Use six steps to boot up OpenWrt on your device.

owen

2 min readMar 31, 2024

Before using it, we need to configure the config and compile the firmware.

If you wonder know OpenWrt, you can reference What is OpenWrt .

You can choose the package that you want and customize depend what kind of features on your device.

The OpenWrt is a Linux-based operating system. Therefore, we need a Linux platform to do this.

1. Set up the Build Environment

If you are using Windows, Setting up the build environment for OpenWrt can be done using the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL),
which allows you to run a Linux distribution alongside your Windows installation.
or you can use docker to do it.

2. Download OpenWrt Source Code

Clone the OpenWrt repository.

git clone https://github.com/openwrt/openwrt.git

Then navigate to the OpenWrt directory.

cd openwrt

Select the stable version or the latest version that you want.
(the latest version is v23.05.3)

git checkout v23.05.3 -b v23.05.3

3. Configure Target and Packages

Update packages and lists of feeds in feeds.conf

./scripts/feeds update -a

Then install packages

./scripts/feeds install -a -f

Run “make menuconfig” to configure the build options described in the previous steps.
This will open a menu interface where you can select the target system, target profile, and additional packages.

make menuconfig

4. Build OpenWrt Image

After configuring the options, start the build process by running the make command.
This will compile the OpenWrt firmware based on your selected configuration.

make

Depending on your computer’s performance and internet connection speed, the build process may take some time.
Be patient and let it finish without interruption.

5. Flash the Image

Once the build process completes successfully, navigate to the bin directory within the OpenWrt source code directory.
You’ll find the firmware image file here.

Use a tool like Etcher or the dd command (on Unix-like systems) to write the firmware image onto an SD card.

6. Boot up your device

Once the firmware image is flashed onto the SD card, insert the SD card into your device.

Connect the power supply to your device, and it should boot into OpenWrt.

By following these steps, you’ll be able to build and run OpenWrt on your device.