OpenWrt Forum Archive

Topic: Upgrading with extroot

The content of this topic has been archived on 28 Apr 2018. There are no obvious gaps in this topic, but there may still be some posts missing at the end.

I have a router running 15.05, and want to upgrade to 15.05.1; this device is configured to mount an external USB memory as extroot, and there are a bunch of packages and configuration files on the external device.

What is the recommended upgrade procedure in this case? Thanks!

Be so kind to Search before posting.  The wiki clearly explains this topic.

The linked wiki page clearly does not contain any mention of extroot.
Even after reading the linked section, it's not clear to me how a sysupgrade with extroot should work.
Can I simply do a standard sysupgrade?

https://wiki.openwrt.org/doc/howto/extroot does not contain the answer either.

Be so kind and think before advising people to use the search function.
This forum exists because search functions do not answer all questions.

As someone with the pivot overlay type of ExtRoot - I can say, it is doable.

The only caveat is:

  • your settings will be saved to the tar.gz archive from the whole system - including the overlayed part of the file system

This means that after the sysupgrade you'll finish with the squashfs partition with your full set of the settings (i.e., including the settings of the software not present in the bootable partition - which was installed only on the overlayed space).

For me - it is OK, I have almost the same settings in the bootable partition and on the overlayed space.
But if you have different, say, /etc/config/fstab here and over there - your overlay may not automount - no big deal, though. Just restore your boot partiton /etc/config/fstab file as it was before the sysupgade. Or have it (fstab contents) the same in the bootble and on the overlay.
No need to re-do all the pivot overlay procedure again.

(Last edited by booBot on 19 May 2016, 18:01)

Max Hopper wrote:

Be so kind to Search before posting.  The wiki clearly explains this topic.

I did my job: I read that page, I read the page about extroot, I searched in the wiki, I searched in this forum, and I searched outside; and I could not find a single reference to the topic: upgrading a device with an extroot partition. Can I just follow the standard procedure? I do not think so...

Now, this is what I am planning to do (unless someone has a better idea):

  • Boot without the extroot partition, upgrade using the standard procedure, and check that the base system works properly.

  • From another device, move all files from the extroot partition somewhere else, and leave an empty partition.

  • Boot with the extroot partition, reinstall all the extra packages, and recover the configuration files.

I just upgraded from OpenWRT 14.x to LEDE 17.x via sysupgrade image.
I decided to upgrade, then clean-up the extroot.

When I upgraded the external drive was not mounted due to lack of necessary kernel modules and utilities. Then I went through extroot setup instructions and just removed all files from the mount point as an additional step. I actually didn't need to fix fstab or any other config. To recap:
* upgrade without giving a sh*t about extroot
* install extroot required packages
* remove all files from device
* copy overlay files per extroot docs
* reboot

(Last edited by avalon on 11 Nov 2017, 16:34)

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