Install OpenWRT on a PC

1.Prepare a bootable Debian USB

Download a Finnix image from here https://www.finnix.org/

If you are using Windows, flash the image using Rufus: https://rufus.akeo.ie/ if you are using Linux, use dd.

Connect a LAN cable to the first NIC port, insert the newly flashed USB and boot the system.

Use putty to connect to the serial port. Putty instructions for Windows are available here and for macOS here.

2. Connect to PC via SSH

By default, Rescue Mode’s Finnix environment does not accept SSH connections.

Set the root password for the Finnix rescue environment by entering the following command:

passwd

Enter the new password for the root user.

Start the SSH server:

service ssh start

You can now connect to the server as root with the SSH client on a local computer

Make sure you have the WAN cable connected, so you have a connection to the internet.

root@1:/# ping 8.8.8.8
PING 8.8.8.8 (8.8.8.8) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from 8.8.8.8: icmp_seq=1 ttl=114 time=17.1 ms
64 bytes from 8.8.8.8: icmp_seq=2 ttl=114 time=16.3 ms

3. Flash the HDD drive with the OpenWRT image

You can now download the latest OpenWRT image from here https://downloads.openwrt.org/releases. Make sure to download x86 / 64 / generic-ext4-combined.img.gz file.

We need an image called "generic-ext4-combined.img.gz". Make sure you get the ext4 image; otherwise, you won't be able to resize the partition and use the entire disk space.

At the time of writing, the latest image is 22.03.5, so my wget command looks like shown below.

https://downloads.openwrt.org/releases/22.03.5/targets/x86/64/

wget https://downloads.openwrt.org/releases/22.03.5/targets/x86/64/openwrt-22.03.5-x86-64-generic-ext4-combined.img.gz

This should go relatively quickly. Once it's downloaded, unpack it with

gunzip openwrt-22.03.5-x86-64-generic-ext4-combined.img.gz

This should produce a file named "openwrt-22.03.5-x86-64-generic-ext4-combined.img" (without the .gz extension).

root@1:/# ll | grep openwrt
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 126353408 Apr 28 01:52 openwrt-22.03.5-x86-64-generic-ext4-combined.img

Once you have the image downloaded, you can flash it on the HDD with the following command:

dd if=openwrt-22.03.5-x86-64-generic-ext4-combined.img of=/dev/sda bs=4M; sync;

Output should look similar to this:

root@1:/# dd if=openwrt-22.03.5-x86-64-generic-ext4-combined.img of=/dev/sda bs=4M; sync;
30+1 records in
30+1 records out
126353408 bytes (126 MB, 120 MiB) copied, 1.86846 s, 67.6 MB/s

At this point, you have a bootable OpenWRT installation.

You could power off, remove the USB and boot your PC, but should probably also complete the last step to gain access to the entire space on the HDD.

To check avalible disks use this commnds:

root@0:~# parted -l

Model: ATA WDC WD1600AAJS-6 (scsi)

Disk /dev/sda: 160GB

Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B

Partition Table: msdos

Disk Flags:

Number Start End Size Type File system Flags

1 1049kB 160GB 160GB primary ext4

Model: JetFlash Transcend 8GB (scsi)

Disk /dev/sdb: 8032MB

Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B

Partition Table: msdos

Disk Flags:

Number Start End Size Type File system Flags

1 1049kB 8032MB 8031MB primary fat32 boot, lba

Model: Unknown (unknown)

Disk /dev/zram0: 4162MB

Sector size (logical/physical): 4096B/4096B

Partition Table: loop

Disk Flags:

Number Start End Size File system Flags

1 0.00B 4162MB 4162MB linux-swap(v1)

root@0:~# lsblk

NAME MAJ:MIN RM SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINTS

loop0 7:0 0 407.9M 1 loop /usr/lib/live/mount/rootfs/filesystem.squashfs

/run/live/rootfs/filesystem.squashfs

sda 8:0 0 149.1G 0 disk

└─sda1 8:1 0 149G 0 part

sdb 8:16 1 7.5G 0 disk

└─sdb1 8:17 1 7.5G 0 part /usr/lib/live/mount/medium

/run/live/medium

zram0 252:0 0 3.9G 0 disk [SWAP]

root@0:~# ls -l /dev/disk/by-id
total 0
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 9 Apr 29 16:30 ata-WDC_WD1600AAJS-60PSA0_WD-WCAP94237178 -> ../../sda
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 Apr 29 16:30 ata-WDC_WD1600AAJS-60PSA0_WD-WCAP94237178-part1 -> ../../sda1
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 9 Apr 29 16:25 usb-JetFlash_Transcend_8GB_C7E09118-0:0 -> ../../sdb
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 Apr 29 16:25 usb-JetFlash_Transcend_8GB_C7E09118-0:0-part1 -> ../../sdb1
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 9 Apr 29 16:30 wwn-0x50014ee100828280 -> ../../sda
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 Apr 29 16:30 wwn-0x50014ee100828280-part1 -> ../../sda1

root@1:~# sudo lshw -class disk
*-disk
       description: SCSI Disk
       product: Transcend 8GB
       vendor: JetFlash
       physical id: 0.0.0
       bus info: scsi@6:0.0.0
       logical name: /dev/sdb
       version: 8.07
       serial: C
       size: 7660MiB (8032MB)
       capabilities: removable
       configuration: ansiversion=4 logicalsectorsize=512 sectorsize=512
     *-medium
          physical id: 0
          logical name: /dev/sdb
          size: 7660MiB (8032MB)
          capabilities: partitioned partitioned:dos
          configuration: signature=003844b9
*-disk
       description: ATA Disk
       product: WDC WD1600AAJS-6
       vendor: Western Digital
       physical id: 0.0.0
       bus info: scsi@3:0.0.0
       logical name: /dev/sda
       version: 2M22
       serial: WD-WCAP94237178
       size: 149GiB (160GB)
       capabilities: partitioned partitioned:dos
       configuration: ansiversion=5 logicalsectorsize=512 sectorsize=512 signature=aab7a21c

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