OpenWrt Overview

Introduction

This page is aimed at people who are familiar with Linux but new to the OpenWrt world.
OpenWrt is a very popular project that allows you to create your own Linux-based firmware that you can use on embedded devices.
There are pre-built firmware images for many hardware models that you can download from the website.
You can also compile your own firmware using the OpenWrt SDK (Software Development Kit)
Without duplicating the existing documentation, you can visit the project's website here: https://openwrt.org for more info.

MESHdesk and APdesk make use of OpenWrt.
It only adds three additional elements.
1. The MESHdesk package.
2. The MESHdesk Luci application.
3. Some additional files, e.g. a custom banner and logo.
While we will cover these elements again later when we do the hands-on compilation, going through them in the overview will help you find your way around a bit better later.

OpenWrt follows the same pattern as most other Linux distributions: It has a package manager (opkg) that is used to install software on the device.
This package manager also takes care of the dependencies.
Packages can be installed after the device has been flashed and is running OpenWrt, or they can be included in the firmware image during compilation.
We will later compile our own OpenWrt firmware that includes the MESHdesk package.
To create your own OpenWrt firmware, use the OpenWrt SDK (Software Developer Kit).
With the OpenWrt SDK you can:
1. Select the specific device for which you want to create firmware.
2. Select the packages you want to include in the firmware.
3. Include your own additional files in the firmware.
This is exactly what we will do later.

OpenWrt can also work without a web interface.
However, there is a web interface called Luci, which is an add-on to OpenWrt.
It is included by default in the firmware that you can download from the OpenWrt website.
However, it is not included in the nightly builds of the development branch.
Luci has various sub-items, e.g. modules, applications, themes, etc.
We will add an application to Luci (the MESHdesk Luci application)
This application allows you to enable or disable the central management of the OpenWrt device via the Luci web interface.

If you create your own OpenWrt firmware with the SDK, it provides the option to include additional files.
These files are ad-hoc files that are not part of a package, but which you still want to include in the firmware.
We will show later how you can, for example, include your own logo and a custom banner for the SSH and terminal login screens.

This brings us to the end of the introduction to OpenWrt.

Next, we will prepare the environment for the OpenWrt SDK.