Steps After Factory Reset

Installing and Using OpenWrt
1

I am a little confused on my steps to take next. I did a factory reset on my router and now I am unable to access it to Enter in the shell commands. I see the link below that it says when you do a factory reset SSH is not available. So how exactly do I run these commands mentioned? Is it that I have to be on the same subnet with a lan connection?

https://openwrt.org/docs/guide-user/troubleshooting/failsafe_and_factory_reset#reset_button

2

Where does it say that?

Whichever trigger you use, the device will enter failsafe mode and you can access the command line with SSH (always possible)

(emphasis added)

Did you enter failsafe mode, or did you actually trigger the factory reset (i.e. firstboot -y && reboot)?

If you entered failsafe mode, did you connect via ethernet and set your computer to a static ip?

Once failsafe mode is triggered, the router will boot with a network address of 192.168.1.1/24, usually on the eth0 network interface, with only essential services running. When in failsafe mode, the DHCP server will not be running. You must set your computer's ethernet port to use a static IP address in the 192.168.1.0/24 network (valid IPs are 192.168.1.2 - 192.168.1.254, subnet mask 255.255.255.0)

What is the device in question (brand+model)? What was wrong that you were trying to fix?

3

Thanks for the quick response! Here’s what I am referring to

On devices with a physical reset button, OpenWrt can be reset to default settings without serial or SSH access.

I did not enter failsafe mode yet. I did a factory reset. What I was trying to do is get back to the original factory settings before I flashed with openWRT. This was because I found out that my router does not support Wi-Fi because it has a Broadcom chip. (Netgear R7000). I learned a lot and feel foolish, But nevertheless, here I am. What do you suggest?

4

To be clear, that is a "factory reset" to OpenWrt defaults.

That is not what the reset does.

Yeah, that happens... it should be on the device info page, but it is true that people get excited to try OpenWrt and don't see that warning. Anyway, don't worry about that.

You should be able to access the device by connecting via ethernet to the router and with the computer set to DHCP. You should get an address in the 192.168.1.0/24 network (with the router reachable at 192.168.1.1). This will be OpenWrt, not the factory/vendor firmware.

To return to stock:

5

Just FYI - that sentence merely says you can perform a Reset via the physical Reset Button. It doesn't say that SSH would be inaccessible after a reset.