OpenWrt Factory Reset

One of the benefits of using OpenWrt with an overlay filesystem is that you can offer a simple 'factory reset' option to restore to the default environment before any changes were made to the filesystem.

This is only possible if using an overlay filesystem such as:

• squashfs+f2fs/ext4 - block storage devices (blkdev) (ie eMMC/microSD/SATA/USB)
• ubifs+ubifs - Ventana NAND

To issue a 'factory reset' from the command line run the 'firstboot' application. There is also an option to invoke this from the LuCI web admin.

If the reason for wanting to do a 'factory reset' is that you can not get to your board remotely or fail to boot because of an invalid configuration you must use serial console and failsafe boot first.