Warning: If you disable essential init scripts like "network", your device might become inaccessible!

So what happens if I push the button to disable? How bad does it get?

Hardware reset or brick recover only option?

There are multiple ways to make OpenWrt soft-bricked.
Why don't you install it in the VM and experiment safely however you like?

Disabling network bricks most devices, you need enter recovery and try to unbrick.

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Safe mode should work fine I think

Okay, thanks guys. So I'll be adding auto enable network to cron. Any other essential init.d services that are catastrophic if disabled?

Or hardware reset?

That could work too if supported by the device. However you'll lose all configs. If you login in console you can revert it without losing your configs.

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I've got a script attached to the 'WPS' button on my router.
Hitting the button restores previously saved settings and reboots.

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By the way, why someone would like to disable network service?
Disabling both luci and dropbear is not a good idea either.

OpenWrt is no different than most any Unix-like distro in this. If you disable connectivity, well, you disable connectivity. Failsafe mode is much like single-user mode for “desktop” distros, giving a way to recover from configuration errors.

The only “gotcha” I’ve run into is that if you replace dropbear with OpenSSH you’ll need to modify the failsafe scripts appropriately.

Replacing the shell for root is never a good idea.

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Yup, had this realization last night and had chuckle!

Thanks for the heads up on fail-safe; just implemented this change to disable on my build;


Edit: see I can do this in menu-config

As seen in another post you helped with:)

Given that failsafe mode needs either a console connection or physical access to the device to trigger (or has already been "rooted"), I figure I've got bigger problems to contend with in that case to even consider disabling the "Oh &^%$!" button.

While my Archer C7s and GL.iNet devices can be gotten into a TFTP mode in the boot loader without opening the case, even that means you've lost your config. My Linksys EA8300 requires serial access to get into TFTP mode.

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