Linksys EA8300 and dual partition (Solved)

Installing and Using OpenWrt
1

I'm migrating my home network from a series of Asus routers and APs to OpenWRT, to ensure long term support. I'm on a slow 200/5Mbps cable provider, so I got a $30 used EA8300 to play with and learn OpenWRT. My current network uses guest networks, vlans and iptables rules to partition IoT device and limit their communication, so I'll have some work to do before everything is working and I can get better OpenWRT hardware.

I read multiple times https://openwrt.org/toh/linksys/ea8300, and my plan is to reset the device to factory settings, load 22.03.2 using the OEM GUI, change the kernel partition size, then move to 23.xx.

I have no plan to use the OEM firmware, so I want to ensure that the backup partition has a good OpenWRT firmware. What's the best way to bring both partitions to OpenWRT 23.xx? In which order should I do the flashing to have both of those partitions on 23.xx? I want both on a known good 23.05, so that in the future all settings will be applied properly when upgrading (I'm assuming that the 23.xx settings might not work with 22.xx)

From what I understand, this should work:

  • OEM GUI to 22.03.2 using "factory" OpenWRT bin. Reboot
  • install Luci
  • change kernel size with fw_setenv. Reboot
  • flash 23.05.2 using Luci upgrade and factory bin. Reboot
  • flash again 23.05.2 using Luci upgrade and sysupgrade bin. Reboot

At this point both partitions should be on 23.05.2 and in a basically "clean slate" state. Any change I make will only be applied to one partition and if I hose things up, I can safe-reboot into the "clean" partition, restarting from clean.

Once I have a working environment, if I upgrade once more (can I keep upgrading to 23.05.2?), the settings from the active partition will be copied to the other one, making them identical.

Do I have this right?

2

You better start with 22.03.5 see here: https://openwrt.org/toh/linksys/ea8300#preparation_for_oem_gui-based_install. From there I'd probably flash 23.05.0 (the first DSA release for EA8300) and then sysupgrade to 23.05.2. From there your plan seems valid.

2 Likes
3

Hi.

  1. Flash a 22.03.6 factory image from OEM firmware. Don't set any setting except for password.
  2. Enter ssh and perform the kernel size change. Reboot.
  3. You can now flash anything. Flash the latest 23.05.2 factory or sysupgrade image. DO NOT keep settings while flashing.
  4. Flash again the same 23.05.2 image.

You will have 23.05.2 on both partitions. Enjoy.

There is no need to install Luci, it's already in any official stable images.

1 Like
4

There is no need to install a previous 23.05.0. He can upgrade directly from 23.02 to 23.05.2 as long as settings are not kept (for DSA).

3 Likes
5

Thanks both of you!

I actually mistyped 22.03.5 (I wrote 22.03.2, but I meant the version in the guide), thanks for catching it.

3 Likes
6

Last thing : it is interesting to install Luci-app-advanced-reboot. It allows to switch from one partition to another.

2 Likes
7

This topic was automatically closed 10 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.