How to set up an OpenWRT VM in Proxmox

openwrt-on-proxmox.md

1. Go to OpenWRT release page, select the latest release stable release, then targets -> x86 -> 64. Right-click generic-ext4-combined.img.gz (not the "efi"!) and copy the link.

2. On the Proxmox host, download the archive and unpack it:

wget *paste link here*
gunzip openwrt-*.img.gz

3. Resize the image to be the size you want your VM's disk to be (example with 8 GiB):

qemu-img resize -f raw openwrt-*.img 8G

4. Create a new VM in Proxmox. Make sure to use:

• No installation media
• SeaBIOS
• No drives

Do not start the VM yet.

5. Import the resized OpenWRT image into the new VM (replace VMID and STORAGEID with yours):

qm importdisk VMID openwrt-*.img STORAGEID

6. Go to the VM -> Hardware, select the newly imported disk named "Unused Disk 0", press "Edit", set it to VirtIO with "Discard" and "IO Thread" enabled, then press OK.

7. Go to the VM -> Options -> Boot Order, make sure that virtio0 is at the top and is the only one that is ticked.

8. Add whatever networking or other devices you need.

9. You're done! Start the VM and enjoy all the routing.

Hi, this is a good tutorial and I have some additional information.

2GiB of disk space is more than enough for the OpenWRT system and my advice is to resize the disk in this way:

qemu-img resize -f raw openwrt-*.img 2G

After you boot the OpenWRT system the whole 2GiB of space will not be used and to expand the file system and you need to:

1. Log in via SSH to your router, for example:

ssh [email protected]

2. Update list of available packages:

opkg update

3. Install packages:

opkg install parted losetup resize2fs

4. Download the script from the OpenWRT wiki to automate the process:

wget -U "" -O expand-root.sh "https://openwrt.org/_export/code/docs/guide-user/advanced/expand_root?codeblock=0"

5. Make the script executable:

chmod +x expand-root.sh

6. Run script:

. ./expand-root.sh

8. Now run the repartitioning script to expand the root partition and root file system to fill the available disk space:
   sh /etc/uci-defaults/70-rootpt-resize

The device will reboot and after that, the root partition and the root file system will be expanded to fill all space available to OpenWRT.

9. Log again in via SSH again and check disk size:

df -Th

Link to the OpenWRT Wiki: https://openwrt.org/docs/guide-user/advanced/expand_root

2GiB of disk space is more than enough for the OpenWRT system and my advice is to resize the disk in this way:

Great writeup and great disk resizing addition -- Thanks!