Package Update from Luci

Installing and Using OpenWrt
1

Is there GUI method for package updates? Or even better, a package that allows for automated updates of installed packages? This is coming from someone who has never used putty. Thank you--

2

Unfortunately, there currently isn't. This was discussed in another thread (see: LEDE is death hole for consumer - #38 by lleachii). Doing so could cause issues on devices that don't have enough space to upgrade all packages at at once. There's no straightforward way to prevent out-of-space issues on so many different types of devices.

You can perform one step in LuCI, though:

  • you can press Update lists from the Software Menu in the Web GUI (this perform the same function as opkg update on the command line)

The command line isn't that scary to run upgrades:

opkg update
opkg list-upgradable
opkg upgrade xxxxx yyyyy zzzzz

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3

Thank you for your response Wayne. Quick question, if there's a newer version of, let's say luci-ssl, will Update Lists update that specific package? Or do I need to, compare, remove the package and reinstall. I'm sure I can watch a few videos about putty and hopefully not do too much damage. And I appreciate you sending me that thread. Very fitting title. :slight_smile: Thanks again.

4

First, putty is just connection software...once logged in, you see the router's command line...

To reiterate, no - you cannot update from the web GUI. Hitting Update lists only loads the new list of packages and their version number, download URL, etc. That is exactly the same as going to the command line and typing opkg update.

In your example, to update luci-ssl - at the command line, type:

opkg update
opkg upgrade luci-ssl

See: https://wiki.openwrt.org/doc/techref/opkg

I'm not sure what you mean. Just simply use the opkg program. The command opkg list-upgradable "compares" the installed version with the one available for upgrade. Lastly, you can install over a currently installed package - no need to "remove the package and reinstall.".

5

Got it. Thank you. While I do have some programming(C++ & VBasic) in my background, I'm clearly brand new to Linux. And I'm old enough to remember DOS. So I'm nervous about the damage I can do with that command line. :slight_smile: While my original intension was to simply create a safer router, I'm finding it's not simple at all without a Linux or networking background. That said, I find this extremely intriguing and I think that will be next step. This is very helpful. Thank you again lleachii --

1 Like
6

Don't worry:

  • go to Backup/Flash Firmware page and save a copy of your config
  • Make any changes
  • If any changes mess up the router, you can reset it to default using the firstboot command
  • Restore your router with the backup config file you saved
7

cool. I'll do that. thanks-

8

So I ran these updates, and rebooted. Nothing crashed fortunately. but when I went back to terminal mode to and reran opkg list-upgradable, I'm seeing the same list... does that mean none of them took?

9

I'm a bit late to the party here. My upgrade routine looks like this in the terminal:

Update lists (equivalent of the UI action mentioned upthread):

root@igor:~# opkg update
(... Bunch of "Downloading" and signature check lines ...)

Anything with upgrades available?

root@igor:~# opkg list-upgradable
uclient-fetch - 2017-09-06-24d6eded-1 - 2017-11-02-4b87d831-1
libuclient - 2017-09-06-24d6eded-1 - 2017-11-02-4b87d831-1

OK, upgrade them. Pipe through awk to isolate the package names and then through xargs to make the opkg upgrade arguments:

root@igor:~# opkg list-upgradable |awk '{print $1}' |xargs opkg upgrade
Upgrading uclient-fetch on root from 2017-09-06-24d6eded-1 to 2017-11-02-4b87d831-1...
Downloading http://downloads.lede-project.org/releases/17.01.4/packages/mips_24kc/base/uclient-fetch_2017-11-02-4b87d831-1_mips_24kc.ipk
Upgrading libuclient on root from 2017-09-06-24d6eded-1 to 2017-11-02-4b87d831-1...
Downloading http://downloads.lede-project.org/releases/17.01.4/packages/mips_24kc/base/libuclient_2017-11-02-4b87d831-1_mips_24kc.ipk
Configuring libuclient.
Configuring uclient-fetch.

You could skip the middle step and just blindly ask for all upgrades, but it's good to have an idea first of what's going to be upgraded. Some package upgrades may require a server restart, possibly even a reboot.

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10

Thank you for your quick response. Unfortunately, I'm not familiar awk or xargs. Quick question. If I just used, for instance, opkg update luci-app-firewall, does that automatically install the update? I see a lot of downloading after that command, but I don't see anything about configuring and installing. I've done it a couple times and I still see is as an upgradable package.

11

Should be upgrade not update

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12

You can install the luci-app-commands package and use it to run the opkg list-upgradable command from LuCi. You'll need to do an update in the Software list first and then find each package under Available packages afterwards to actually install them, though. I don't think you can use awk/xargs to upgrade all because the LuCi module prevents you from doing anything more fancy than running a simple command.

13

oops.. :slight_smile: that worked. thank you demitris.

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14

Pretty nifty, Don't want to barge in like that (and so long after this was posted) but there is a tiny improvement that can be done here. The xargs runs a separate opkg session per package. why not run a single opkg session for the lot?

opkg upgrade $(opkg list-upgradable | awk '{print $1}')

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15

Something to be aware of: https://openwrt.org/meta/infobox/upgrade_packages_warning

16

Let me be clear for those that did not click through, do not upgrade packages, certainly not in bulk.

If you feel the need, install a new image and set of self-consistent packages.