Linksys AC Series Router Configuration Tips for OpenWRT: Difference between revisions
| Line 18: | Line 18: | ||
**And now a quick side note that you'll read about in more detail later in this article. OpenWRT makes it possible to install a big chunk of the "operating system" (OS) for a router on a USB 3.0 Flash Drive. The partition volume it is mounted as is referred to as an "overlay" (again, more on this later). In a simple definition for this instance, which glosses over a lot of details, an ''overlay'' partition in OpenWRT can be equated to a ''[[wikipedia:Non-RAID_drive_architectures#Concatenation_(SPAN,_BIG)|spanned]]'' disk drive / volume. Essentially the internal Flash Drive and an additional USB 3.0 Flash Drive are combined / "[[wikipedia:Concatenation_(disambiguation)|concated]]" (sort of). In this simplistic comparison, the BIOS portion of a computer is equated to the internal Flash Drive and the disk drive is equated to the external USB Flash Drive. An ''overlay'' allows for a much larger "disk drive" to be used instead of relying on and being limited to the internal USB Flash Drive (although the same ''overlay'' technology is used to mount the internal Flash Drive if no external drive is available). Think of it like this, the basic Windows (or Linux) OS is installed on the Internal Flash Drive. It includes all of the basics to get things up and running. Then additional stuff is installed on the external USB 3.0 Flash Drive. The internal Flash Drive can still function, even if the external USB 3.0 Flash Drive is removed, albiet with reduced functionality (probably). It becomes advantageous in recovery / disaster scenarios to install as many utilities as possible on the internal Flash Drive that are focused on recovering a malfunctioning external USB 3.0 Flash Drive. Below are the recommended utilities to install. Note, they will also have to be installed on the ''overlay'' partition / volume once that is configured (again, it's covered later in this article). | **And now a quick side note that you'll read about in more detail later in this article. OpenWRT makes it possible to install a big chunk of the "operating system" (OS) for a router on a USB 3.0 Flash Drive. The partition volume it is mounted as is referred to as an "overlay" (again, more on this later). In a simple definition for this instance, which glosses over a lot of details, an ''overlay'' partition in OpenWRT can be equated to a ''[[wikipedia:Non-RAID_drive_architectures#Concatenation_(SPAN,_BIG)|spanned]]'' disk drive / volume. Essentially the internal Flash Drive and an additional USB 3.0 Flash Drive are combined / "[[wikipedia:Concatenation_(disambiguation)|concated]]" (sort of). In this simplistic comparison, the BIOS portion of a computer is equated to the internal Flash Drive and the disk drive is equated to the external USB Flash Drive. An ''overlay'' allows for a much larger "disk drive" to be used instead of relying on and being limited to the internal USB Flash Drive (although the same ''overlay'' technology is used to mount the internal Flash Drive if no external drive is available). Think of it like this, the basic Windows (or Linux) OS is installed on the Internal Flash Drive. It includes all of the basics to get things up and running. Then additional stuff is installed on the external USB 3.0 Flash Drive. The internal Flash Drive can still function, even if the external USB 3.0 Flash Drive is removed, albiet with reduced functionality (probably). It becomes advantageous in recovery / disaster scenarios to install as many utilities as possible on the internal Flash Drive that are focused on recovering a malfunctioning external USB 3.0 Flash Drive. Below are the recommended utilities to install. Note, they will also have to be installed on the ''overlay'' partition / volume once that is configured (again, it's covered later in this article). | ||
**Run the below commands to install the following items (but first, run opkg update). They're broken down into groups; | **Run the below commands to install the following items (but first, run opkg update). They're broken down into groups; | ||
***General Utilities: wget htop nano coreutils-dd netcat restic shadow-passwd shadow-useradd shadow-groupadd shadow-chsh lsof bash | ***General Utilities: opkg install wget htop nano coreutils-dd netcat restic shadow-passwd shadow-useradd shadow-groupadd shadow-chsh lsof bash | ||
***Disk Related: opkg install block-mount e2fsprogs kmod-fs-ext4 kmod-usb-storage kmod-usb2 kmod-usb3 ntfs-3g usbutils gdisk cfdisk tune2fs kmod-fs-exfat dosfstools kmod-fs-vfat f2fs-tools kmod-fs-f2fs lsblk ntfs-3g-utils fdisk sfdisk wipefs | ***Disk Related: opkg install block-mount e2fsprogs kmod-fs-ext4 kmod-usb-storage kmod-usb2 kmod-usb3 ntfs-3g usbutils gdisk cfdisk tune2fs kmod-fs-exfat dosfstools kmod-fs-vfat f2fs-tools kmod-fs-f2fs lsblk ntfs-3g-utils fdisk sfdisk wipefs | ||
***GUI Interface / Tools: luci-app-advanced-reboot | ***GUI Interface / Tools for "built-in" services: opkg install luci-app-advanced-reboot luci-app-uhttpd | ||
***Ease of Use Software: samba4-server samba4-utils install | ***Ease of Use Software: opkg install samba4-server samba4-utils luci-app-samba4 (of all the utilities to install, this is by far the largest in terms of storage space consumed) | ||
***Optional (if there's space or a need): mwan3 luci-app-mwan3 kmod-macvlan | ***Optional (if there's space or a need): opkg install mwan3 luci-app-mwan3 kmod-macvlan | ||
***Other Items to consider: "Packages that begins with ''coreutils''", "Packages that begins with ''coreutils''", "Other LuCI GUI Packages" | ***Other Items to consider: "Packages that begins with ''coreutils''", "Packages that begins with ''coreutils''", "Other LuCI GUI Packages" | ||
*Partition and Configure OpenWRT to use external storage drives, not just for storage, but also as a replacement / addition to the internal non-volitile storage | *Partition and Configure OpenWRT to use external storage drives, not just for storage, but also as a replacement / addition to the internal non-volitile storage | ||