I don't know when the mentioned image was updated the last time, but since the vrx518 patches target the master branch, the image might be incompatible with current packages installed via opkg.
For development releases it's usually the best approach to include all packages you want in the image. The opkg packages are always targeting the latest master branch, so if there are changes to something like musl, newly installed packages might be binary incompatible.
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Thanks. I used the one from this post, as I first thought it includes everything I need.
Is thefe no way to install packages later? I am sure even if I build it now myself with all needed, one mo th later again I need some small package.
Br
cd
As I said: When your image is a development build (from master branch) you can try to install packages via opkg, but if that fails you have to re-build your image.
A quick and dirty howto on building the latest master with the patches applied
- Add remote for the patches:
git remote add dhewg https://github.com/dhewg/openwrt.git
- create a new branch:
git switch -c vr11
- Use the branch with the patches and rebase on latest master:
git fetch
git reset --hard dhewg/vr11
git rebase origin/master
Repeat the last 3 commands every time before you build a new image. If the last command fails, wait for the devs to rebase the patches in dhewg/vr11 manually (and run git rebase --abort).
Thanks!
To be honest, I was happy to be able to build it, and I don't have any knwledge about git and the build process.
I tried this now, so created the build environment, cloned
cloned master
chainged to the folder and tryed your commands.
But git reset.... fails here.
A guid for dummys would be nice. I know networking, and how to use openwrt, but building is ot one of my favorite.
At the moment I dont need much, just Luci, Wireguard,... but I am sure I need to add some packages later.
As this router is also installed a bit remote it would be nice to be able to use opkg to add some small packages later.
Okay, maybe I got it, here the steps I have done. Make is running, and I am not sure if correct. 
Please correct if I did something wrong.
create build env
sudo apt-get install unzip
sudo apt-get install build-essential subversion libncurses5-dev zlib1g-dev
sudo apt-get install gawk gcc-multilib flex git-core gettext libssl-dev
create a working folder
sudo mkdir /openwrtbuilddir
sudo chown myuser /openwrtbuilddir
sudo chmod 755 /openwrtbuilddir
clone master
cd /openwrtbuilddir
git clone https://github.com/openwrt/openwrt.git
cd openwrt
add remote for the patches
git remote add dhewg https://github.com/dhewg/openwrt.git
create a new branch
git switch -c vr11
use the branch with the patches and rebase on latest master
git fetch dhewg
git reset --hard dhewg/vr11
git rebase origin/master
update the feeds
./scripts/feeds update -a
./scripts/feeds install -a
config the build
make menuconfig
#target system Qualcomm Atheros IPQ40XX
#target profile: AVM FRITZ!Box 7520 (AVM FRITZ!Box 7530)
build
make
EDIT:
Build failed. 
Collected errors:
* pkg_hash_check_unresolved: cannot find dependency cgi-io for luci-base
* pkg_hash_fetch_best_installation_candidate: Packages for luci-base found, but incompatible with the architectures configured
* pkg_hash_check_unresolved: cannot find dependency attendedsysupgrade-common for luci-app-attendedsysupgrade
* pkg_hash_check_unresolved: cannot find dependency cgi-io for luci-app-attendedsysupgrade
* pkg_hash_fetch_best_installation_candidate: Packages for luci-app-attendedsysupgrade found, but incompatible with the architectures configured
* satisfy_dependencies_for: Cannot satisfy the following dependencies for luci:
* cgi-io
* attendedsysupgrade-common
* cgi-io
* opkg_install_cmd: Cannot install package luci.
* pkg_hash_check_unresolved: cannot find dependency openconnect for luci-proto-openconnect
* pkg_hash_fetch_best_installation_candidate: Packages for luci-proto-openconnect found, but incompatible with the architectures configured
* opkg_install_cmd: Cannot install package luci-proto-openconnect.
make[2]: *** [package/Makefile:70: package/install] Error 255
make[2]: Leaving directory '/ow/openwrt'
make[1]: *** [package/Makefile:111: /ow/openwrt/staging_dir/target-arm_cortex-a7+neon-vfpv4_musl_eabi/stamp/.package_install] Error 2
make[1]: Leaving directory '/ow/openwrt'
make: *** [/ow/openwrt/include/toplevel.mk:231: world] Error 2
user@WinDev2211Eval:/ow/openwrt$
1 Like
Could you share your older 7.21 flash tool? Dropbox or so is great.
I will soon flash my device which is also on 7.29.
The wiki for the 7530 shows a particular VLAN configuration. Is it mandatory to use those VLANS, or can you choose any?
When the 7530 runs the AVM firmware, it talks about changing LAN1 to the WAN port for when you (no longer run ADSL and instead) have like fibre to the home, and you connect LAN1 to the fibre convertor.
Does LAN1 require a special VLAN number in this case, or just any, and set up DHCP?
If you run the DSA-converted version, i.e. the one mentioned in this thread, then you can choose any. If you run the 22.03 version, the driver is very picky about the VLAN configuration. The Wiki shows a screenshot of a 22.03 version.
For the DSA-version, you can use any - the generic instructions on the Wiki apply.
1 Like
Hi all,
by the first, thank you all for the great work.
I'm trying to install the VR11 branch on my Fritzbox 7530 for use it as VDSL WAN router.
But it seems I'm missing something.
I compiled my build and downgraded my device to 07.21.
But I hang at the first step.
When I try to load the uboot on my Fritz, I dramatically fail.
I set 192.168.178.10/24 on my NIC, ethernet cable connected, and when I start the device and launch the eva_ramboot.py I only obtain a "No route to host".
I tried a continuous ping to 192.168.178.1 and during the boot I never success. I start to successfully ping this address only when the device is fully started and at this point the eva_ramboot replies with "Connection refused".
I tried a connection with a switch to have the ethernet port immediately UP, but it's the same. I tried from my Debian OpenWRT Build VM, from my ArchLinux host OS and from a Windows guest VM (the same that I used for downgrading)... no luck!
I tried with 192.168.1.10/24 ... no luck!
This issue is driving me crazy and I can't understand where I'm wrong.
Unfortunately, this router is my main access, so I had to rollback to the original FritzOS.
Did you have this problem? Can you help me?
Thank you.
Hi again, could somebofy help me here, or give me some hints if I did it correct or/and what was wrong?
I tried this now several times, with so.e small variations, but Ialways fail. 
Or can somebody maybe share a basic image (just with luci and wg added) that would support adding packaves via opkg?
Thank you.
On the other hand myactual setup is very stable. I use it in Austria with Fonira as ISP. Via macvlan configured to have both, static IP via PPPOE and also dynamic for normal surfing. So I am a bit less trackable via IP.
Br
cd
I've seen the IP address in EVA mode being set to something completely different on an older model, maybe it's the same for you?
You can easily check by running the AVM recovery tool, it prints the IP address of the box when it searches for it.
On which distribution are you trying to build?
Some packages can only be installed on the same day the image was built, some can't be installed at all (kmods) and others won't install after a longer period. That's why building it yourself is the safer option.
1 Like
@andyboeh I don't know what happened.
I successfully flashed the vr11 branch on my Fritz, using the 192.168.178.0/24 network and without downgrading to 07.21 . I made a test using 07.29 and... wow... it worked!
I had to use the Windows VM. I didn't understand why with Linux systems I couldn't accomplish the feat ... I'm missing something I can't identify.
Actually I'm connected to VDSL WAN with an uptime of 20 hours. The link appears to be stable. I just have some errors, not a big problem, but I never had errors on my line. I'll monitor the increment rate.
Line State:Showtime with TC-Layer sync
Line Mode:G.993.2 (VDSL2, Profile 17a)
Line Uptime:20h 14m 8s
Annex:B
Data Rate:107.855 Mb/s / 21.600 Mb/s
Max. Attainable Data Rate (ATTNDR):108.422 Mb/s / 35.398 Mb/s
Latency:0.13 ms / 0.00 ms
Line Attenuation (LATN):3.5 dB / 2.2 dB
Signal Attenuation (SATN):3.5 dB / 2.2 dB
Noise Margin (SNR):6.3 dB / 12.6 dB
Aggregate Transmit Power (ACTATP):13.1 dB / -24.6 dB
Forward Error Correction Seconds (FECS):154 / 113422
Errored seconds (ES):0 / 42
Severely Errored Seconds (SES):0 / 0
Loss of Signal Seconds (LOSS):0 / 0
Unavailable Seconds (UAS):60 / 60
Header Error Code Errors (HEC):0 / 0
Non Pre-emptive CRC errors (CRC_P):138 / 0
Pre-emptive CRC errors (CRCP_P):0 / 0
ATU-C System Vendor ID:Broadcom 192.110
Power Management Mode:L0 - Synchronized
But now I've another question.
I see on the "Updates" tab that there are updates availble.
Do you think it's safe to update a custom build through the Luci interface?
Great community ... This is the real soul of FOSS.
Obviously I'm available for helping If I can do something.
Thank you all again!
1 Like
Sorry for repeating myself, but I'm afraid I'm not being clear in the previous post.
But, what is the safe method to maintain this build updated?
I ask this because I'm really noob in custom builds.
I think that because of the particular implementation of the vr11 branch I cannot safely update packages using opkg, especially the kernel... right?
Or I could safely update my router packages at the last version without worries?
Best way is to pull in the latest changes and run the build again (recompile). Updating packages probably won't end well
Thank you @ListerWRT .
So does this mean that to update we have to wait for a new commit on the vr11 branch and to use the official package manager we have to wait for a merge on the official openwrt master branch?
I read that there is currently a licensing issue.
If this will not resolved will I have an outdated router forever?
Or maybe recompiling every so often I will get an updated version?
I'm just asking this to learn. I am really inexperienced in this subject. I really appreciate the work you are doing.
Thank you.
DSL support only exists in the vr11 branch. If you want it, the only way is to build it. Updating = rebuilding, which is trivial once you know what you're doing.
Support is entirely reliant on dhewg for the time being. It may never be merged into openwrt master (the licencing issues you mentioned).
Opkg is only really useful in stable branches where not much/nothing changes (21.02, 22.03, etc). If you're not using a stable release just forget about it.
If you need more, start a new thread or DM. This is off topic here.
Hope that's helpful.
2 Likes
The patches which are also useful to currently supported DSL routers, and some common ones we depend on, are all merged by now.
What's left are VR11 specific ones, and getting all of those merged depends on the licensing issue, without that OpenWrt cannot ship router images which contain the required DSL firmware.
Because the remaining patches mostly introduce new VR11 specific packages, the chances for conflicts between the vr11 and the evolving master branches are pretty low. So you can just rebase the vr11 branch on OpenWrt master and build that. While I rebase and push myself every now and then, that doesn't mean you have to wait for me to do so 
1 Like
Not shipping xDSL firmware and requiring the user to obtain it somehow and write it to the device has been a common occurrence in the past -- before Lantiq publish the redistributable VDSL firmware for VR9 and for users of VR9 connected to a DSLAM with mandatory vectoring it even still holds true up to today. This situation is not great, but still better than not supporting xDSL interfaces at all.
What I'm trying to say is: the lack of decently licensed firmware should not prevent us from merging patches and drivers which are licensed under GPLv2.
Hence, please lets go ahead and merge what we have by now, and then maybe also come up with helper scripts which allow users to easily download, extract and install non-redistributable xDSL firmware once when installing OpenWrt on VR11-based devices.
9 Likes
Okay, I just threw everything as-is in https://github.com/openwrt/openwrt/pull/11728.
Along with some options on how to handle the fw situation.
Let's see...
8 Likes