Appearance

Upgrade ​

CAUTION

From times to times it could be that some OpenWrt devices encounter issues upgrading, and result bricked or soft-bricked Be sure to have read the OpenWrt release notes for the version/branch you are installing.

In production environments with multiple LibreMesh nodes deployed, it is adviceable to keep at least one device, for each models you are using, to test that upgrades are ok. Or eventually recover it using an USB Serial Adapter.

Refers to the OpenWrt Wiki for details about the upgrade process:

Sysupgrade ​

The default OpenWrt command sysupgrade preserve:

  • files defined in /lib/upgrade/keep.d
  • the list of conffiles (configuration files defined by certain packages) that has been changed:
    • See the whole list for apk with cat /lib/apk/packages/*.conffiles
    • See the whole list for opkg with cat /usr/lib/opkg/info/*.conffiles

Initial files are preserved in /rom/ and changed files are created at /overlay/upper/.

apk add diffutils
diff /overlay/upper/etc/config/babeld /rom/etc/config/babeld

Examples ​

Upgrade to a new major OpenWrt release ​

Example that keeps only lime-node and dropbear.

Override the list of files to be preserved keeping only the essential. Recommended if the whole configuration is in the lime-node.

mkdir /tmp/keep.d; mv /lib/upgrade/keep.d/* /tmp/keep.d/
mv /usr/lib/opkg/status /tmp/opkg_status
for i in /etc/config/dropbear /etc/dropbear /etc/config/lime-node; do echo $i >> /etc/sysupgrade.conf; done
sysupgrade -l

Download the sysupgrade file

wget -O /tmp/firmware.bin <sysupgrade_file>

syupgrade file url is for instance https://sysupgrade-01.antennine.org/store/45347ae7f75029abc37f0a4e41ebf9af72ef7b9ce8c93ff27a7d7ec5e9a54b2e/openwrt-25.12.0-82ccd0311e22-mediatek-filogic-cudy_wr3000s-v1-squashfs-sysupgrade.bin

Upgrade the router

sysupgrade -v /tmp/firmware.bin

Tools ​

Tools to upgrade the base OpenWrt version and LibreMesh packages:

eupgrade ​

provide semi-automated upgrades checking if a new firmware is available from an https server.

owut ​

provides upgrades using an ASU (online imagebuilder) instance. Test it installing the package profile-antennine.org-an-lime-owut

safe-upgrade ​

Wrapper around sysupgrade. Requires large flash storage, at least the double of the firmware-size, to rollback in case something didn't work.