Using external storage (microSD) for plugins (adguard...)

Routers
1

Hello!

I had followed a couple forum posts to setup the microSD card for external storage use, but this was after having started using Adguard Home. So, it seems to still be there.

I set it up several weeks ago, only posting this now, but I think I tried to move it to the microSD, to no avail I imagine (not sure if that is possible).

So, now, it seems to work fine for mobile devices connected to the wifi, but connecting a laptop I will get the “Unknown error occurred. Please check the network environment or reboot the device” timeout error, and cannot get back to the interface (thus, no internet on that device).

I am okay with factory resetting, but wondering if I setup the microSD first, will Adguard Home use it then? And, hopefully not cause the timeout, which I am guessing may be memory/storage related?

The router is the Slate AX. Happy to provide additional information as needed!

Thanks!

3

Hi

Yes, you can format the SD card as an overlay for installing packages or for their use.
Please refer to the guide below for instructions on how to do this:

To check if your issue is related to memory or storage, please SSH into your router and run the following command to check the storage usage:

free
df -h

Additionally, have you run any commands via SSH? For example, have you run opkg upgrade?

4

Hello!
Thanks for the quick reply!

I am on a different PC from the SSH session, but here is the result (got it before it timed out!)

qawdsy
qawdsy699×339 87.6 KB

And, I had not SSH’d into it before, but was in openwrt command line, but, I am not sure if I ran that command. Though, the GUI had popped up for upgrades, and I selected yes.

5

Hi, I am trying the instructions to add the micro sd overlay, and have issues:

After this step:
root@GL-MT1300:~# mkfs.ext4 /dev/sda1 << EOF

it said /dev/mmcblk0p1 is mounted; will not make a filesystem here.

So it seems to have formatted, as I saw this:
/dev/mmcblk0p1: UUID="some digits" BLOCK_SIZE="512" TYPE="exfat"

after running
blkid /dev/mmcblk0p1

fast forward to
cp /tmp/root/* /mnt -a

And it gives many ‘cp: can’t create ‘mnt….. to ": No space left on device

And, I checked, and for some reason it is 40.5M, and 40.5M used?

Thanks in advance!

6

Oh, and to add, as I need the device working, I tried enabling Adguard Home, and enabling large blocklists gave a device full error, presumably using that 40.5 overlay?

(Alas, my Linux partition knowledge isn’t very good!)

7

Based on the results from free and df -h, this appears to be more of a memory-related issue—only 5MBytes remain available.

Please use top to check memory usage.

top
# Pree the key 'Shift' and 'M' to sort by mem.

Based on your description, it seems to be caused by loading an overly large AdGuard Home blocklists.
May we know the size of the blocklists is?

SD appears to be automatically mounted.
Please try running umount first before subsequent steps.

umount /dev/sda1
8

Hello! Thanks for the reply!

I don’t have the time to retry right away; will do soon.

But, to answer the blocklist size, I think it was the blocklists filling up the overlay, and not using the mmcblk0p1, as some of the lists are pretty heavy, like hagezi ultimate at 14MB alone, plus others!

I’ll try the umount step and report back in a bit. Thanks again!

10

Hello! Sorry for the delay!

Looks like it is working, however the memory issue seems to reoccur, alas! : (

Is there anything I can do to remedy that?

Thanks!!

11

Generally, we do not recommend loading too many or large filter lists in ADG Home.
Given diminishing returns, the improvement in filtering effectiveness is limited, while consuming excessive time/CPU/memory resources.

If you still wish to do that, you may consider creating a swap file on your SD card to expand additional memory.