Netgear R6220 installing packages to reserved space

Today I was playing around quite a lot with my router. I wanted to put on it MotionEye, but I found one, quite big (or small, depending on how to look at it) problem – although R6220 has 128MB of memory installed, for packages only around 20MB is available. Quick googling explained problem:

• 

As you can see on OpenWRT wbepage there is around 60MB reserved partition plus quite a lot of unused space. I found a lot of people just compiling their own versions of OpenWRT for R6220 with all that space connected into one, big partition, but unfortunately I’m not there yet, so I was looking for any way around.

I found multiple options to resolve space issue:

• Compile custom image allowing use of all available space,
• Using Extroot to move all files to external device,
• Install packages using opkg to external device

The last option seemed easiest one – and I wanted something as simple as possible to not loose whole day on looking for solutions. So I decided to try that way. But… If I can install to external device, why not utilize those 60MB sitting there not doing anything?

Using instruction from website above I’ve unlocked that partition:

opkg install kmod-mtd-rw
insmod mtd-rw i_want_a_brick=1
ubiattach -p /dev/mtd5
ubimkvol /dev/ubi1 -N database -m
ubiblock -c /dev/ubi1_0
mkdir /tmp/ubi1
mount -t ubifs /dev/ubi1_0 /tmp/ubi1

Created script automatically mounting it:

root@WnekoWrt:~# vi /etc/init.d/ubimount
#!/bin/sh /etc/rc.common
# Copyright (C) 2006-2011 OpenWrt.org

START=10
STOP=98


boot() {

        insmod mtd-rw i_want_a_brick=1
        ubiattach -p /dev/mtd5
        mkdir /tmp/ubi1
        mount -t ubifs /dev/ubi1_0 /tmp/ubi1

}

chmod +x /etc/init.d/ubimount
/etc/init.d/ubimount enable

And now I have additional space availible:

• 

/dev/ubi1_0 is the new partition, the screen was taken later, but after mounting for the first time it was of course empty.

Now I had to configure opkg to install to packages to that new location. I went to opkg configuration and added new install location:

• 

I’ve added dest ubi1 /tmp/ubi1 line to add new destination for package installation.

Next to make sure OpenWRT will see package installed there I had to edit /etc/profile and add lines

export PATH=$PATH:/tmp/ubi1/bin:/tmp/ubi1/sbin:/tmp/ubi1/usr/bin:/tmp/ubi1/usr/sbin
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$LD_LIBRARY_PATH:/tmp/ubi1/lib:/tmp/ubi1/usr/lib

Ok, so let’s try if it works…

root@WnekoWrt:/# opkg install python -d ubi1
Installing python (2.7.18-2) to ubi1...
Downloading http://downloads.openwrt.org/releases/19.07.3/packages/mipsel_24kc/packages/python_2.7.18-2_mipsel_24kc.ipk
Installing python-base (2.7.18-2) to ubi1...
Downloading http://downloads.openwrt.org/releases/19.07.3/packages/mipsel_24kc/packages/python-base_2.7.18-2_mipsel_24kc.ipk
(...)

Great, it seems to be working! After it installed all required packages I’ve checked availible space in LuCI and it didn’t changed, I’ve also checked if files were in correct location – and they were. Small success. There was just small issue, as at first I was unable to invoke python, getting “not found” error, but after reboot everything started to work as expected.

So that’s it, now I was able to do everything I wanted using only inbuilt memory, it’s still not all of it available but I don’t think that I’ll need much more anyway, as I have on this router already all I wanted. But who knows… One day I must try with compiling my own images, but for now I don’t even want to risk, maybe one day when I’ll have spare one, this one must be working or I’ll be left without internet 🙂