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OpenWrt x86 VM Configuration Guide

Building custom OpenWrt images with specific packages and configurations makes upgrades easier by baking configurations directly into the build process. This guide covers the build process and Proxmox VM deployment steps.

This script is located at Github: Easy-OpenWRT-Builder

Build Configuration

Custom Package Selection 

CUSTOM_PACKAGES="curl -dnsmasq dnsmasq-full \
luci luci-app-attendedsysupgrade luci-app-bcp38 luci-app-ddns \
luci-app-sqm luci-app-wol nano qemu-ga rsync sqm-scripts"

To inspect installed packages within OpenWrt: 

opkg list-installed

Proxmox Network Setup

The system uses multiple network interfaces:

  • Default virtual NIC (vmbrwan0)
  • Main LAN bridge (vmbrlan0) - VLAN aware
  • Additional bridge (vmbrlan1) for troubleshooting

Host Configuration - IPv4: {PROXMOX_IP} - Subnet: /24 - Gateway: {GATEWAY_IP}

VM Creation

Basic Settings

  • Name: OpenWRT
  • OS: Linux 5.x
  • Memory: 256 MiB
  • CPU: Host architecture
  • Network: Dual interfaces (WAN and LAN)

Image Deployment 

mkdir -p /root/bpbuilds
rsync -avz {OPENWRT_IMAGE}.qcow2 root@{PROXMOX_IP}:/root/bpbuilds/
qm importdisk {VM_ID} /root/bpbuilds/{OPENWRT_IMAGE}.qcow2 {STORAGE_NAME}

Configuration Backup

Backup Essential Configs 

rsync -avz root@{ROUTER_IP}:/etc/crontabs/ ./etc/crontabs/
rsync -avz root@{ROUTER_IP}:/etc/config/bcp38 ./etc/config/bcp38
rsync -avz root@{ROUTER_IP}:/etc/config/dhcp ./etc/config/dhcp
rsync -avz root@{ROUTER_IP}:/etc/config/firewall ./etc/config/firewall
rsync -avz root@{ROUTER_IP}:/etc/config/network ./etc/config/network
rsync -avz root@{ROUTER_IP}:/etc/config/sqm ./etc/config/sqm
rsync -avz root@{ROUTER_IP}:/etc/config/system ./etc/config/system

Cleanup 

sudo rm -R openwrt_build_output/
sudo rm -R openwrt-imagebuilder-*
sudo poweroff