ExtRoot and router configuration using Ansible

Hi Guys, Some time ago I faced with the problem that I could not install a certain package as I have not had enough space. After googling I made decision to isntall Extroot. My initial plan was

  • do sysupgrade with -n and configure everything from scratch
  • nearly the first thing I wanted to configure ExtRoot

I wanted to configure ExtRoot to avoid issues like I had previously. Started reading introduction doco https://openwrt.org/docs/guide-user/additional-software/extroot_configuration#introduction and it turn out that if flash is removed then the original overlay partition will be used and it tells me that the only apps which were installed before ExtRoot was installed will be working if USB flash drive is removed. I had no intention to remove it. But anything may happen.
Correct me if I'm wrong but I'd better to select certain most important applications and install and configure them into current overlay. Once I happy with a minimal Applications sets then I install ExtRoot. Right? Am I missing something?

I also wanted to do OpenWrt configurtion using ansible. I saw some ansible roles but have not had a chance to test and check if they're good. Not sure how Ansible roles will be playing with ExtRoot. Any advice?

BTW do I really need to use Ansible? I started to think may be it will be better just keep backups unarchived in a git repo? Archive repo content and restore as a backup. I'm afraid that Ansible playbook will be behind some of new features of openwrt and sometimes I may face with situation that a certain feature is not yet available to be configured using some Ansible role.

What is the device? ExtRoot doesn't work on all devices. Something that the documentation unfortunately fails to tell you.

Hi @VA1DER I have TPLink WDR 4300. Does it work?

A little bit googling and found that it is actually works Extroot lost after upgrade! - TP-Link WDR4300

Yes, it will work on that device. In general extroot does not work on any device with eMMc. It does generally work on NAND/NOR flash devices.

…and extroot being lost after a sysupgrade is expected (required) behaviour, it's needs to be re-generated and set up from scratch after each (sys)upgrade.