Buildroot

• Build system setup
  • Debian/Ubuntu/Mint
• Download
  • Clone the OpenWrt source code
  • Add the LibreMesh feeds
  • Download and install packages from the feeds
• Configure
  • Using menuconfig
  • Using make defconfig
• Build Libremesh

Build system setup

Refers to the OpenWrt wiki Build system setup for the package list of other Linux distributions.

Debian/Ubuntu/Mint

sudo apt update
sudo apt install build-essential clang flex bison g++ gawk \
gcc-multilib g++-multilib gettext git libncurses5-dev libssl-dev \
python3-setuptools rsync swig unzip zlib1g-dev file wget

Download

Clone the OpenWrt source code

Refers to the OpenWrt wiki Build System Usage.
Run all the above commands as normal user (do not use root).

25.12.2

git clone -b v25.12.2 --single-branch https://github.com/openwrt/openwrt
cd openwrt

24.10.6

git clone -b v24.10.6 --single-branch https://github.com/openwrt/openwrt
cd openwrt

Add the LibreMesh feeds

Copy the defalt OpenWrt repositories file, and add the LibreMesh repositories

TIP

Use master to build the latest LibreMesh code (compatible with openwrt-24.10 or newer)
Use 2024.1 to build the latest LibreMesh release (compatible with openwrt-24.10 and openwrt-23.05)

master

cp feeds.conf.default feeds.conf
cat << EOF >> feeds.conf
src-git libremesh https://github.com/libremesh/lime-packages.git;master
src-git profiles https://github.com/libremesh/network-profiles.git
EOF

2024.1

cp feeds.conf.default feeds.conf
cat << EOF >> feeds.conf
src-git libremesh https://github.com/libremesh/lime-packages.git;v2024.1
src-git profiles https://github.com/libremesh/network-profiles.git
EOF

Download and install packages from the feeds

scripts/feeds update -a
scripts/feeds install -a

Configure

Using menuconfig

make menuconfig

Check out the target, subtarget and profile of your router on OpenWrt Table of Hardware.

Select then:

• Target System - default Mediatek ARM
• Subtarget - default Filogic
• Target Profile - defaultOpenWrt One

Packages selection

Default packages

Deselect conflicting Packages:

• Base system -> < > dnsmasq
• Network -> < > odhcpd-ipv6only

By default LibreMesh uses dnsmasq-dhcpv6 instead of the OpenWrt's default dnsmasq and odhcpd-ipv6only.

Deselect erroneous feeds locations:

• Image configuration -> Separate feed repositories -> < > Enable feed libremesh
• Image configuration -> Separate feed repositories -> < > Enable feed profiles

OpenWrt packages are available from the download server https://downloads.openwrt.org.
Remove LibreMesh repositories from this list since precompiled packages will not be available from there.
Precompiled LibreMesh packages are available from https://feed.libremesh.org/.
These are installable:

• via package manager directly on the router
• via ImageBuilder during the firmware generation

Saving space and RAM

Optionally, deselect unused packages:

• Network -> < > ppp
• Network -> < > ppp-mod-pppoe
• Kernel Modules -> Network Support -> < > kmod-ppp
• Kernel Modules -> Network Support -> < > kmod-pppoe
• Kernel Modules -> Network Support -> < > kmod-pppox

Refers to Packages Selection for a list of other optionally deselectable packages.

LibreMesh packages

Select (press space until when an asterisk appears, like <*>) LibreMesh packages:

• LibreMesh → Offline Documentation → <*> lime-docs-minimal (LibreMesh minimal documentation)
• LibreMesh → <*> lime-app (LimeApp) (optional)
• LibreMesh → <*> lime-hwd-openwrt-wan (Respect openwrt wan interface as default)
• LibreMesh → <*> lime-proto-anygw (LibreMesh anygw proto support)
• LibreMesh → <*> lime-proto-babeld (LibreMesh babeld proto support)
• LibreMesh → <*> lime-proto-batadv (LibreMesh batman-adv proto support)
• LibreMesh → <*> shared-state
• LibreMesh → <*> shared-state-async (optional)
  • <*> shared-state-babeld_hosts (babeld-hosts module for shared-state)
  • <*> shared-state-bat_hosts (bat-hosts module for shared-state) (optional)
  • <*> shared-state-nodes_and_links (nodes_and_links module for shared-state)
• LibreMesh -> <*> babeld-auto-gw-mode
• LibreMesh -> <*> check-date-http (Keep local date under NTP too far away skew) (optional)
• LibreMesh -> <*> Offline Documentation -> lime-docs (LibreMesh full documentation) (optional)
• LibreMesh -> <*> lime-debug (libremesh debug utils) (optional)

Optional packages are recommended but not mandatory for a working LibreMesh network.
Consider avoiding to select these packages only if the created image is too large and does not fit in the router memory.

Additionally and optionally, httpS for the web interface can be enabled selecting (beware that the web interace will be shown as not trusted):

• Utilities -> Encryption -> <*> px5g-standalone

If you planning to use encrypted 802.11s mesh, you need to make sure to have the wpad-mesh-*, not wpad-basic-* package, where * is mbedtls, openssl or wolfssl. OpenWrt since branch 23.05 by default uses mbedtls.

• Network -> WirelessAPD -> < > wpad-basic-mbedtls
• Network -> WirelessAPD -> <*> wpad-mesh-mbedtls

NOTE

In order to have additional packages, the easiest way is to select them in menuconfig. More packages can be installed afterwards via apk or the older opkg, but some of these require a specific kernel configuration to be in place. This can be achieved following these additional instructions dealing with kernel vermagic Beware that this will increase noticeably the time and storage space required for the compilation.

Save the configuration

Save the configuration and exit.

Additional files

At this stage there is the possibility to include custom files in the compiled firmware image. For this, you will have to create, inside the openwrt/ directory, a files/ directory containing the directory structure and files you want to add. For example, if you want to have a /etc/config/lime-community file you need to do the following:

mkdir -p files/etc/config/
touch files/etc/config/lime-community

and then edit the newly created lime-community file including your custom content. If a file from a package has the same name and path as a file in this directory, it will be overwritten. This is a quick way to include a custom configuration file, without the need to create an online network profile.

Network Profiles

If you local community has a profile in the network-profiles repository, you can select it in:

• LibreMesh -> network-profile -> profile-your_community-your_profile

NOTE

Network profiles are the specific configuration from the communities, and are stored in this collective repository, but they can also be kept locally, depending on how every community network manages itself. For more instructions on how to create a profile or how to use a local one, check out the network profiles page.

Using make defconfig

export target-subtarget to env

export TARGET=ath79
export SUBTARGET=generic

configure

Target, subtarget and generic configs

cat << EOF > .config
CONFIG_TARGET_${TARGET}=y
CONFIG_TARGET_${TARGET}_${SUBTARGET}=y
CONFIG_TARGET_ROOTFS_INITRAMFS=y
CONFIG_TARGET_MULTI_PROFILE=y
CONFIG_TARGET_PER_DEVICE_ROOTFS=y
# CONFIG_FEED_libremesh is not set
# CONFIG_FEED_profiles is not set
CONFIG_IMAGEOPT=y
CONFIG_VERSIONOPT=y
CONFIG_KERNEL_BUILD_USER=\"builder\"
CONFIG_KERNEL_BUILD_DOMAIN=\"buildhost\"
# CONFIG_VERSION_CODE_FILENAMES is not set
EOF
make defconfig

Kernel modules (optional)

Optional build all kernel modules to later expose them in an http server Needed to install via the package manager packages that depend on non-defaults kernel modules.

cat << EOF >> .config
CONFIG_DEVEL=y
CONFIG_ALL_KMODS=y
CONFIG_ALL_NONSHARED=y
EOF
make defconfig

Router profile

Selects the router profile based on the compatible string:

echo "CONFIG_TARGET_DEVICE_ath79_generic_DEVICE_librerouter_librerouter-v1=y" >> .config
make defconfig

LibreMesh packages

cat << EOF >> .config
# CONFIG_PACKAGE_dnsmasq is not set
# CONFIG_PACKAGE_odhcpd-ipv6only is not set
# CONFIG_PACKAGE_ppp is not set
# CONFIG_PACKAGE_ppp-mod-pppoe is not set
CONFIG_PACKAGE_kmod-ppp=m
CONFIG_PACKAGE_kmod-pppoe=m
CONFIG_PACKAGE_kmod-pppox=m
CONFIG_PACKAGE_profile-libremesh-suggested-packages=y
EOF
make defconfig

Build Libremesh

Finally, compile the images

make -j$(nproc)

Refers to OpenWrt make tips for detailed options.

If everything goes well you should find the produced binaries inside the bin/ directory.

NOTE

If after the compilation you don't see the compiled image in the bin/targets/.../.../ folder, it is possible that your router has such a small flash memory that the aforementioed packages don't fit in it (it can happen also with routers having 8 MB of flash memory when selecting huge packages to be included). In this case, you can remove the .config generated packages list and repeat the packages selection without including lime-app. If the compiled image is still too large, try selecting only lime-proto-anygw, lime-proto-batadv and lime-proto-babeld or following this guide.

Refers to the pages under Development guide testing and virtualizing for emulating on your computer with qemu.