I am upgrading my home setup from a Flint 1 (GL-AX1800) running the latest stable firmware to a new Flint 3 (GL-BE9300).
I supose that a direct full backup restore (.tar.gz) from the Flint 1 to the Flint 3 will cause a soft-brick or break the system. Therefore, I want to perform a clean and safe selective migration.
I need to recreate/migrate the following services and configurations:
PPPoE: I will configure this manually from scratch on the new router to avoid interface mapping issues.
Network Settings: LAN subnets, custom DHCP ranges, and a list of static IP leases.
Wi-Fi Settings: SSIDs and passwords (transitioning from Flint 1's Wi-Fi 6 to Flint 3's Wi-Fi 7 Triband).
VLAN Interfaces: Segmented networks for IoT, guests, and local services. I configured it in LuCI.
Firewall: Custom port forwarding rules and inter-VLAN isolation/blocking rules. With Lucy
AdGuard Home (DNS Rewrites): I have a large number of custom DNS rewrites pointing to my local proxy. I want to avoid re-entering them one by one through the GUI.
My questions for the community and GL.iNet support team:
Is it safe to copy-paste specific blocks of code directly from /etc/config/dhcp (for static leases) and /etc/config/firewall (for port forwarding rules) via SSH , or will this conflict with the Flint 3's native configuration files?
For the VLAN interfaces, what is the safest way to rebuild them using Bridge VLAN Filtering on the Flint 3 without risking losing access to the main br-lan interface?
Regarding AdGuard Home: What is the recommended way to transfer my DNS rewrites? Can I safely stop AdGuard Home on the Flint 3, edit /etc/adguardhome/adguardhome.yaml, and copy-paste the rewrites: section from my Flint 1? Or is it better to format them as Custom Filtering Rules (using ||domain^$dnsrewrite=IP)?
Are there any specific template or migration scripts recommended for moving settings between these two platforms?
I would appreciate any advice, tips, or step-by-step recommendations to make this transition as smooth as possible. Thank you in advance!
Unfortunately, we do not currently have a ready-made universal template or script that we can recommend for directly migrating the complete configuration from Flint 1 to Flint 3.
This is a cross-model migration, so some configuration fields and structures may differ between Flint 1 and Flint 3.
1&3. Configuration files and AdGuard Home DNS rewrites.
For the settings you want to migrate, we recommend exporting the relevant configuration files or sample sections from both Flint 1 and Flint 3 and using AI tool to compare their structures and be rewritten to match the Flint 3 format before importing.
2. VLAN configuration and management access.
You can use the Wi-Fi as the management connection while testing VLAN changes, which should normally avoid losing access to the router. Alternatively, you can configure one unused Ethernet port as a separate management port before changing the main LAN bridge.
Use winscp and compare the flint 1 config with flint 3, begin with the network config and update the bridge stanza.
It is important to acknowledge here if you understand the difference from swconfig vlans to DSA if this is different, I would still implement the dsa references on the interfaces except for lan and manually in luci update bridge vlan filtering, do this to avoid a lockdown with vlans.
Then only copy over the interface nodes, and keep flint 3 firewall includes part this is necessary for vpn logic and what not, especially on big changes I can see that this can break as some things are iptables and some are nftables based + new vpn dashboard which includes logic not mutable to flint 1 firmware.
For wireless, I will try the same, but instead I preserve all radio namings of the flint 3, and only copy the important things over.
Dhcp is often not necessary to compare although because the new vpn dashboard software also uses multiple dnsmasq instances maybe consider making a backup of flint 3 dhcp, then replace it with Flint 1 and then remake the vpn.
I will ignore the vpn configs in its whole because I expect there is alot of changes made, for wgserver you could try to add that part.
For firewall I leave this default on the flint 3's, zones get automatically created for vpns and what not once the switch is toggled.
Edit:
I also advise to make a copy of these files each on flint 3 so that you can repair them when editing directly the configs.
After reading your advice, I'm definitely not going to risk it. Seeing the architecture changes under the hood (like iptables to nftables and the new VPN logic), a direct migration is just asking for a soft-brick or others problems.
I'll just configure everything from scratch. I'll recreate the VLANs manually in LuCI using Bridge VLAN Filtering (keeping an eye on it via Wi-Fi so I don't lock myself out) and import the AdGuard Home rewrites as Custom Rules in bulk.