OpenWRT on a Linksys E8450

OpenWRT on a Linksys E8450

We got a new router and decided to re-flash it with OpenWRT. The openwrt page for the E8450 covers the current support status. We went with the “non-UBI” installation because…

The caveat is that this change is essentially permanent so once you have OpenWRT, I hope you like it (I’m sure you will ;-). The [official page](Since 2021-08-27, it is no longer possible to keep the default vendor flash layout (a.k.a. “non-UBI”), as it contains ECC errors out of the factory, and these errors are not compatible with the new SPI-NAND driver, that means you cannot install the non-UBI firmware (*.bin).

The caveat is that this type of installation is essentially permanent, it is possible to revert to the stock firmware, but not straightforward so you should only follow along if you are sure you want OpenWRT.

The official OpenWRT E8450 page points you to a github repository which has code and scripts for building a suitably patched firmware. They also offer binary releases regularly which is probably the best path for updates. If you can’t find an updated binary release the repository has a Containerfile which can be used to build the package. Something like

$ docker build -f Containerfile -t owrt-ubi-installer .
$ docker run --rm \
  -v /Users/iana/owrt-ubi-installer/build:/out owrt-ubi-installer \
  /bin/bash -c 'cp *-sysupgrade.itb /out'

should give you a .itb file which you should be able to use to upgrade OpenWRT as needed.