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I have a GL-iNet GL-AR300M. I was having some problems with OpenVPN using two different VPN services on firmware 2.x, so I decided to update to firmware 3.x to see if that would resolve the issue. Firmware 3.x is based on OpenWRT.

Having installed this new firmware, I have discovered to my surprise that OpenVPN support is not included by default and I am supposed to install it. That's fine, but trying to install it - and even trying to update opkg results in a string of error messages like:

Downloading http://download.gl-inet.com/releases/kmod-3.0/ar71xx/nand/Packages.gz
Updated list of available packages in /var/opkg-lists/glinet_core
Downloading http://download.gl-inet.com/releases/kmod-3.0/ar71xx/nand/Packages.sig
Signature file download failed. Remove wrong Signature file.
Browing to the repository in my browser confirms that the .sig files are missing. So...
Why are they missing?
Is there an alternative download location that I can use that actually contains these missing files?
If not, is it possible to not need those files?
In addition, I then get this:
Collected errors:
* opkg_download: Failed to download http://download.gl-inet.com/releases/packages-3.x/ar71xx/generic/base/Packages.gz, wget returned 8.
* opkg_download: Failed to download http://download.gl-inet.com/releases/packages-3.x/ar71xx/generic/gli_pub/Packages.gz, wget returned 8.
* opkg_download: Failed to download http://download.gl-inet.com/releases/packages-3.x/ar71xx/generic/packages/Packages.gz, wget returned 8.
* opkg_download: Failed to download http://download.gl-inet.com/releases/packages-3.x/ar71xx/generic/luci/Packages.gz, wget returned 8.
* opkg_download: Failed to download http://download.gl-inet.com/releases/packages-3.x/ar71xx/generic/routing/Packages.gz, wget returned 8.
* opkg_download: Failed to download http://download.gl-inet.com/releases/packages-3.x/ar71xx/generic/telephony/Packages.gz, wget returned 8.
* opkg_download: Failed to download http://download.gl-inet.com/releases/packages-3.x/ar71xx/generic/glinet/Packages.gz, wget returned 8.
I noticed that the firmware that GL-iNet provides is based on OpenWRT 18.06.0-rc1. The latest version of the firmware however is 18.06.2. Since sysupdate also fails with similar error messages, I thought perhaps I could simply flash the device myself with the latest version of OpenWRT. However, I see that there are several possible options at https://downloads.openwrt.org/releases/18.06.2/targets/ar71xx/nand/ and GL-iNet's firmware file name (gl-ar300m-3.0-1011_clean) offers no indication of which one I might need. I do know that it's somewhere within ar71xx though because of the opkg errors. So...
Does anyone know which firmware I need to download from OpenWRT directly in order to flash onto a GL-iNet GL-AR300M?
If not, does anyone know how I might be able to deduce this information myself? Is there some config file or something on the image that would reveal it? I don't want to potentially brick my system by uploading an incorrect image.
Thanks in advance!
Update: I installed an older version of the OpenWRT firmware out of curiosity. That had different paths defined and they actually worked:
src/gz chaos_calmer_base http://www.gl-inet.com/openwrt/ar71xx_nand/2.264/packages/base
src/gz chaos_calmer_luci http://www.gl-inet.com/openwrt/ar71xx_nand/2.264/packages/luci
src/gz chaos_calmer_management http://www.gl-inet.com/openwrt/ar71xx_nand/2.264/packages/management
src/gz chaos_calmer_packages http://www.gl-inet.com/openwrt/ar71xx_nand/2.264/packages/packages
src/gz chaos_calmer_routing http://www.gl-inet.com/openwrt/ar71xx_nand/2.264/packages/routing
src/gz chaos_calmer_telephony http://www.gl-inet.com/openwrt/ar71xx_nand/2.264/packages/telephony
src/gz chaos_calmer_oldpackages http://www.gl-inet.com/openwrt/ar71xx_nand/2.264/packages/oldpackages
So I had a look at what else was at http://www.gl-inet.com/openwrt/ar71xx_nand and noticed a 3.0 directory. I re-flashed the device with the 3.0 firmware with the intention of using the above paths with "2.264" replaced with "3.0" and see if that worked.
The flashing process failed to complete and the device was bricked.
I unbricked the device by disconnecting the power, holding the reset button, connecting the power and letting go of the reset button after 6 flashes of the red LED. This allowed me to upload the firmware again.
After the flashing process was complete, I logged in and noticed that the config was now different and the device no longer checked for signature files. Updating opkg now worked and I was then able to install OpenVPN.
So after 4 hours, it looked like the root of this problem was some kind of failed initial flashing of 3.0 which had left the device needing to check for signature files that didn't exist. I'm not sure how this would have occurred because it's not like a corrupt bit would lead to an additional and valid line of config... but after 4 hours I was past caring enough to find out more and was just pleased the thing finally worked.
My next problem was setting an IP address on the LAN adaptor - no matter what I put into the appropriate configuration in the webmin, the device would revert to the default of 192.168.1.1 which clashed with my router. In the end this was resolved by editing /etc/config/network over SSH.
In all, my initial experience with OpenWRT leave a lot to be desired as it seems to be really flaky. I'm hoping though that I've just been really unlucky and that from now on it will work as expected.
Hopefully the above information will help someone in future!
        
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