Openwrt , ESXi Arm, 21.02

Hey Guys,
my name is Timo and I am not directly new to openwrt.
I have used it a lot on standalone devices, like Linksys, Cisco and Ubiquity.
I do really like the lightweight system and its speed.

I am using the system as my virtual router too, another user provided a way to create a arm64 VMware Compatible virtual Machine @thanks at Statto99 (Arm fling installation)

It that Topic he also explained how he did it, and there is my problem
I need to have that virtual router not at Version 19, but on version 21 - because there are some known bugs in 19, regarding collects which us want to use.

I tried really hard to create my own Version 21 openwrt VM but I fail at "EFI Boot Stub" and I don't know what to do now.

Could someone help me creating me the VM, or even better, has someone done it already ?

Cheers and Thanks Timo

if openwrt 19.07 works you can install packages from 21.02 until you get 21.02 to boot

I changed the packet source for opak from 19.x to 21.x

opkg update, opkg upgrade. System updated lots of packages, but system remains unbootable afterwards.

:frowning:

hey - I didn't say you do a full opkg upgrade but install the packages you consider broken

Since you have a working 19.07 installation, it should work to replace only the kernel file in the boot partition, leaving the existing working bootloader alone. Then erase all the files in the rootfs drive and untar the new rootfs to replace them. The kernel blob and rootfs tar are available on the distribution server.

I guess you're talking about https://downloads.openwrt.org/releases/21.02.1/targets/armvirt/64/openwrt-21.02.1-armvirt-64-Image and https://downloads.openwrt.org/releases/21.02.1/targets/armvirt/64/openwrt-21.02.1-armvirt-64-default-rootfs.tar.gz

Yes use those files.

1 Like

Tried using, the Kernel-Image.

did not work :frowning:

kernel without rootfs is useless.
keep 19.07 for now and update from 21.02 only the packages you really really need