Can I put my own firmware on it?

[SAn]

@patogit

Are there dangers of the partition table getting corrupted by switching to OpenWrt? Or by switching from OpenWrt back to LibreRouterOS? I don’t know much about the partitions… will OpenWrt only use half of the available storage space, because the other half is saved for a safe-boot system?

The upgrade instructions depend on which partition you are (1 or 2). To know it you must run safe-upgrade show and check the current partition value.
If current partition is :

From partition 1

This will install OpenWrt to partition 1 from partiton 1.
Use sysupgrade: sysupgrade -n /tmp/xxxx-librerouter-v1-squashfs-sysupgrade.bin. It may be posible that an error of invalid image is displayed. If you are very sure that you have a liberouter imagen then you can add --force to the sysupgrade command.

From partition 2

This will install OpenWrt to partition 1 from partiton 2.

Use safe-upgrade: safe-upgrade upgrade -n /tmp/openwrt-xxxx-librerouter-v1-squashfs-sysupgrade.bin. Then reboot. After the reboot if the image is working fine you have to confirm it. As safe-upgrade may not be available in this image you can confirm it using fw_setenv stable_part 1

@patogit can you update the instructions please?

The OpenWrt images only use half the space (like LibreRouterOs), so partition 2 won’t be overwritten if you use the guide above.

I’ve also tested that 19.07.3 image works good:

[patogit]

Thank you for the details, @SAn

@SAn

As safe-upgrade may not be available in this image you can confirm it using fw_setenv stable_part 1

How do we do this?

@SAn

can you update the instructions please?

yes
EDIT: I have updated the instructions. Please read them to check for errors.

[nuestrared]

In NuestraRed for some equipments we are using OpenWRT version 19 with the LibreMESH packages, normally what we do for the Firmware is compile it based on the official OpenWRT branch and add the packages we need from LibreMESH and custom configurations for the network, in the documentation.

Soon I will publish in this link the things that must be taken into account to have the LibreMESH packages working in OpenWRT version 19 to create a mesh network. https://docutopia.tupale.co/Compilando-LibreMESH

[SAn]

@patogit

@SAn

As safe-upgrade may not be available in this image you can confirm it using fw_setenv stable_part 1

How do we do this?

Ah sorry, the words that I used are not the best! I will update directly the instructions (the confirm I am referring is to “confirm the image” not to “confirm that the safe-upgrade is not avaialable in this image”

[patogit]

@nicopace

How to change from OpenWrt to LibreRouterOs

I have just added this ^ section, but I do not have an easy way to test the instructions right now.
@SAn, can you review it?

[SAn]

Thanks! Reviewed and added minor improvements and some warnings.

[patogit]

@nicopace

TL;DR: You can build your own firmware …

@SAn @gferrero Are these instructions still valid for LROS 1.4.2?

[SAn]

Hi Pato! They should be still valid, but I did not test it.

[patogit]

I have just tried to change from LROS v1.4.2 to OpenWRT 21.02.0, and it did not work. In LROS via SSH, I saw that LROS was using partition 2, so I followed the instructions, and used the --force flag. Once the device rebooted, it couldn’t maintain a wired Ethernet connection for more than 2 or 3 seconds, it keep resetting the connection, so I could not login via SSH nor via LuCI, and eventually the safe-upgrade function returned the device to LROS v1.4.2.

Any help would be much appreciated. I want to connect to a non-OpenWRT wifi signal with a 5 GHz radio, as my WAN connection, and I only know how to do this with OpenWRT, not with LROS.

[SAn]

LibreMesh does not support OpenWrt 21.02 yet…maybe you are the first trying!

[SAn]

Check the following articles on how to connect a libremesh node as a client to a wifi access point:

• Cómo conectar el LibreRouter como cliente WiFi
• Ayuda con mi Lime-Node para conectar mi nodo como cliente wifi - #14 by jmartintin

[patogit]

I’m trying to install vanilla OpenWRT downloaded from the OpenWRT LibreRouter page. I am not trying to install LibreMesh. I will check out the link you mention. Thanks!

[SAn]

Ahhhh sorry I misunderstood you. Well… I will test 21.02 myself in a few days!

[patogit]

ok, I’ll try 19.07.8 vanilla OpenWRT firmware for LR, from the OpenWRT firmware selector.

[SAn]

Hi Pato, I was able to install 21.02.1 in the LibreRouter without issues and it provides DHCP in the LAN port. I used the safe-upgrade upgade -n firmware.bin instructions from partition 2.

[patogit]

Today I had a LibreRouter with (probably) LibreRouterOS 1.4, and I used the instructions above, with new URL for the most recent stable version of OpenWrt (21.02.3). The only thing I had to change was:

• access via SSH using the command (gracias @nicopace sugerencia )

ssh -o "HostkeyAlgorithms=+ssh-rsa" -o "PubkeyAcceptedAlgorithms=+ssh-rsa" root@thisnode.info

• run this set of commands when I first logged in to the LR via SSH:

opkg update
opkg install libustream-mbedtls ca-bundle ca-certificates

The updated URLs are:

DOWNLOAD_LINK="https://downloads.openwrt.org/releases/21.02.3/targets/ath79/generic/openwrt-21.02.3-ath79-generic-librerouter_librerouter-v1-squashfs-sysupgrade.bin"; SHA256SUMS="https://downloads.openwrt.org/releases/21.02.3/targets/ath79/generic/sha256sums"

After the LR rebooted in OpenWrt, and I connected to it via the browser GUI Luci, it didn’t ask me for confirmation. Just in case it was necessary, I set a root password (I think this is necessary to enable SSH access?) and then logged in via SSH and ran fw_setenv stable_part 1. I don’t know if it mattered, but I did it just in case.

A little while later (I don’t remember if it was one minute or ten minutes), the router seemed to spontaneously reboot. After that it remained stable.

[patogit]

@nicopace

How to change from OpenWrt to LibreRouterOs

I had a LR with OpenWrt 21.02.3, and I just changed to LROS v1.5 using the LuCI interface. I had no problems.

For testing, I used LimeApp to change from LROS to OpenWrt 22.03rc6, and it seems to have bricked the LR. The LR boots. It does not generate a WiFi AP. When I connect via cable to the LAN port, the LR assigns an IPv6 IP to my laptop. When I set my laptop to only use IPv4, the LR does not assign an IPv4 via DHCP. The IPv6 gateway and DNS is fe80::aa40:41ff:fe1d:294f . Can you tell if this is OpenWrt, LROS, or something else?

After pressing the reset button for about 30 seconds, I waited for the LR to reset, and the behavior remained the same. I disconnected the power, so the LR turned off. I reconnected the power, the LR turned back on, and now LROS is functioning with all the settings it had.

Summary: Going from LROS to OpenWrt via LuCI did not work for me.

[patogit]

I added this line to the wiki part of this post:

IMPORTANT: LimeApp offers a way to upload firmware files to the LibreRouter. This only works for LibreRouterOs firmware files. The upgrade will fail if you use an OpenWrt firmware file.

[patogit]

Current URL for Openwrt:
https://downloads.openwrt.org/releases/23.05.0/targets/ath79/generic/openwrt-23.05.0-ath79-generic-librerouter_librerouter-v1-squashfs-sysupgrade.bin

[patogit]

root@thisnode.info:~# safe-upgrade show
safe-upgrade version: 1.0
current partition: 2
stable partition: 2
testing partition: 0

It looks like current and stable are based on a 1-2 number scheme, and testing is based on a 0-1 number scheme. Because there aren’t three partitions, there are only two partitions.