I have a GL-inet x750 router and decided for the moment I should stick with the original FW that is supplied with the router as I feel my tech skills are not the best, however I want to beef up the routers security as much as possible, and I see that there is a choice of 7000+ plugins that I can install, which Im presuming are openwrt based plugins
Firstly does anyone know where I can find instructions on how to get this router to save to SD card (router is already recognizing SD card)
Secondly, is there any information (a list) on what are the best addons to use to beef up the routers security?
I am struggling to find the information I need and I hope that I am posting in the right place here (appologies if im not!)
Hi and thanks for your reply
I have done what you said with file sharing, but it tells me its not installed yet. when I go to install it, it tells me theres not enough flash space
What should I do?
At the bottom of the APPLICATIONS → Plug-ins page, how much Free space is displayed?
Unfortunately, other people on this forum have also reported lack of storage on some routers. You can try uninstalling some packages that you do not use in order to free up sufficient storage.
Even with the original firmware, there are usually packages installed that not everybody needs, based on their own usage. For example, if you only plan to use OpenVpn and not Wireguard, then you can uninstall WIreguard (or vice versa).
You can use the LuCI web UI, using System → Software, where you can see all the installed packages and their sizes.
I suggest doing a backup of your router settings before uninstalling anything and keeping a record of all removed packages, so you can reinstall/restore if necessary.
It is better to look for unused packages that are ~100KB or more, instead of having to uninstall many small packages.
Thanks for your replies wcs2228
If I go to status / overview and look at memory it tells me I have available 51MB of 120MB (42%) It also states 51% (1.7MB) as free space on Software / Packages? So I dont understand why it states on File sharing 10% (1MB)? and why it tells me I dont have enough flash space?
I have found the list of packages (297) and feel completely useless as ive read through the brief descriptions on all of them and really don’t know what I should remove! I would sooner not remove wireguard as I am not using this at the moment but reading up on it… I am considering it
Any further help would be very much appreciated!
The LuCI Status page shows RAM memory, not the flash storage.
I do find discrepancies in free space on GL.iNet → APPLICATIONS → Plug-ins vs. LuCI → System → Software and do not know how each does the calculation. I check by logging into SSH and running “df” to show what should be the true storage, which seems close to what GL.iNet UI shows. I also ignore the % percentages because these seem to depend more on what total storage is used in the denominator.
In your case, there is not a big difference between 1MB and 1.7MB, so I would go with 1MB for practical purposes. In comparison, both my GL-MV1000W and GL-AR750S routers have lots (10’s of MB) free space.
Regarding the packages to uninstall, it comes down to a trade-off on what is more important to you to keep given the limited storage. Even if you change your mind later, you can uninstall something else and reinstall the original package.
Installed packages varies depending on the router model/hardware/purpose. Out of all the installed packages, I would not uninstall any of the gl-* packages that are part of GL.iNet, nor any of the luci-* packages that are part of LuCI. If you can post a list of 20-25 largest packages >100MB, then that may be a good start.
It seems strange that file sharing has not been installed. Do you have any “samba” and “smb” packages currently installed?
From your list of installed packages over 100Kb, there is not much that I would uninstall. The ntfs-3g package could be uninstalled if your SD card is not in NTFS format and you can use FAT32, exFAT or EXT4 format. You can try uninstalling ntfs-3g to see if that is sufficient free space to install File Sharing, but back up your settings first.
If you later want to install even more packages for features and for beefing up security, then you will likely encounter the situation again. In such case, you can consider the approach of @David. Alternatively, I suggested to another forum poster to selective move folder(s) to SD card and just create a symbolic link at the original location.
I put the router back to factory default, then installed file sharing from applications, then installed luci. I now have 6% (0MB) free space or showing in software 27% (925kb) the SD card is showing as recognised and is enabled, but I still cannot get it to save to it.
Any further help appreciated
Where do you see the SD card as recognized and enabled? If it shows up in APPLICATIONS → File Sharing, then you can enable Share via LAN and Writeable, then click the Apply button.
Once the SD card has been shared, then you can connect to it from another device over your network. The procedure depends on the specific device:
I believe the default GL.iNet share name is GL-Samba
I see the SD card recognized and enabled in Software - Mount Points
Since I put the router back to factory default I now have samba36-server
I have reformatted the SD card to NTFS, enabled in File Sharing LAN and Writable and tried the obvious different settings within Software - Mount Points - Edit, but i still cannot save to card and get message saying not enough memory on file system with code 255
My objective was to get more/better security on the router/network by installing packages, but if this is not possible to secure the router this way, I need to be looking at other options rather than trying to create additional memory that may not be so relevant at the moment
The 16MB flash in the GL-X750 is definitely limiting in terms of installing more packages.
If you still want to try to have file sharing, you could uninstalling the ntfs-3g package and formatting your SD card to FAT32. There would not be much difference between FAT32 and NTFS on this router.
