/opt folder on stock RT-AC86U Firmware

[x1000]

I just started investigating my new router and wanted to install Entware and other stuff. However, I faced with a problem that /opt folder is not a sym link to /tmp/opt how it is supposed to be but it is just a read-only folder. As a result almost, all installation scripts fail since they want creating some sub-folders inside /opt.
for example this one http://bin.entware.net/armv7sf-k2.6/installer/generic.sh

rwxr-xr-x 2 admin root 7856 Sep 11 15:52 bin
drwxr-xr-x 5 admin root 0 Sep 17 22:56 dev
lrwxrwxrwx 1 admin root 7 Sep 11 15:51 etc -> tmp/etc
lrwxrwxrwx 1 admin root 8 Sep 11 15:51 home -> tmp/home
drwxr-xr-x 6 admin root 0 Sep 17 23:28 jffs
drwxr-xr-x 4 admin root 4032 Sep 11 15:52 lib
lrwxrwxrwx 1 admin root 9 Sep 11 15:51 media -> tmp/media
lrwxrwxrwx 1 admin root 7 Sep 11 15:51 mnt -> tmp/mnt
drwxr-xr-x 3 admin root 800 Sep 11 15:52 opt
dr-xr-xr-x 119 admin root 0 Jan 1 1970 proc
lrwxrwxrwx 1 admin root 13 Sep 11 15:51 root -> tmp/home/root
drwxrwxrwx 17 admin root 0 Sep 18 00:02 tmp
drwxr-xr-x 10 admin root 816 Sep 11 15:51 usr
drwxr-xr-x 18 admin root 0 Sep 17 23:28 var
drwxr-xr-x 14 admin root 22192 Sep 11 15:51 www​

If I try to create a symbolic link manually (or create some sub-folders in /opt) I receive the error:

Read-only file system

Is there any way to do that on RT-AC86U stock firmware or I have to use Merlin's one?

 

[agilani]

I would use merlin as all of this has already been worked out on it.

https://github.com/RMerl/asuswrt-merlin/wiki/Entware

on merlin you just run the script that's already included

entware-setup.sh

 

[ColinTaylor]

I would use merlin as all of this has already been worked out on it.

This.

Stock Asus firmware is not a supported platform for entware.

 

[agilani]

This.

Stock Asus firmware is not a supported platform for entware.

That's why i provided him a link to merlin entware wiki that talks about the difficulties and incompatibilities and reocmmended he use the merlin firmware.

 

[ColinTaylor]

Yes. I was agreeing with what you said.

 

[x1000]

This.

Stock Asus firmware is not a supported platform for entware.

I would use merlin as all of this has already been worked out on it.

https://github.com/RMerl/asuswrt-merlin/wiki/Entware

on merlin you just run the script that's already included

entware-setup.sh

Well.. actually I am bit confused since there is an instruction how to install Entware on stock Assus firmware and I do not see any problem with that except for the fact that "/opt" folder is read-only on my router. Honestly speaking, I am not yet ready to install the merlin firmware, so I was looking for some solution of the problem.

 

[ColinTaylor]

I'm confused as well. I'm sure I double-checked github and it wasn't listed as supported. Oh well, must have dreamt it.

I was assuming that you were talking about entware-ng as that has replaced entware. But you're trying to use the old entware installer which is part of the problem. The other is that the RT-AC86U is a newer platform with a later kernel, so using the installer for kernel 2.6 won't work.

Try using the installer for entware-ng:

https://github.com/Entware/Entware-ng/wiki/Install-on-Asus-stock-firmware

 

[ColinTaylor]

OK Now I've completely lost the plot. According to this page Entware-ng has merged with something called Entware-ng-3x (which I'd never heard of) to create a new project called Entware.

So I have no idea what's going on. Maybe try this installer? http://bin.entware.net/aarch64-k3.10/installer/generic.sh

 

[RMerlin]

Entware cannot be installed on the stock Asus firmware for the RT-AC86U because Broadcom already makes use of the /opt folder (so, you can't create the necessary filesystem on top of it for Entware). I had to do extensive changes to it on my firmware to support it.

 

[x1000]

OK Now I've completely lost the plot. According to this page Entware-ng has merged with something called Entware-ng-3x (which I'd never heard of) to create a new project called Entware.

So I have no idea what's going on. Maybe try this installer? http://bin.entware.net/aarch64-k3.10/installer/generic.sh

Thank you for the suggestion but the script will not work because it also creates sub-folders in /opt folder (which is read-only on AC86U with stock firmware):

for folder in bin etc lib/opkg tmp var/lock
do
if [ -d "/opt/$folder" ]
then
echo "Warning: Folder /opt/$folder exists!"
echo "Warning: If something goes wrong please clean /opt folder and try again."
else
mkdir -p /opt/$folder
fi
done​

 

[voltagex]

mkdir /tmp/opt
mount /dev/whatever /tmp/opt
mount -o bind /tmp/opt /opt


Works for me, may break things for you (I couldn't see anything actively running out of the read-only /opt path.

I don't recommend this, but it let me get Entware working to test things.