Entware Entware on USB NTFS drive on Asus RT-AX58U ?

[Tanzbaerli]

Hi!

I have read in the entware Readme that an Ext2/3/4 drive must be used
Entware · RMerl/asuswrt-merlin.ng Wiki · GitHub
"You will need to plug a USB disk that's formatted in a native Linux filesystem (ext2, ext3 or ext4)."

Can even a NTFS drive be used?
It would be more convenient to use such a drive because it could be plugged off and directly conneced to windows.

 

[underdose]

You can format any USB drive and have up to 3 partitions on it with different formats (EXT2/3/4, FAT32, EXFAT, NTFS, etc) with amtm, a helper script that's already embedded into Asuswrt-Merlin. This way, you can have a USB drive with 1 EXT4 partition for Entware and 1 or 2 partitions in any format you need.

Just plug in your USB drive, SSH into your router, type amtm and hit enter, type fd on the amtm screen and follow the instructions.

Keep in mind that your drive will be reformatted and partitioned so you'll lose all files on the drive.

 

[Jeffrey Young]

For most users wanting to run entware applications, a swap file will be required (for sure if you are looking at SkyNet or Diversion). Linux swap files can only live on ext file systems (to the best of my knowledge). In addition to that, it is probably a general requirement of entware - after all, it is a linux operating system component.

 

[bbunge]

USB drives for swap and Entware should be thumb drive or SSD. Conventional spinning rust drives can go to sleep. Better to use thumb drive for EXT4 and another for storage. Better yet get a NAS for storage.

 

[bbunge]

For most users wanting to run entware applications, a swap file will be required (for sure if you are looking at SkyNet or Diversion). Linux swap files can only live on ext file systems (to the best of my knowledge). In addition to that, it is probably a general requirement of entware - after all, it is a linux operating system component.

Nope, you can do swap on FAT.

 

[Jeffrey Young]

Nope, you can do swap on FAT.

Cool, thanks for the clarification.

 

[Tanzbaerli]

USB drives for swap and Entware should be thumb drive or SSD. Conventional spinning rust drives can go to sleep. Better to use thumb drive for EXT4 and another for storage. Better yet get a NAS for storage.

The spinning drive on the Asus is the backup drive for NAS, so an SSD is no solution. Entware on my spinning drive makes no problems. (and even a swapfile is not needed for my rsync)

As underdos said, using a small EXT4 partition for entware and a large NTFS partition (to read the data if connected to windows) would be the best way for me. Unfortunately i have to reformat and install again ...

 

[ColinTaylor]

As underdos said, using a small EXT4 partition for entware and a large NTFS partition (to read the data if connected to windows) would be the best way for me. Unfortunately i have to reformat and install again ...

Depending on whether your USB drive identifies itself as a fixed or removable disk Windows may only recognise the first partition on a multi-partition disk.

 

[Tanzbaerli]

You can format any USB drive and have up to 3 partitions on it with different formats (EXT2/3/4, FAT32, EXFAT, NTFS, etc) with amtm, a helper script that's already embedded into Asuswrt-Merlin. This way, you can have a USB drive with 1 EXT4 partition for Entware and 1 or 2 partitions in any format you need.

Just plug in your USB drive, SSH into your router, type amtm and hit enter, type fd on the amtm screen and follow the instructions.

Keep in mind that your drive will be reformatted and partitioned so you'll lose all files on the drive.

You hit the point!

I used GPARTED to make the ext4 partition very small because it will only be used by Entware.
Then i created a big NTFS primary partition, adapted the rsync config and now i can use it for my rsync backups of the diskstation.

This is perfect because i can just plug the external Drive to my WIndows-PC and read the data on an emergency.

So i finally have the desired backup solution:
Synology Diskstation with RAID1 and the external USB drive on the router for backup of the important data (once a month). The Discstation and the Router with the attached USB-Disc are seperated on different floors of my house. An long as not the whole building will be destroyed i am at the safe side.

 

[ColinTaylor]

This is perfect because i can just plug the external Drive to my WIndows-PC and read the data on an emergency.

Check that you can actually see the drive in Windows (see post #8).