the experiences of users found on the net, you're left with a 'dead' modem. ('Dead' as in 'dead for the moment' because you still can reanimate it using the CLI and TFTP.)
What happens if you delete "startup.cfg" and reboot the modem?
Haven't tried this yet, but probably your configuration is lost unless you have a startup.bak file.
So what kind of file is "image.exe"?
The file "image.exe" is a so called "zimg" file. It's first part is a decompressor which decompresses the rest of the file to an intended execution location. The decompressor is probably written in assembly code. The second part is an image file (like a bootdisk) containing all the files needed to run the 'operating system' of the modem.

Nokia MW1122 files

mw1122/ADSLSW-wireless.zip - ZIP file from the Dutch ADSL provider KPN, containing a Dutch installation document, a simple Windows-based TFTP server, the firmware version Gx1x2220.R08 (the latest is found below) and a default startup configuration.
mw1122/Gx1x2210.R03 - MW1122 firmware (my crappy original, do not use!)
mw1122/Gx1x2220.R03 - MW1122 firmware
mw1122/Gx1x2220.R08 - MW1122 firmware
mw1122/Gx1x2230.R04 - MW1122 firmware (latest and probably final)
mw1122/Nokia M Gateway Admin Manual.pdf - Nokia MW1122/M1122 Administration Manual
mw1122/Nokia M Gateway User Manual.pdf - Nokia MW1122/M1122 User Manual