Hi All.
I have a little doubt at the documentation. Taking a look at the sysupgrade guide, specially at the "Install Aditional Packages", i can find the following text:
You may now want to reinstall the custom packages that you had before the sysupgrade, by using opkg.
This means that configuration will be kept(if declared at /etc/sysupgrade.conf), but all custom installed packages v17.01.1 will be gone prior the sysupgrade? Or packages willl keep working, and i will have to upgrade them manually?
I'm asking this cause i have some remote office routers that rely on openvpn-client + mwan3 + kmod-usb-net-rndis, and since they are custom packages depending on this upgrade behavior i may lose access to them.
Unless you build custom firmware, all your packages will go away when you perform a system upgrade. You need to install all the packages again manually. While I rarely upgrade my firmware, I suggest you take the extra time to document all your packages so you can create a single comprehensive OPKG string (or script) for future upgrades..
You have the option to keep the config or to set it to default. There is a checkbox in the upgrade window.
If you preserver your config and the parameters of a package change you may have issues. While I make backups, I also use WinSCP to save clear text copies of the \etc\config folder and anything else I have modded. They are great reference and can be used for cut and paste, if not in their entirety (ie DHCP Static leases, etc).
I would not suggest you upgrade your production remote devices remotely.
The list of packages that i install on any deploy is pretty short, but critical on a connectivity point of view:
opkg install openvpn-openssl kmod-usb-net-rndis usbutils usb-modeswitch luci-proto-3g openssh-sftp-server kmod-usb2 kmod-usb-uhci kmod-usb-ohci luci-i18n-base-pt-br zabbix-agentd zabbix-extra-mac80211 zabbix-extra-network zabbix-extra-wifi ntpdate luci-app-mwan3 mwan3
The way LEDE/OpenWrt keep the configuration is well known, and i already have some additional files at sysupgrade.conf for things that matter:
root@REMOTE001:~# cat /etc/sysupgrade.conf
## This file contains files and directories that should
## be preserved during an upgrade.
/etc/config/
/etc/openvpn/
/etc/zabbix_agentd.conf
/etc/banner
/etc/init.d/zabbix_agentd
/etc/crontabs/
/etc/init.d/ntpdate
/etc/rc.local
/etc/dropbear/dropbear_rsa_host_key
My doubt was just about the custom packages. Guess i'll just upgrade dnsmasq and zabbix related packages, and let v17.01.3 to new devices only.
Thanks for the help.
Are there some plans for opkg tracking custom packages? On OpenWRT forum there are some script to get the result done, also.
For a business environment why do you not continue to use 17.01.1?
Unless there is a technical issue, I prefer to have a single image to manage for all devices. Easier to support.
That is what i'm planning from now. A template configuration that is good enough to this version, to quickly deploy this lede solution.
I was just hoping that it wasn't so "destructive" to apply sysupgrades... guess i was wrong.
I have no problem on not having the most recent software, since they don't have critical issues like the dnsmasq one(that i could fix using opkg)