OpenWrt Package Recommendations

Installing and Using OpenWrt
1

Hi everyone,

I have recently installed OpenWrt on my Raspberry Pi 4 and has converted it into a soft router. I would like to ask about the best packages that I can install on my Raspberry Pi 4 in order to make the best use out of OpenWrt.

Would appreciate the suggestions!

Best Regards,
Lakshantha

2

We could now guess which devices you have connected to your OpenWrt router, and we could guess what you want to do with it, but I think it would be much quicker if you would tell us more about your usecase first.

3 Likes
3

Hi @tmomas,

Appreciate your response.

Sorry for my late reply. I understand that my question should be scenario-specific. But I have just installed OpenWrt and starting out to explore different possibilities and also learning along the way. Would be great to know which packages are mostly used within the community in general, so that I can try them out to begin with.

Best Regards,
Lakshantha

4

Just do a basic (working) configuration of your Pi4, create an image of your SD card and play around ...
In case of failure restore the contents of your SD card.

1 Like
5

For inspiration, you could check https://openwrt.org/packages/index/start
Maybe you already find something that immediately catches your interest.

2 Likes
6

My personal favourites

unbound

  • Recursive DNS with DNSSEC (Everyone who values privacy should use this imo)

adblock

  • Similar concept to PiHole, blocks ad domains at DNS level, integrates with unbound

nano

  • Shell text editor, 100000x better than vi

luci-theme-openwrt

  • I really like the look and feel of this theme. If you experiment with themes, steer clear of luci-theme-freifunk-generic as it'll break your web interface.

samba4-server

  • Saves messing around with SCP.
1 Like
7

Thank you all @tomtom @tmomas @nicsure for your valuable inputs. I will follow accordingly.
Excited to play around with OpenWrt!

Best Regards,
Lakshantha