OpenWrt Forum Archive

Topic: Luci not installing - how to reflash router without it?

The content of this topic has been archived on 20 Apr 2018. There are no obvious gaps in this topic, but there may still be some posts missing at the end.

Hi All, I flashed my WD N600 router with a version of OpenWRT (CHAOS CALMER (Bleeding Edge, r42038) that did not have Luci installed.  I have tried to install Luci through command line (putty) and also tried minimalistic offline install (using Winscp / Putty) as suggested (http://wiki.openwrt.org/doc/howto/luci.essentials).  None of these options worked.

(Note: a lot of the files suggested to download from http://downloads.openwrt.org/snapshots/ … packages/) for the luci minimilistic offline install are NOT in the suggested link.. so for those who try this option - this tutorial does not help much as Luci will fail to install because of those missing files.

Question: Is there a way to reflash the router with without having web-browser access to my router (as per prob above).  Note: I can access router via putty and winscp.

Thanks.

You have the link slightly wrong.
The generic link is: http://downloads.openwrt.org/snapshots/ … /packages/

Basic reason is that you have too old trunk version (yes, a few weeks). The download config has changed since your firmware was compiled. Now there is http://downloads.openwrt.org/snapshots/ … /packages/
under which there are several subdirectories. One on them is luci:
http://downloads.openwrt.org/snapshots/ … ages/luci/
And all the luci packages are there.

You could fix your opkg config to match the current download structure and then install luci:
read this: https://forum.openwrt.org/viewtopic.php … 43#p243943

You could also use wget to download a new firmware for your router (to ramdisk) and then use 'sysupgrade' script to flash it.

(Last edited by hnyman on 1 Sep 2014, 12:25)

Hey thanks, I ended up just taking your latter advice and re-flashing the router from putty using the info in link (http://wiki.openwrt.org/doc/howto/generic.sysupgrade) it worked a treat.  The version i downloaded also had Luci build into it already so no dramas anymore! 

Also, I will remember the links you sent me regarding the Luci packages and no doubt i will need them soon enough.

Cheers again

You won't actually need the links with a new firmware.
Simple "opkg update" should download and update the packages lists (also to Luci), the your new firmware should already have the correct opkg config.

maybe just stick to barrier breaker builds, which include luci starting with RC3 and is also getting pretty close to final. I don't think there is any big advantage to chaos calmer at this point in time.

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