Kinda by accident I stumbled across OneMarcFifty’s video about upgrading OpenWrt using the packages auc and luci-app-attendedsysupgrade. If you are using OpenWrt, it is definitely worth a look.
Contrary to the manual flash approach, where you need to download the correct firmware to flash your device from the OpenWrt firmware selector, these packages let you request a build from the OpenWrt build servers for a particular OpenWrt version and install it automatically. It makes sure to serve a build for the correct architecture of your system.
It also includes an option to include packages you want installed as part of the image that is built, so there’s no need for manually installing stuff after upgrade. This makes the transition across major versions of OpenWrt so much smoother.
Do note that the option to keep your configuration files across major versions is not recommended and might break things, so remember to start fresh once in a while.
Upgrading the Routerstation Pro from 19 to 22.03.5
I did do a manual flash when I previously moved from OpenWrt 19 to 21, as the attended sysupgrade functionality was broken on 19 at the time. But my more recent upgrade to OpenWrt 22.03.5 was smooth sailing using the attended sysupgrade, both on the Routerstation Pro and on my TP-Link Archer C7, which both are running OpenWrt.
The packages kmod-ath9 and hostapd are need on my system to make the Mikrotik R52N wifi card show up.
Why though?
Why would you run OpenWrt on your router? Stuff like this popping up from time to time, really leaves me not wanting to trust off-the-shelf router software, even from popular router vendors. I like that OpenWrt is open source, has frequent software updates, even for 13+ year old gear like my Routerstation, and is super customizable. Its also great learning experience with regards to networking for the tinkerer, e.g. if you want to experiment with VLANs for network segregation. Its increadibly stable and efficient, and runs on almost any hardware.
If you are curious for more, OneMarcFifty has great content regarding all things OpenWrt that I encourage you to check out.