As I mentioned earlier, I use a virtual Freifunk Router as part of my mobile Infrastructure / Server. With this little VM, I can actually run a big-area Freifunk Network with lots of users without having to invest in new TP-Link accesspoints: I am running the VM, outputing the Freifunk LAN to a designated VLAN and use old spare Accesspoints as dumb "Media-Converters" (LAN to WIFI ;)).
But, as I only use this appliance every now and then for different kind of conventions and conferences, I need to upgrade that Appliance manually, to get it straight to the latest version without waiting or reinstalling (and droping the VPN key...).
Actually, that is quite simple in VMWare: Just go to the terminal of said VM and get started. Well. Ok, stop! Before you're doing that, just remember: You're on a VM. You got no excuse at all for not making a backup - so just shutdown your VM, make a snapshot, then turn it back on - and get started. Better safe than sorry ;)!
First, we're going to install wget with SSL support
opkg update opkg install wget
Then we need to find the latest version of our Freifunk Firmware - as sysupgrade package. I used the gluon-fftr-0.8.4-x86-vmware.vmdk to install the VM, so I need an x86-generic-sysupgrade.img.gz :). I found that thing here: https://github.com/freifunktrier/firmware_store/tree/master/firmware/stable/sysupgrade . However, please bear in mind to use the image from YOUR Freifunk Provider ;). Try to download the image and get to the "RAW FILE" link on Github and use it to download the file to your VM:
cd /tmp wget -O sysupgrade.img.gz https://github.com/freifunktrier/firmware_store/blob/master/firmware/stable/sysupgrade/gluon-fftr-0.8.6+jenk_tackin-x86-generic-sysupgrade.img.gz?raw=true
After that, apply the upgrade and reboot:
sysupgrade -v /tmp/sysupgrade.img.gz reboot
And thats it :)!
Thanks a lot again to Freifunk Trier for supporting my project :).