I am reading up on how to back up and restore OpenWrt settings and finding out that it is a complex process that involves your "choosing" what to include and some items being "left out" by design.
See for example:
-
https://openwrt.org/docs/guide-user/troubleshooting/backup_restore
-
https://www.reddit.com/r/openwrt/comments/kf3khq/missing_packages_in_back_up/
-
https://pedrohdz.com/posts/projects/openwrt-home-server-backup-restore/
That seems rather less good than what is available even on a "regular" router, where you might get a button for "SAVE" config. Press it, decide the name of the config file and the target path, click OK, and you're done. No "choosing" on your part, and nothing "left out." If your router settings get wiped out on a power surge, all you have to do is "RESTORE" that one config file.
Or if you say that changes on OpenWrt include packages (install/remove) as well as settings, computers can be "cloned" with Clonezilla, Ghost, Acronis True Image, etc., where again you don't have to "choose" anything and nothing gets "left out."
Let us say that a method for backing up and restoring is "straightforward" if you don't have to choose anything and nothing gets left out, as per examples above.
Question: Is there a "straightforward" way to back up and restore an OpenWrt router?
Just to be sure, here's one consequence of backing up and restoring a device in a "straightforward" way: If you back up a device on July 4 in a straightforward way and later restore it that way, you can be absolutely sure that the device has been restored to the state it was in on July 4. Nothing was left out, nothing changed.
I would like the answer to say either yes there is a straightforward way to back up and restore an OpenWrt router, or no there is not. If yes, I would like to be told how.
If no, then I would be quite happy to be told, as second best, to go somewhere and "choose everything you see" if you don't know what you're doing. (Which would involve "choosing," but at least result in the certainty of restoration to the July 4th state, as it were.)