This guide should guide you in building your own individual custom OpenWrt firmware images by using the OpenWrt Image Builder.

Why custom images?
These images are for people who want to do less configuration on the router itself, or who want to distribute the images to friends, or for backup purposes. This list could be continued by your own ideas.

If you are compiling from source (kamikaze), then use of imagebuilder is not useful, instead see this thread for build instructions. changeset 5685 added this feature.

• a recent GNU/Linux distribution
• a non root account (if you use root, generated image wont work)
• .. to be continued …

If you just want to see how the default images (default, micro and pptp included in the Image Builder) get built, continue with the steps 3.1 Obtaining and installing the Image Builder and 3.5 Building the image.

Everyone else should follow step-by-step in this HOWTO.

Anchor(Obtaining_and_installing_the_Image_Builder)

The Image Builder can be downloaded from http://downloads.openwrt.org/whiterussian/newest/.

Download it into your home directory (don't use the root account) and untar the tarball. After that change into the new directory.

cd ~
wget http://downloads.openwrt.org/whiterussian/ \
        newest/OpenWrt-ImageBuilder-Linux-i686.tar.bz2
bzcat OpenWrt-ImageBuilder-Linux-i686.tar.bz2 | tar -xvf -
cd ~/OpenWrt-ImageBuilder-Linux-i686

Anchor(The_package_lists)

Now you are ready to build your own images. By default the Image Builder builds three types of images: default, micro and pptp. In the file

lists/.brcm-2.4

are the packages defined which go into the image. It will use the ipkg packages from the

packages

directory.

When removing packages just remove the line with the package name from the

.brcm-2.4

file.

NOTE: Dependencies are not automatically resolved for ipkg packages by the Image Builder.

Let's start with an example by adding the nas package into your new image.

First download the nas package into the

packages

directory since it's not included by default.

cd ~/OpenWrt-ImageBuilder-Linux-i686/packages
wget http://downloads.openwrt.org/whiterussian/packages/non-free/ \
        nas_3.90.37-16_mipsel.ipk

Create a new package list by copying the default one:

cd ~/OpenWrt-ImageBuilder-Linux-i686
cd lists
cp -v default.brcm-2.4 my-image.brcm-2.4

Now edit

my-image.brcm-2.4

with your favorite editor or just append the nas package with:

echo "nas" >> my-image.brcm-2.4

The

my-image.brcm-2.4

file should look like this after appending nas:

cat my-image.brcm-2.4

# This is a comment line

base-files
base-files-brcm
bridge
busybox
dnsmasq
dropbear
haserl
ipkg
iptables
iwlib
kmod-brcm-wl
kmod-diag
kmod-ppp
kmod-pppoe
kmod-switch
kmod-wlcompat
mtd
nvram
ppp
ppp-mod-pppoe
uclibc
webif
wificonf
wireless-tools
nas

That's all.

If you don't need any special tweaks you can go ahead with 3.5 Building the image.

When you have additional packages which are not listed (e.g.

nas

) in the

packages

directory you can add them by copying the package directly into the

packages

directory. After that add the package as described in 3.2 The package lists above.

cd ~/OpenWrt-ImageBuilder-Linux-i686/packages
wget http://downloads.openwrt.org/whiterussian/packages/non-free/ \
        nas_3.90.37-16_mipsel.ipk

Sometimes it's useful to add and/or replace files, directories and links in the images with your own.

You have two options here.

files directory:
Files, directories and links in here would go into every image. Existing ones are replaced.

cd ~/OpenWrt-ImageBuilder-Linux-i686
mkdir -p files
mkdir -p files/etc
touch files/etc/example.txt

files. directory:
Files, directories and links in here will only go into the image you defined by

. Existing ones are replaced.

cd ~/OpenWrt-ImageBuilder-Linux-i686
mkdir -p files.my-image
mkdir -p files.my-image/etc
touch files.my-image/etc/example.txt

You can copy or create files, directories and links as you like.

Anchor(Building_the_image)

This is easy. Just type

make

and all images you defined in the

lists

directory get built.

cd ~/OpenWrt-ImageBuilder-Linux-i686
make clean all

All built images can be found in the

bin/

directory.

Building the images looks like this (here only for the image

my-image

):

Unpacking kernel...Done.
Configuring kernel...Done.
Unpacking base-files...Done.
Configuring base-files...Done.
Unpacking base-files-brcm...Done.
Configuring base-files-brcm...Done.
Unpacking bridge...Done.
Configuring bridge...Done.
Unpacking busybox...Done.
Configuring busybox...Done.
Unpacking dnsmasq...Done.
Configuring dnsmasq...Done.
Unpacking dropbear...Done.
Configuring dropbear...Done.
Unpacking ipkg...Done.
Configuring ipkg...Done.
Unpacking iptables...Done.
Configuring iptables...Done.
Unpacking kmod-brcm-et...Done.
Configuring kmod-brcm-et...Done.
Unpacking kmod-brcm-wl...Done.
Configuring kmod-brcm-wl...Done.
Unpacking kmod-diag...Done.
Configuring kmod-diag...Done.
Unpacking kmod-ppp...Done.
Configuring kmod-ppp...Done.
Unpacking kmod-pppoe...Done.
Configuring kmod-pppoe...Done.
Unpacking kmod-wlcompat...Done.
Configuring kmod-wlcompat...Done.
Unpacking libgcc...Done.
Configuring libgcc...Done.
Unpacking mtd...Done.
Configuring mtd...Done.
Unpacking nvram...Done.
Configuring nvram...Done.
Unpacking ppp...Done.
Configuring ppp...Done.
Unpacking ppp-mod-pppoe...Done.
Configuring ppp-mod-pppoe...Done.
Unpacking uclibc...Done.
Configuring uclibc...Done.
Unpacking wireless-tools...Done.
Configuring wireless-tools...Done.
Unpacking wificonf...Done.
Configuring wificonf...Done.
Unpacking zlib...Done.
Configuring zlib...Done.
Unpacking nas...Done.
Configuring nas...Done.
mjn3's trx replacement - v0.81.1
mjn3's addpattern replacement - v0.81
writing firmware v4.20.6 on 5/9/19 (y/m/d)
adding 992 bytes of garbage
mjn3's addpattern replacement - v0.81
writing firmware v1.5.0 on 5/9/19 (y/m/d)
adding 992 bytes of garbage
mjn3's trx replacement - v0.81.1
mjn3's addpattern replacement - v0.81
writing firmware v4.70.6 on 5/9/19 (y/m/d)
adding 992 bytes of garbage
Creating little endian 2.1 filesystem on /tmp/OpenWrt-ImageBuilder-Linux-i686/build_mipsel/linux-2.4-brcm/root.squashfs, block size 65536.

Little endian filesystem, data block size 65536, compressed data, compressed metadata, compressed fragments
Filesystem size 1049.81 Kbytes (1.03 Mbytes)
        33.93% of uncompressed filesystem size (3094.18 Kbytes)
Inode table size 1459 bytes (1.42 Kbytes)
        24.69% of uncompressed inode table size (5910 bytes)
Directory table size 1938 bytes (1.89 Kbytes)
        65.43% of uncompressed directory table size (2962 bytes)
Number of duplicate files found 0
Number of inodes 278
Number of files 123
Number of fragments 12
Number of symbolic links  127
Number of device nodes 0
Number of fifo nodes 0
Number of socket nodes 0
Number of directories 28
Number of uids 1
        root (0)
Number of gids 0
mjn3's trx replacement - v0.81.1
mjn3's addpattern replacement - v0.81
writing firmware v4.20.6 on 5/9/19 (y/m/d)
adding 992 bytes of garbage
mjn3's addpattern replacement - v0.81
writing firmware v1.5.0 on 5/9/19 (y/m/d)
adding 992 bytes of garbage
mjn3's addpattern replacement - v0.81
writing firmware v4.70.6 on 5/9/19 (y/m/d)
adding 992 bytes of garbage

And here are the results (your new images):

cd ~/OpenWrt-ImageBuilder-Linux-i686
ls -al bin/my-image/
total 34532
-rw-r--r--  1 user users 2162688 2006-03-30 12:53 openwrt-brcm-2.4-jffs2-4MB.trx
-rw-r--r--  1 user users 2097152 2006-03-30 12:53 openwrt-brcm-2.4-jffs2-8MB.trx
-rw-r--r--  1 user users 1531904 2006-03-30 12:54 openwrt-brcm-2.4-squashfs.trx
-rw-r--r--  1 user users 2162696 2006-03-30 12:53 openwrt-wa840g-jffs2.bin
-rw-r--r--  1 user users 1531912 2006-03-30 12:54 openwrt-wa840g-squashfs.bin
-rw-r--r--  1 user users 2162696 2006-03-30 12:53 openwrt-we800g-jffs2.bin
-rw-r--r--  1 user users 1531912 2006-03-30 12:54 openwrt-we800g-squashfs.bin
-rw-r--r--  1 user users 2162696 2006-03-30 12:53 openwrt-wr850g-jffs2.bin
-rw-r--r--  1 user users 1531912 2006-03-30 12:54 openwrt-wr850g-squashfs.bin
-rw-r--r--  1 user users 2163712 2006-03-30 12:53 openwrt-wrt54g3g-jffs2.bin
-rw-r--r--  1 user users 1532928 2006-03-30 12:54 openwrt-wrt54g3g-squashfs.bin
-rw-r--r--  1 user users 2163712 2006-03-30 12:53 openwrt-wrt54g-jffs2.bin
-rw-r--r--  1 user users 2098176 2006-03-30 12:53 openwrt-wrt54gs-jffs2.bin
-rw-r--r--  1 user users 1532928 2006-03-30 12:54 openwrt-wrt54g-squashfs.bin
-rw-r--r--  1 user users 1532928 2006-03-30 12:54 openwrt-wrt54gs-squashfs.bin
-rw-r--r--  1 user users 2163712 2006-03-30 12:53 openwrt-wrt54gs_v4-jffs2.bin
-rw-r--r--  1 user users 1532928 2006-03-30 12:54 openwrt-wrt54gs_v4-squashfs.bin
-rw-r--r--  1 user users 2098176 2006-03-30 12:53 openwrt-wrtsl54gs-jffs2.bin
-rw-r--r--  1 user users 1532928 2006-03-30 12:54 openwrt-wrtsl54gs-squashfs.bin

• This is how you called/named your image. For example lists/default.brcm-2.4, here "default" is the

Some directories inside the Image Builder in which you would be interested in. These are:

Directory	Description