The OpenWrt Firmware Selector

Real_Shackleford · September 7, 2024, 3:21pm

I'll preface this and say I'm not trying to be rude but rather have a better understanding of what's going on and if it's something that's resolvable. I removed DDWRT and installed OpenWRT about three years ago and shortly after was greeted with not being able to update as the systems were down. Then they came back up then went down again.etc. I got frustrated, was moving , and just put the router away. I was wanting to tinker with it again and pulled it out this last weekend....same issue persist. Just yesterday the system was up then down again. It's frustrating for the users and I also know for the sysadmin / devs.

My question is, again not trying to be rude at all , what is the problem and furthermore what is the health condition of the overall OpenWRT project itself? Is this long ongoing issue a symptom of a larger overarching issue with the project itself?

I'm thinking of buying a new router,flint 2, but I'm concerned about getting updates.

Again, I hope this post doesn't get taken out of context and is found in good faith. I'm not trying to devalue the time and effort of the admins and devs at all.

el_charlie · September 7, 2024, 3:36pm

I understand your frustration, but, unlike DDWRT, OpenWRT has stable releases. You could safely be on 23.05.4 and add your own packages and stay that way.

As I've read here, the maintainer of the sysupgrade server is away and not to be found. So, we don't actually know what's going on.

I do understand you, because I run the latest SNAPSHOT build and I'm an update freak and I like to have the latest kernel, even if that's unwise because bugs are expected to be there and fixed on a later SNAPSHOT.

But if you like to have a stable working device, get the stable release and be done with it.

There's also the option of the Image Builder (https://openwrt.org/docs/guide-user/additional-software/imagebuilder), where on a Linux machine (or even on windows with WSL like I have), you can write a command with all the packages you want, like on firmware selector, and it'll build an image for your router in like 40 seconds. If this issue persists for more days, this is the route I'll take.

I did it before with 23.05-SNAPSHOT and worked fine.

Cheers!

Real_Shackleford · September 7, 2024, 4:28pm

I found this, I'm not a dev but know there's a lot here most likely. Seems he did ask for help, is this the guy you're referring to that's missing?

KFO · September 7, 2024, 4:28pm

Agree with your points ... if you check my post here before two weeks same issue and before it and this week also ....

to be honest i like OpenWRT but I started using Fork OpenWRT like ImmortalWRT / or ROOter
where its moving very good without any issue .... i'm looking until OpenWRT solve these problems so I can use it again....

el_charlie · September 7, 2024, 4:32pm

The same.

That post was a year ago, so he might have found help.

Anyway, let's wait for a week or so. I hope this gets solved.

fonix232 · September 7, 2024, 6:04pm

With the ideal OpenWrt setup, you don't need to update continuously - you do it once every year or so, when a new release drops.

Some of us who test new features and live on the Snapshot edge, rely on this service. But let's not forget that this is a COURTESY SERVICE, provided freely, and you do not need to use it at all to upgrade between versions. You can, at any time, download a non-modified base image and install whatever packages you need without issues.

To assess this, all you need to do is look at the git repos. Continuous patches, fixes, new features are being deployed, so fast that often the build server can't even finish a full build set before jumping onto the next one! Which tbf is quite annoying as I have 2-3 different OpenWrt devices, and like to keep them on the same version, which is often impossible.

There aren't really any major issues. Yet again, the ASU server is provided as a separate service, for free, by who's essentially a "third party" (IIRC there's a push to internalise the service but it wasn't taken over completely by the OpenWrt team yet, as it's a process, not a switch flip). Everything else - the website, the wiki, the build server, the download server - is maintained by the OpenWrt team, and is rock solid. The ASU server is written by aparcar, who, just like many of us, needs to go on holiday sometimes, and can't put 100% of his time onto an unpaid job. So yes, there will be downtimes. Right now, the whole sysupgrade server is down, including stats. But it's also a Saturday, so don't expect a quick solution. It happens from time to time, and as this is a free and open source project... If you want to make things better, you can donate either money or resources (incl your time!) to make it better.

The Flint, etc. are all made by GL.inet, who, while rely on OpenWrt, do their own development. You will get updates on it, there won't be any "oops sorry, no updates for two years because OpenWrt didn't update".

KrypteX · September 7, 2024, 6:43pm

Guys, until @aparcar fixes the issue, there's a relatively simple solution: just download and flash the latest snapshot from https://downloads.openwrt.org/snapshots/targets/ which are still building AFAICS, then SSH into the router and run:

opkg update
opkg install luci

and then install any other package you need. I know it's not ideal, but that's the best we can do for now.

odhiambo · September 8, 2024, 12:08pm

Actually, building your own image is pretty simple. You can do it from your own Linux PC or Windows PC or a VM. It takes you about 20 minutes to setup and you can reuse this and ignore the webUI which is down currently.
It's well-documented here: https://openwrt.org/docs/guide-user/additional-software/imagebuilder

HTH

el_charlie · September 8, 2024, 3:06pm

I actually did this, few minutes ago with my main router (RT3200) and dumb AP (TL-WDR4300) and now typing this from the latest SNAPSHOT with kernel 6.6.49! I did this on Debian in WSL.

The process is really easy. The only thing changed from the documentation is that now the imagebuilder and other compressed files, now come in tar.zst instead of .tar.xz. The command I used to uncompress it was tar xvf openwrt-imagebuilder-* . The rest was the same.

Another "issue" (in quotes, because that's not a real issue) that's not well explained is that you might have some conflicts with the default packages of a device. In my case, I use the full wpad-mbedtls and the default is wpad-basic-mbedtls. I had to explicitly exclude wpad-basic-mbedtls because it created a conflict. So, in the packages variable I had set wpad-mbedtls -wpad-basic-mbedtls. As per de documentation, the hypen tells the script to exclude a package.

Cheers!

Real_Shackleford · September 8, 2024, 3:56pm

From a new user perspective aka somebody who hasn't been following or using openwrt I'd wager to say that the sysupgrade system needs a warning associated with it in any docs and while trying to use it if it's down.

One of the compelling reasons I came over from DDWRT was the ease of updating. I could go into my luci gui and tell it to upgrade and it did everything right and quick. While I totally understand there's other was to do this I'm just sharing my perspective. When a user doesn't know that feature is totally reliant on a single dev and that it could be working or not working for a length of time it's frustrating and wast end user time.

Unless I missed it I didn't see any information that the system was donated and it could be down for extended times. When trying to use it I also didn't get any error messages telling me it was down or experiencing issues etc. I had no way of knowing the issue until I came here after trying to update for two days.

Again, not trying to be rude at all ,I understand the situation and agree, and hope this reads well. Until this can be brought in house maybe some error code could be put in or something?

Thanks to the team and the dev who made the system in the first place.

yoos86 · September 8, 2024, 5:28pm

Hello. Firmware selector are broken.

Teisto · September 9, 2024, 8:35am

Request Build Not Working at all

fkl7834456 · September 9, 2024, 10:04am

doesn't work for a week or even two weeks

Jack007 · September 9, 2024, 1:42pm

Me being sarcastic but isn't this a typical linux issue

el_charlie · September 9, 2024, 2:55pm

The sysupgrade server is working now. I've upgraded my RT3200 and TL-WDR4300 via OWUT and it went just fine. If owut is working, then the Firmware Selector should be working, too.

Cheers!

efahl · September 9, 2024, 5:30pm

If by "linux" you mean "a service provided and paid for by volunteers who receive little recognition and usually a lot of grief for their time, money and efforts", then yes.

foggygray · September 9, 2024, 7:07pm

Thank you to the team that got it back up and running! As someone with a device only supported by the snapshots I really appreciate it!

Also owut is great!

Jack007 · September 10, 2024, 8:31am

I was more thinking along these lines.

But your "definition" is certainly valid.

odhiambo · September 10, 2024, 8:38am

For my Dynalink WRX-36 where I run SNAPSHOT, I have decided to move away from the firmware-selector web UI and build my image using the imagebuilder. The process is quite simple when you have a Linux box or VM running. Getting a Linux VM running on Windows 10/11 is also a straightforward process.

sl971102 · September 10, 2024, 12:49pm

The firmware selector seems to be hanged up after I clicked the build request button, only shows the message "Received build request", nothing further more...