Hi,

  What is the meaning of the line: "option overlay_root /overlay" in the /etc/opkg.conf file?

  Is there any other example of the "option" directive?

  Thanks in advance ...

http://wiki.openwrt.org/doc/uci#file.syntax

(Last edited by eleon216 on 27 Dec 2013, 18:43)

I didn't understand why you pointed me to the UCI page.

I'm not asking about an UCI config file. My question was about the "overlay_root" option of opkg.conf file.

It seems like a RAM partition for temporary opkg operations. Does it make sense?

Ok, sorry.

http://wiki.openwrt.org/doc/techref/flash.layout

So you have the readonly root-fs (squashfs) with all preinstalled packages, and the writeable jffs2-partion (overlay) were your new packages will be installed and modified config files are saved. overlayfs combines this two fs to one virtual rootfs.

I think this directive is needed so that opkg knows were to install new packages (and at least to know the mountpoint to check the actual free space left). So the only 2 reasons (I could think of) why you could need another setting there is if you want install some programs on an usb-stick or something like that, and for some reason extroot wouldn't work for you (but normally you should try extroot first, before setting up something manually). The other reason would be if you install a jiffs2-only firmware, or you have an x86-hardware with a sd-card with ext3/4 partion, or some other special fs-configuration. But if you have an "standard" mips-router with a few megabytes of internal flash you should have a flashlayout like it's described in the first link.

(Last edited by eleon216 on 28 Dec 2013, 13:54)