I borked my OpenWrt One - how to recover?

Installing and Using OpenWrt
1

I made a change the killed the ipv4 interface, and I couldn't ssh in via ipv6, so I want to re-flash the unit. I booted into recovery mode, but I cannot figure out which of the 10 different images is the right one to use, nor exactly which method is the correct one to re-flash. I tried downloading the "sysupgrade" image, and that "worked", in that I got back my ipv4 interface, however, major stuff is missing, like the web server and opkg, so I don't know what good the sysupgrade image is. (How can you install packages without opkg?)

This is the "sysupgrade" image I tried:
openwrt-mediatek-filogic-openwrt_one-squashfs-sysupgrade.itb

  1. can I re-flash this from the web interface presented by the recovery mode?
  2. EXACTLY what image do I use for that?
  3. failing that (1), how do I re-flash this and what EXACT image do I use? There are many images to choose from, including both .itb and .bin files.

I'm an experienced engineer, I know how to use dd etc, but I'm new to "current" openwrt. (I'm running openwrt 12 on my home router).

Thanks,
Bill Dudley

2

Have you consulted the documentation?

1 Like
3

Yes, and that is how I find myself here, asking questions, because there are too many choices and not enough clarity. The thing I tried got me to a recovery mode, and flashing a "sysupgrade" image resulted in a machine with no web interface, so clearly the instructions are not clear enough.

ALSO, the documentation does NOT tell me how to re-flash the original factory software, or at least I cannot find it. It tells how to install the sysupgrade image,
which seems less than useful, and how to recover the NAND recovery system, which does not seem to be my problem.

I'm open to explicity pointers to a paragraph that I have missed or mis-interpreted.

Otherwise, anybody else who is going to reply RTFM, just save your energy.

4

If snapshot there is no LuCI, OPKG has been replaced with APK.

5

So then what? How does one manage the machine if there is no web interface? I did notice that opkg is replaced by apk, and attempts to install uhttpd results in an "ADB integrity error", so that's not useful.

6

uhm, install it as per the wiki... as if one really needs a GUI.

1 Like
7

I'm going to try the "Boot into NOR/full recovery mode: Flash NAND from USB" and see what happens.

8

@wfdudley Grab a 24.10 snapshot image, those contain LuCI. If your sysupgrade image offered you an OpenWrt prompt, that means it booted successfully. Just repeat the procedure with an image containing LuCI.

9

https://openwrt.org/releases/snapshot

10

Please, how do I find that? None of the files I have downloaded so far include any kind of version number. I just did a NOR/full recovery and got to the same useless point that the sysupgrade got me -- a machine I can't configure, because no LuCI, and I'm not enough of a guru to configure a router from scratch from the command line.

So I now read that sysupgrade images don't contain LuCI. OK, find, I can install that, given instructions. Hah: instructions are written for opkg, which is deprecated. What a pain. I'll figure it out, but the whole process is clear as mud.

11

Not yet officially announced, but it looks like the RC6 images for One have already been built.
They come with the webUI and opkg.

https://firmware-selector.openwrt.org/?version=24.10.0-rc6&target=mediatek%2Ffilogic&id=openwrt_one

12

Thanks for your help. I installed LuCI and now I'm on my way. The discussion about installing sysupgrade should include a link to the "how to install LuCI", and that page needs to have a section added that shows how to do it with apk.

13

Was the interface completely down or do you suspect you have made a mistake? Because I for myself find it quiet handy to have lla access as a good enough safety net most of the time.
Did you have recovered your device already?

14

I borked it by changing the LAN network from 192.168.1.x to 192.168.27.x, by editing /etc/config/network, and I must have missed something, because the IPV4 interface would no longer do dhcp. I don't know what "lla" means. I did recover the device by installing the sysupgrade image and then installing LuCI using the command line. The new router is now in service!

15

That part should have been fixable via
https://openwrt.org/docs/guide-user/troubleshooting/failsafe_and_factory_reset#reset_button

16

LLA. Link local addresses. You've write in your first post that you where unable to use IPv6 for poor men's Recovery. I wanted to know why.
Recently I had to open up a device because I missed a single quote and flash a bonkers image and this device has no failsafe boot... But that was in a long time I could not recovery by simply using ipv6 link local. As long as the interface is up you can connect.

17

I'd never heard of link local addresses. Some research tells me that
they are in the block 169.254.0.0/16. I'm vaguely familiar with that,
but don't know how I'd configure openwrt to fall back to that if the
IPV4 stuff was broken.

The problem I had was that the interface was not offering dhcp, so my
physically connected laptop couldn't get an IP, so no joy.

I suppose I could have tried to configure my laptop with a static ip
and try that way. That didn't occur to me at the time.

Bill Dudley

18

Could it be you had a typo in your first post?
It seams to me you are not familiar with IPv6 at all?

19

I know very little about using IPV6, and trying to connect via that was a "hail mary" attempt to get in. Again, I should have configured my laptop with a static IPV4 IP
and tried that, but I didn't think to. No matter, it's all fixed now.