Build your own OpenWrt firmware for IPQ devices

Posted by Dineshkumar | Thu, 13 Mar 2025 | Tagged: openwrt, feed-ipq, wireless

OpenWrt is a Linux based Open-source Operating system which are primarily used on wireless routers and mesh devices. For users, OpenWrt means the freedom of full customization, allowing the use of an embedded device in ways the vendor never envisioned. Designed to be lightweight and efficient, OpenWrt is capable to run in range of hardware products, be it low memory Wi-Fi routers, CPE routers and so on.

OpenWrt supports a wide range of System-on-Chip (SoC) vendors including but not limited to Airoha, Broadcom, MediaTek, Qualcomm, Realtek. SoC vendor prefers OpenWrt based Operating System for their Wireless Routers, since it provides Various customization, Package management, Better Security features and a great Community support.

For Wireless chipsets in the routers, OpenWrt uses upstream/open-source version of network drivers and packages for their respective chipsets which are freely available and published into the open-source community.

Along with open-source contributions, SoC Vendors focus on developing the latest features, Enhancements and Bug fixes. While most of the features are published to the open-source community, Vendor specific features will be available only in through their External release repos until the packages and patches are upstreamed to the community.

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Qualcomm Internet Processor (IPQ) in Wi-Fi Product line

Qualcomm is one of the leading SoC vendors for most of the wireless routers. Qualcomm Internet Processor (IPQ) refers to a series of System-on-Chip (SoC) designed specifically for Wi-Fi networking devices like routers, gateways and access points. IPQ807X, IPQ95XX and IPQ53XX are few of the latest Qualcomm SoC’s series available in the market and are utilized in the various enterprise, retail and carrier broadband products.

Qualcomm Wi-Fi chipset details are available in the Wiki Page.

Qualcomm provides releases to the Customer and open-source community for IPQ devices through Codelinaro website, whose source code can be downloaded based on the details here.

feed-ipq : Collection of package recipes for IPQ devices

feed-ipq is an OpenWrt feed repository which helps to build latest OpenWrt firmware for Qualcomm Wi-Fi SoC platforms (IPQ Devices), which is on-par with the latest release from Qualcomm. This feed can be easily integrated into OpenWrt and OpenWrt based build systems like prplOS, IOWRT and openWiFi.

feed-ipq is available at, https://github.com/zilogic-systems/feed-ipq

feed-ipq is intended to be layered on-top of an OpenWrt providing only the required packages and files relevant for bring-up of the networking and Wi-Fi features in the IPQ devices. This repository contains OpenWrt Target directory files for IPQ devices, Network, Wi-Fi drivers, packages and scripts. These can be used along with other feeds of OpenWrt.

Directory structure

.
|-- feeds
|   |-- clo-upstream
|   |-- nss-host
|   |-- platform_utils
|   |-- ssdk
|   `-- wlan_utils
|-- README.md
`-- targets
    `-- ipq95xx

Directory structure of the feed-ipq is segregated based on the following

  • targets - contains IPQ targets like ipq95xx and target related configs, files and patches

  • feeds - contains IPQ target specific drivers, packages and scripts

  • feeds/clo-upstream - contains OpenWrt upstream components which are customized for IPQ targets

Key Takeaways

feed-ipq can be extended for building the mainline OpenWrt for IPQ based devices. This feed can also be used in OpenWrt based router Operating System like prplOS, IOWRT and OpenWiFi.

To utilize feed-ipq in your products, and for any services related to OpenWrt, Wireless Router Operating Systems, specific customization services like fast boot, performance improvement and security improvements on Linux, you can reach us through sales@zilogic.com.

References