Merkury Mi-CW017 help

[markgruenke]

Hello. I have been reading thru this repository along with the one for the 720 version for the past few days now, trying to read all the different posts and comments about rooting my camera. There is so much info that is linked from one post to another to another, my head is spinning trying to figure out where to start. I was wondering if you could summarize all this info from the last two years into an easy to follow instruction list on how to root and enable these cameras. I’m sure it’s not as bad as it seems, but with so much info out there, it’s an intimidating challenge. I have a MI-CW-217 with the newest firmware. Thank you for everything and have a great day!

[guino]

@markgruenke the information we have is basically a result of a lot of trial and error over time with different devices, but the main guide is this one:
guino/BazzDoorbell#2

Basically it's this:
-create ppsFactoryTool.txt (as described here: https://github.com/guino/Merkury720) to make sure you can access the URLs from the device (specifically /proc/cmdline and /devices/deviceinfo )
-get the output of http://admin:056565099@IP:8090/devices/deviceinfo and http://admin:056565099@IP:8090/proc/cmdline
-assuming your /proc/cmdline URL returns something with this (or similar) in it: mtdparts=spi0.0:256k(bld)ro,64k(env)ro,64k(enc)ro,64k(sysflg)ro,2496k(sys),4608k(app),640k(cfg) it has the potential to be running linux so it's worth trying to root it. It will likely not work if it has something like this in it: LX_MEM=0x3fe0000
-finally based on the firmware version (from /devices/deviceinfo URL) you will use the set of steps accordingly:
2.9.x, 2.10.x -- guino/BazzDoorbell#13
2.7.x -- https://github.com/guino/Merkury720#rooting-and-customizng-the-device
4.x, 5.x, 7.x -- https://github.com/guino/Merkury1080P#conclusion <-- I believe this is the one for 'Mi-CW017'

This IS a bit of a challenge and it should be -- if it feels 'too much' I don't recommend you to do it by yourself (you'll just get frustrated and may end up doing something wrong in the process), you're better off asking help from someone you know that is more familiar with it. It takes a bit of patience and reading even for someone who messes with it.

That said, it is usually safe to try -- it most likely won't break anything if you do something wrong (it just won't work). If you start off by getting/posting the output of /proc/cmdline and /devices/deviceinfo I can tell you what to do next in more detail.

[markgruenke]

Got it figured out! For whatever reason, I needed to not use the ppsfactorytool when booting the camera. I changed the custom.sh file to allow unpassworded telnet and removed the "#" from the onvif enable line, and that seemed to do evrything i needed. It opened all the ports, including telnet and set onvif enable to 1. So, for whatever reason, I did not need the facotytool to boot from my sd card and apply the hack with telnet access. Now that i got these figured out i am trying to do the same thing to a geeni scope ptz camera. The model # is: GN-CW017. If you or anyone has any info or can help me out, please send it this way. Thank you and have a great night.

[guino]

@markgruenke I'm not familiar with that geeni device. While it looks very much like the Merkury720P (outside) it must be different inside since it is a 1080P device. You should check the firmware version in the phone app and if it matches any of the firmware versions I listed above it won't hurt to try.