OpenWrt Project is a Linux operating system targeting embedded devices. Instead of trying to create a single, static firmware, OpenWrt provides a fully writable filesystem with package management. This frees you from the application selection and configuration provided by the vendor and allows you to customize the device through the use of packages to suit any application. For developers, OpenWrt is the framework to build an application without having to build a complete firmware around it; for users this means the ability for full customization, to use the device in ways never envisioned.
Sunshine!
To build your own firmware you need a GNU/Linux, BSD or MacOSX system (case sensitive filesystem required). Cygwin is unsupported because of the lack of a case sensitive file system.
You need the following tools to compile OpenWrt, the package names vary between distributions. A complete list with distribution specific packages is found in the Build System Setup documentation.
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get -y install build-essential asciidoc binutils bzip2 gawk gettext git libncurses5-dev libz-dev patch python3 python2.7 unzip zlib1g-dev lib32gcc1 libc6-dev-i386 subversion flex uglifyjs git-core gcc-multilib p7zip p7zip-full msmtp libssl-dev texinfo libglib2.0-dev xmlto qemu-utils upx libelf-dev autoconf automake libtool autopoint device-tree-compiler g++-multilib antlr3 gperf wget curl swig rsync aria2
-
Run
./scripts/feeds update -a
to obtain all the latest package definitions defined in feeds.conf / feeds.conf.default -
Run
./scripts/feeds install -a
to install symlinks for all obtained packages into package/feeds/ -
Run
make menuconfig
to select your preferred configuration for the toolchain, target system & firmware packages. -
Run
make
to build your firmware. This will download all sources, build the cross-compile toolchain and then cross-compile the GNU/Linux kernel & all chosen applications for your target system.
The main repository uses multiple sub-repositories to manage packages of
different categories. All packages are installed via the OpenWrt package
manager called opkg
. If you're looking to develop the web interface or port
packages to OpenWrt, please find the fitting repository below.
-
LuCI Web Interface: Modern and modular interface to control the device via a web browser.
-
OpenWrt Packages: Community repository of ported packages.
-
OpenWrt Routing: Packages specifically focused on (mesh) routing.
For a list of supported devices see the OpenWrt Hardware Database
- Forum: For usage, projects, discussions and hardware advise.
- Support Chat: Channel
#openwrt
on oftc.net.
- Bug Reports: Report bugs in OpenWrt
- Dev Mailing List: Send patches
- Dev Chat: Channel
#openwrt-devel
on oftc.net.
OpenWrt is licensed under GPL-2.0