Adtran SDG 8733 Open Source Development

The Adtran SDG 8733 AP contains a 4x4 tri-band tri-concurrent MTK 7996 WiFi chipset, multiple multi-gig Ethernet ports, 2GB of RAM, and can boot off of a usb drive. It is an excellent WiFi development platform in our opinion. This information is for those wanting to run a 'normal' Debian OS and kernel based on the Upstream Linux kernel. Binaries compiled for Banana Pi 4 (BPI4), Raspberry-PI 5 (RPI5) and similar will run on the Adtran AP. If you want to use OpenWRT on this, that should be fine, but this page is not oriented towards OpenWRT.

Candela offers WiFi test equipment based on this platform. You may freely use the Candela file system image (without the LANforge parts) as a starting point for your OS, or you can use an early image that is mostly the same as what BPI4 can use.
BPI4 Debian Bookworm with older 6.9 CT Kernel
Latest Candela Debian Bookworm with 6.10 or higher CT Kernel

Unzip the file system image and use dd or similar to write this to a USB drive. We fine that USB adapter that holds a single micro-SD card tends to perform better than any stand-alone USB drive.

Configure serial console on your Adtran, details left to the reader.

Power on the unit, and press 's' then 't' within 2 seconds after boot loader says 'autoboot in 2 seconds'. This should get you into the boot loader. To boot from usb, run these commands:

setenv boot_mode usb
saveenv
boot

At this point, you should see the Debian OS boot up. Root password is 'lanforge' on the newer Candela images, and try 'bananapi' on older ones.

If you would like to build your own kernel, clone the 6.10 or higher kernel from Ben Greear's github page: https://github.com/greearb and read the README.ADTRAN

These instructions could use improvement, please suggest changes if you find problems, email to greearb@candelatech.com. Candela normally has these units for sale for $400 USD in small quantities. If you wish to buy some, send email request to sales@candelatech.com and include your shipping address. If you would like a lot of these APs, contact Adtran.