Successfully installed OpenWrt and luci web interface on Netgear R6260 model router

This post is not a question. Its rather verbose documentation on flashing openwrt and installing luci package on Netgear R6260 model. I think it fits here rather than wiki because of its verbosity so i post it here.

I installed on march 17, year 2020. You should spent some time around 1 to 2 hours reading the wiki and documentation on the https://openwrt.org. It will give the necessary knowledge to not feel lost during the process of flashing.

Let's start.

The following version of netgear firmware was installed on the router.
http://www.routerlogin.net/
Router Firmware Version (top left)
V1.1.0.28_1.0.1

I downloaded the following image, i forgot to note the exact url but you should be able to find it easily

$ sha256sum  openwrt-ramips-mt7621-netgear_r6260-squashfs-factory.img
2ffbd2924f8a02c67386b6eef793dddb117d0ccbd5fe30eaf921723a6e136100  openwrt-ramips-mt7621-netgear_r6260-squashfs-factory.img

Flashed the image using the netgear web interface(admin page->firmware->update). After i clicked the update button there was a status bar displayed and it was progressing but after some time it disappeared and the web page looked like nothing has happened. The openwrt document said it should reboot. But nothing happened even after few more minutes. So i rebooted and visited http://www.routerlogin.net and it displayed the netgear webgui. So the flash did not happened.

I tried the same as before for the second time. This time the web page showed the following warning.

Warning! The firmware version you are trying to upload is older than the one you had.

Do you still want to continue?
Current Version 	V1.1.0.28
Uploaded Version 	V1.0.0.52

I clicked yes and then clicked update after some time there was a 404 error in the center part of the netgear web gui page. I also noticed leds blinking. I refreshed the page and it errored out. I concluded that reboot was happening. After few minutes i tried ssh.

$ ssh root@192.168.1.1
root@OpenWrt:~#

Wow!!!. Got access to ssh shell.
This following was the release info

root@OpenWrt:~# cat /etc/*rele*
DISTRIB_ID='OpenWrt'
DISTRIB_RELEASE='SNAPSHOT'
DISTRIB_REVISION='r12629-6e64039a87'
DISTRIB_TARGET='ramips/mt7621'
DISTRIB_ARCH='mipsel_24kc'
DISTRIB_DESCRIPTION='OpenWrt SNAPSHOT r12629-6e64039a87'
DISTRIB_TAINTS=''
NAME="OpenWrt"
VERSION="SNAPSHOT"
ID="openwrt"
ID_LIKE="lede openwrt"
PRETTY_NAME="OpenWrt SNAPSHOT"
VERSION_ID="snapshot"
HOME_URL="https://openwrt.org/"
BUG_URL="https://bugs.openwrt.org/"
SUPPORT_URL="https://forum.openwrt.org/"
BUILD_ID="r12629-6e64039a87"
OPENWRT_BOARD="ramips/mt7621"
OPENWRT_ARCH="mipsel_24kc"
OPENWRT_TAINTS=""
OPENWRT_DEVICE_MANUFACTURER="OpenWrt"
OPENWRT_DEVICE_MANUFACTURER_URL="https://openwrt.org/"
OPENWRT_DEVICE_PRODUCT="Generic"
OPENWRT_DEVICE_REVISION="v0"
OPENWRT_RELEASE="OpenWrt SNAPSHOT r12629-6e64039a87"
root@OpenWrt:~#

I then tried http://192.168.1.1. It errored out.
I thought may be flashing sysupgrade might bring the web interace(luci). So i downloaed and flashed it.

$ sha256sum openwrt-ramips-mt7621-netgear_r6260-squashfs-sysupgrade.bin
 737a493b9191324285e41655962abc3f5db975b07af5a5b6ed170941e96838f4  openwrt-ramips-mt7621-netgear_r6260-squashfs-sysupgrade.bin

$ scp openwrt-ramips-mt7621-netgear_r6260-squashfs-sysupgrade.bin root@192.168.1.1:/tmp/

root@OpenWrt:~# sha256sum /tmp/openwrt-ramips-mt7621-netgear_r6260-squashfs-sysupgrade.bin
737a493b9191324285e41655962abc3f5db975b07af5a5b6ed170941e96838f4  /tmp/openwrt-ramips-mt7621-netgear_r6260-squashfs-sysupgrade.bin
root@OpenWrt:~# sysupgrade -v /tmp/openwrt-ramips-mt7621-netgear_r6260-squashfs-sysupgrade.bin
Saving config files...
etc/config/dhcp
etc/config/dropbear
etc/config/firewall
etc/config/network
etc/config/system
etc/config/wireless
etc/dropbear/dropbear_rsa_host_key
etc/group
etc/hosts
etc/inittab
etc/opkg/keys/0b26f36ae0f4106d
etc/opkg/keys/1035ac73cc4e59e3
etc/opkg/keys/5151f69420c3f508
etc/opkg/keys/72a57f2191b211e0
etc/opkg/keys/792d9d9b39f180dc
etc/opkg/keys/9ef4694208102c43
etc/opkg/keys/b2d571e0880ff617
etc/opkg/keys/b5043e70f9a75cde
etc/opkg/keys/c10b9afab19ee428
etc/opkg/keys/dace9d4df16896bf
etc/opkg/keys/dd6de0d06bbd3d85
etc/opkg/keys/f94b9dd6febac963
etc/passwd
etc/profile
etc/rc.local
etc/shadow
etc/shells
etc/shinit
etc/sysctl.conf
Commencing upgrade. Closing all shell sessions.
Connection to 192.168.1.1 closed by remote host.
Connection to 192.168.1.1 closed.

After upgrade did ssh and it displayed the following banner
*** ssh after upgrade flash

rick2@rick2-TH55B-HD:~/Downloads$ ssh root@192.168.1.1


BusyBox v1.31.1 () built-in shell (ash)

  _______                     ________        __
 |       |.-----.-----.-----.|  |  |  |.----.|  |_
 |   -   ||  _  |  -__|     ||  |  |  ||   _||   _|
 |_______||   __|_____|__|__||________||__|  |____|
          |__| W I R E L E S S   F R E E D O M
 -----------------------------------------------------
 OpenWrt SNAPSHOT, r12629-6e64039a87
 -----------------------------------------------------
=== WARNING! =====================================
There is no root password defined on this device!
Use the "passwd" command to set up a new password
in order to prevent unauthorized SSH logins.
-----------------------------

I visited the webpage http://192.168.1.1 and it errored out. Again luci interface was not available. I read more docs and found that for stable release package the luci interface is not available. As of this writing only stable release was available for this router model.

Then i found this document https://openwrt.org/docs/guide-user/luci/luci.essentials#offline_installation to install luci(web interface) package.

That document has a script to download all the packages but the script did not work because the assumptions about the url path does not hold valid. Looks like the site changed its path slightly. I fixed the bugs in the script downloaded all the packages. I ran the script multiple times changing and commenting some portion every time to download a some set of packages. This task took the majority of the time in installing openwrt firmware.

liblua https://downloads.openwrt.org/snapshots/packages/mipsel_24kc/base/liblua5.1.5_5.1.5-7_mipsel_24kc.ipk
lua https://downloads.openwrt.org/snapshots/packages/mipsel_24kc/base/lua_5.1.5-7_mipsel_24kc.ipk
libuci-lua https://downloads.openwrt.org/snapshots/packages/mipsel_24kc/base/libuci-lua_2020-01-27-e8d83732-3_mipsel_24kc.ipk
libubus https://downloads.openwrt.org/snapshots/packages/mipsel_24kc/base/libubus20191227_2020-01-05-d35df8ad-1_mipsel_24kc.ipk
libubus-lua https://downloads.openwrt.org/snapshots/packages/mipsel_24kc/base/libubus-lua_2020-01-05-d35df8ad-1_mipsel_24kc.ipk
uhttpd https://downloads.openwrt.org/snapshots/packages/mipsel_24kc/base/uhttpd_2020-02-12-2ee323c0-1_mipsel_24kc.ipk
rpcd https://downloads.openwrt.org/snapshots/packages/mipsel_24kc/base/rpcd_2020-01-05-efe51f41-2_mipsel_24kc.ipk

luci-base https://downloads.openwrt.org/snapshots/packages/mipsel_24kc/luci/luci-base_git-20.076.61489-c259369-1_mipsel_24kc.ipk
liblucihttp https://downloads.openwrt.org/snapshots/packages/mipsel_24kc/luci/liblucihttp0_2019-07-05-a34a17d5-1_mipsel_24kc.ipk
liblucihttp-lua https://downloads.openwrt.org/snapshots/packages/mipsel_24kc/luci/liblucihttp-lua_2019-07-05-a34a17d5-1_mipsel_24kc.ipk
luci-lib-ip https://downloads.openwrt.org/snapshots/packages/mipsel_24kc/luci/luci-lib-ip_git-20.076.61489-c259369-1_mipsel_24kc.ipk
luci-lib-nixio https://downloads.openwrt.org/snapshots/packages/mipsel_24kc/luci/luci-lib-nixio_git-20.076.61489-c259369-1_mipsel_24kc.ipk
luci-theme-bootstrap https://downloads.openwrt.org/snapshots/packages/mipsel_24kc/luci/luci-theme-bootstrap_git-20.076.61489-c259369-1_all.ipk
luci-mod-admin-full https://downloads.openwrt.org/snapshots/packages/mipsel_24kc/luci/luci-mod-admin-full_git-20.076.61489-c259369-1_all.ipk
luci-lib-jsonc https://downloads.openwrt.org/snapshots/packages/mipsel_24kc/luci/luci-lib-jsonc_git-20.076.61489-c259369-1_mipsel_24kc.ipk
luci-mod-status https://downloads.openwrt.org/snapshots/packages/mipsel_24kc/luci/luci-mod-status_git-20.076.61489-c259369-1_mipsel_24kc.ipk
luci-mod-system https://downloads.openwrt.org/snapshots/packages/mipsel_24kc/luci/luci-mod-system_git-20.076.61489-c259369-1_all.ipk
luci-mod-network https://downloads.openwrt.org/snapshots/packages/mipsel_24kc/luci/luci-mod-network_git-20.076.61489-c259369-1_all.ipk

libiwinfo https://downloads.openwrt.org/snapshots/targets/ramips/mt7621/packages/libiwinfo20200105_2020-01-05-bf2c1069-1_mipsel_24kc.ipk
libiwinfo-lua https://downloads.openwrt.org/snapshots/targets/ramips/mt7621/packages/libiwinfo-lua_2020-01-05-bf2c1069-1_mipsel_24kc.ipk

Additional packages to support pppoe

wget https://downloads.openwrt.org/snapshots/packages/mipsel_24kc/base/rpcd-mod-file_2020-01-05-efe51f41-2_mipsel_24kc.ipk
wget https://downloads.openwrt.org/snapshots/packages/mipsel_24kc/luci/rpcd-mod-luci_20191114_mipsel_24kc.ipk
wget https://downloads.openwrt.org/snapshots/packages/mipsel_24kc/base/rpcd-mod-iwinfo_2020-01-05-efe51f41-2_mipsel_24kc.ipk
wget https://downloads.openwrt.org/snapshots/targets/ramips/mt7621/packages/kmod-ledtrig-default-on_4.14.172-1_mipsel_24kc.ipk
wget https://downloads.openwrt.org/snapshots/targets/ramips/mt7621/packages/kmod-ledtrig-heartbeat_4.14.172-1_mipsel_24kc.ipk
wget https://downloads.openwrt.org/snapshots/targets/ramips/mt7621/packages/kmod-ledtrig-netdev_4.14.172-1_mipsel_24kc.ipk
wget https://downloads.openwrt.org/snapshots/targets/ramips/mt7621/packages/kmod-ledtrig-timer_4.14.172-1_mipsel_24kc.ipk
wget https://downloads.openwrt.org/snapshots/packages/mipsel_24kc/packages/cgi-io_19_mipsel_24kc.ipk
wget https://downloads.openwrt.org/snapshots/packages/mipsel_24kc/luci/luci-proto-ppp_git-20.076.61489-c259369-1_all.ipk

Download(wget) all of the above packages and scp to /tmp directory of router
then login in to the router and type
root@OpenWrt:~# opkg install /tmp/*.ipk
reboot and visit http://192.168.1.1/index.html it luci gui should be available.

Thanks to openwrt developers and such an awesome community that created extensive documentation of supported hardwares and other information. You people are awesome.

LuCI is available in stable release but not in SNAPSHOTS. The firmware you flashed appears to be a SNAPSHOT and not a stable one. Please see the following:

If a stable version for your router is available then flashing that would include LuCI as default and you won't need to install it manually.

Next time, please don't download packages manually. It works but it is completely unneeded. If you run the following 2 commands:

opkg update
opkg install luci

It will download and install all dependencies automatically.

Edit: I think I understand your confusion. The wiki page you linked to is describing how to install those packages without access to Internet, ie by downloading the packages beforehand and then manually transferring them to the router. If your router has an internet connection my above mentioned instructions makes it much easier to download and install :slight_smile:

LuCI is available in stable release but not in SNAPSHOTS.
Not True.

From the wiki page https://openwrt.org/releases/snapshot
"snapshots do not contain LuCI GUI by default. It needs to be installed by the user."

Right. I thought about making the router wifi to connect to another router for internet connection. But i was afraid i might brick it since i had to change the subnet as the other router also uses the default network 192.168.1.0/24. May be hard reset would have reset the configuration. I am yet to test hard reset.

Yes SNAPSHOTS are not stable releases and that is why they do not contain LuCI. You have to install it manually. On the other hand, stable releases such as v18.06.8 or v19.07.2 contain LuCI in the firmware image.

You are Right about the snapshots. I misread .Mybad.

On the other hand, stable releases such as v18.06.8 or v19.07.2 contain LuCI in the firmware image.

The wiki page specific for this route https://openwrt.org/toh/hwdata/netgear/netgear_r6260 does nto list the the above versions. Thats why i was hesitant to install the stable release.

There is no stable release for your router yet and that is why only SNAPSHOT firmware is available.

I remember reading it but i could not find the original wiki page.

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