Quick Start for Adding a USB drive

This page describes how to add a USB drive to your OpenWrt device. The example used will result in a USB drive mounted with ext4 filesystem. This is all you'll need for most purposes, however, there are plenty of options described below.

• You can use a USB drive of any capacity.
• Your computer connected to the network for LuCI/SSH.
• Your device/router must have at least 8 MB free. Lower capacity devices will not be able to hold the required packages.
• This procedure WILL ERASE THE USB DRIVE unless you skip those steps and just want to mount a preformated drive. Backup any data beforehand.

USB drives can be installed using either LuCI or the command line as described below.

1. On the Software page, click update, then install the packages below. These can alternatively be pasted into SSH with opkg install. Note: below uses ext4 filesystem, alternatively you can use any you prefer: kmod-fs-ext4, kmod-fs-btrfs, kmod-fs-exfat, ntfs-3g, etc.

block-mount e2fsprogs kmod-usb-storage-uas kmod-usb3 luci-app-hd-idle kmod-fs-ext4

2. Plug in your USB drive, it will be detected automatically as /dev/sdXX depending on the drive and partition numbers.

3. Go to the System → Mount Points page and click on the drive to mount, click save & apply.

4. Go to the Services → HDD Idle page and enable to idle the drive to save power and lifespan, click save & apply.

You're done! The drive is ready to read/write data.

1. Use a computer to format your USB drive using the default options. This prepares the drive for the process below, which will erase those settings. Warning: This initial formatting will erase the entire USB drive.

2. SSH into your device and enter the following commands. More... The SSH Access for Newcomers page tells how to install and use a terminal emulator on your computer.

3. Install the required packages. Note: below uses ext4 filesystem, alternatively you can use any you prefer (kmod-fs-ext4, kmod-fs-btrfs, kmod-fs-exfat, ntfs-3g, etc). More... You may see error messages about installing kmod-usb3 on certain routers. These can be ignored if the hardware does not support USB3.

opkg update && opkg install block-mount e2fsprogs kmod-usb-storage-uas kmod-usb3 kmod-fs-ext4

4. Enter ls -al /dev/sd* to show the name of all attached USB devices. The list may be empty if there are no USB devices. More... /dev/sda is the first USB device; /dev/sdb is the second, and so on. /dev/sda1 is the first partition on the first device; /dev/sda2 is the second partition, etc.

5. Insert the USB drive into your router. Enter ls -al /dev/sd* again, and this time you should see a new /dev/sdXX device. sdXX is the device name of your new USB device. More... If you do not see /dev/sda AND /dev/sda1 listed, be sure to format the USB device on your computer beforehand.

    root@OpenWrt:~# ls -al /dev/sd*
    brw-------    1 root     root        8,   0 Feb  4 15:13 /dev/sda
    brw-------    1 root     root        8,   1 Feb  4 14:06 /dev/sda1

6. Make an ext4 filesystem on the USB device using the device name you just discovered. Note: Be certain you enter the proper device name - this step will completely erase the device. More... This command creates an ext4 file system on the first partition of the first USB device - /dev/sda1.

mkfs.ext4 /dev/sda1

7. Create the fstab config file based on all the block devices found. More... This command writes the current state of all block devices, including USB drives, into the /etc/config/fstab file.

block detect | uci import fstab

8. Update the fstab config file to mount all drives at startup. More... /dev/sda is mount[0], /dev/sdb is mount[1], etc. If you have more than one USB device attached, substitute the proper index (0 or 1 or ...) as needed. This command mounts all drives - named or anonymous.

uci set fstab.@mount[0].enabled='1' && uci set fstab.@global[0].anon_mount='1' && uci commit fstab

9. Mount the device. More... Automount is enabled on boot.

/etc/init.d/fstab boot

You're done! The drive is ready to read/write data.

More information on this procedure and USB drives:

• You can mount from the web interface, in the System → Mount Points menu.
• Samba can be used to share (read/write) the drive over your network.
• The full USB Drive tutorial has much more about USB drives.
• For NTFS disks, refer to Writable NTFS
• Look at the fstab documentation to configure from the command line
• This Forum thread has a lot of background information: https://forum.openwrt.org/t/more-on-usb-drive-installation/30695/2
• If you want to temporarily mount the drive (say, for testing), you can simply enter: mkdir /tmp/MyDrive; mount /dev/sda1 /tmp/MyDrive, after finishing the test reading/writing the drive: umount /tmp/MyDrive