As of this writing if you pull the carambola source, shadow passwords are not used:
CONFIG_BUSYBOX_CONFIG_FEATURE_SHADOWPASSWDS

The result of this is even after you set a password for an account, you will not be able to ssh in. Setting this option when running make menuconfig then flashing your box should get you up and running.

If I want to build my system image (to download via TFTP using the bootloader) with a root password already set up, what do I need to do? I'm assuming there is a file created when doing the passwd command on the Carambola that I need to copy back to my PC before doing the build. (Linux newbie alert.)

*Brian

There is a patch for a previous version of OpenWRT for adding this,

I would merge the changes in manually as the line numbers probably have changed, and there is no guarantee that this will work.

After this is done you will find the new settings under "Image configuration".

Hope this helps.

uname -a lists my system (just unpackaged) as: Linux OpenWrt 3.3.8 #2 Fri Jul 20 15:06:33 EEST 2012 mips GNU/Linux

I seem to have the above issue. I connect through serial port (using the image on the board, not building a new one) and ifconfig lists:

eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr C4:93:00:00:01:1B
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:7956 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:196 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:1005527 (981.9 KiB) TX bytes:13924 (13.5 KiB)
Interrupt:5

eth0.1 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr C4:93:00:00:01:1B
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:190 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:0 (0.0 B) TX bytes:8340 (8.1 KiB)

eth0.2 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr C4:93:00:00:01:1B
inet addr:192.168.1.26 Bcast:192.168.1.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:7956 errors:0 dropped:372 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:6 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:862319 (842.1 KiB) TX bytes:1344 (1.3 KiB)

lo Link encap:Local Loopback
inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0
UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:16436 Metric:1
RX packets:147 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:147 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:11872 (11.5 KiB) TX bytes:11872 (11.5 KiB)

But, no telenet or ssh to 192.168.1.26 works, even after setting passwd.

I cannot ping out, only pinging 192.168.1.1 (my dhcp-server and router) works, but that may be the other LAN-port.

What is the issue? I think, there is no LAN-connectivity at all at the moment.
Can I do anything without building a new image?

Thanks for your support!