Welcome to Freetz-EVO¶

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Freetz-EVO is a fork of Freetz-NG, which remains the technical foundation of this project.
Freetz-EVO builds on that foundation with additional packages, UX improvements, and workflow tooling. Freetz-EVO is easier, sleeker, with more features and less bugs.

Relevant new packages include GCC on-device, nginx, rtorrent, ruTorrent, PHP,
AI translation for non EN and DE languages, more explicit error/warning messages, an advanced GitHub Action for testing new developments, and many other new packages.

Freetz-EVO is continuously kept in sync with the upstream Freetz-NG
repository: upstream fixes, new firmware support, and toolchain updates are regularly merged so Freetz-EVO keeps evolving on top of the latest Freetz-NG base.

Getting Started¶

New to Freetz-EVO? The Getting Started guide walks you through the complete workflow: setting up a Linux build environment (including WSL on Windows), configuring the firmware, building it, and flashing your device.

Improvements over Freetz-NG¶

Note: all new packages are currently developed and tested on an AVM FRITZ!Box 7590 AX with firmware FRITZ!OS 8.20.

UX and Web Interface¶

The Freetz-EVO web interface features a completely redesigned, fully responsive skin ("EVO skin"). On mobile devices, the navigation adapts to a fixed bottom bar with a slide-up drawer for sub-menus and sub-pages; on desktop and tablet a horizontal top menu with hover dropdowns is used, with an optional hamburger mode that collapses the top bar into a right-side slide-in panel. Dark mode, page-width toggle, and per-device preferences are persisted in cookies for a consistent experience across page loads and devices.

The web interface can be added to the home screen on any smartphone (Android or iOS) for an app-like experience; on Android, Samsung Internet delivers a full PWA-quality install. With freetz_proxy and HTTPS the full PWA install prompt is available, and the same HTTPS URL works remotely via MyFRITZ! without port-forwarding. See docs/mobile.md for detailed setup instructions.

The authentication layer has been updated to support a form-based session login (in addition to the legacy HTTP Basic Auth mode). When the New login with session id option is enabled, the web interface presents a custom HTML login page instead of the native browser credential dialog; access is protected by a session cookie with a configurable inactivity timeout, persisted across browser restarts, so re-opening the browser within an active session no longer forces re-authentication. A bug in passwd_save.sh that caused the stored password hash to include the username prefix — making any password change break subsequent logins — has been fixed. The session cookie has been hardened: the session ID is now generated from /dev/urandom (128-bit CSPRNG) instead of a predictable MD5 of the login timestamp, and the cookie is issued with HttpOnly (blocks JavaScript access, preventing XSS-based session hijacking) and SameSite=Strict (blocks all cross-site request forgery, including top-level navigation from external links) flags.

Interactive UI Mockup — live preview of the Freetz-EVO web interface (no device needed)

New packages¶

For a full description of freetz_proxy, see docs/make/freetz-proxy.md.

Python 2 third-party modules fix¶

Added python-pip for python2. All 13 python-* cross-compilation modules (python-bjoern, python-cffi, python-cheetah,
python-pycurl, python-pycryptodome, python-pyopenssl, etc.) were broken during cross-compilation
due to missing environment variables. Freetz-EVO fixes python-module-macros.mk.in by properly
setting CC, CXX, LDSHARED, CFLAGS, PYTHONPATH, and build_ext --library-dirs to point
to the target staging directory instead of the host.

Enhanced packages¶

CI / tooling¶

Basic infos:¶

• A web interface will be started on port :81, credentials: admin/freetz
  
• Default credentials for shell/ssh/telnet access are: root/freetz
  
• For more see: ircama.github.io/freetz-evo

Requirements:¶

• You need an up to date Linux System with some prerequisites.
• Or download a ready-to-use VM like Gismotro's Freetz-Linux (user & pass: freetz).
• There are also Docker images available like pfichtner-freetz (README).

Clone the main branch:¶

  git clone https://github.com/Ircama/freetz-evo ~/freetz-evo

Or clone a single tag:¶

  git clone https://github.com/Ircama/freetz-evo ~/freetz-evo --single-branch --branch TAGNAME

Install prerequisites:¶

  cd ~/freetz-evo
  tools/prerequisites install # -y

Build firmware:¶

  cd ~/freetz-evo
  make menuconfig
  make
  # make help

Flash firmware:¶

  cd ~/freetz-evo
  tools/push_firmware -h

Update freetz firmware via SSH:¶

  cd ~/freetz-evo
  tools/ssh_firmware_update.py --host <myIP> --password <myPassword> --batch

Show GIT states:¶

  git status
  git diff --no-prefix # --cached # > file.patch
  git log --graph # --oneline

Delete local changes:¶

  git checkout master ; git fetch --all --prune ; git reset --hard origin/HEAD ; git clean -fd

Update GIT:¶

  git pull

Sync with upstream Freetz-NG:¶

  tools/sync-upstream-manual.sh              # interactive merge
  tools/sync-upstream-manual.sh --log        # show pending upstream commits
  tools/sync-upstream-manual.sh --diff       # show diff with upstream
  tools/sync-upstream-manual.sh --dry-run    # test merge without pushing

Checkout old revision:¶

  git checkout HASH-OF-COMMIT # -b NEW-BRANCH

Checkout another branch:¶

  git checkout EXISTING-BRANCH

Mirrors:¶

  git clone https://github.com/Ircama/freetz-evo ~/freetz-evo

Documentation:¶

See https://ircama.github.io/freetz-evo/ (or docs/).

Testing Documentation changes¶

  cd ~/freetz-evo
  tools/zensical_httpserver.sh

Language: This repository uses English as its primary language for code, documentation, commit messages, and issues.

License¶

This repository contains two distinct components under different licences:

• Freetz-NG base (all content inherited from the upstream Freetz-NG project) is licensed under the GNU General Public License v2.0 (GPL-2.0). See COPYING for the full GPL-2.0 text.

• Freetz-EVO extensions (all additions, modifications, and new packages introduced by this fork) are licensed under the European Union Public Licence v1.2 (EUPL-1.2). See LICENSE for the full EUPL-1.2 text.

• Reuse of Freetz-EVO-original files: when files that are original to Freetz-EVO (e.g., package makefiles or other code not derived from upstream Freetz-NG) are reused in other projects, including upstream, their licence remains EUPL-1.2. Reusers should keep the original copyright/licence notices and clearly indicate that those specific files are under EUPL-1.2.

The EUPL-1.2 and GPL-2.0 are explicitly compatible: the EUPL-1.2 Appendix lists GPL v.2 as a Compatible Licence under Article 5. When distributing the combined work, it may be distributed under the terms of the GPL-2.0 via the EUPL-1.2 compatibility clause.