I like DD-WRT, it offers the basic tools needed for a router but I’d like to install other apps as well. The problem with embedded devices is that the system is installed in the non-volatile memory (usually 2-4MB) and one can only use the RAM to install apps.
But first we need to map the RAM into a JFFS. There is an option in the web interface allowing us to do so but there goes all the fun. Plus there is a major issue with DD-WRT v24sp1 VPN builds having the JFFS feature removed, presumably due to conflicts between JFFS and bandwidth monitoring. And if we don’t care about bandwidth monitoring we can enable JFFS from the command line.
nvram set jffs_mounted=1 nvram set enable_jffs2=1 nvram set sys_enable_jffs2=1 nvram set clean_jffs2=1 nvram set sys_clean_jffs2=1 nvram commit reboot
I noticed a “longer than usual” reboot after this operations. If we want to unmount the JFFS:
nvram set sys_enable_jffs2=0 nvram set sys_clean_jffs2=0 nvram set jffs_mounted=0 nvram commit reboot
The variables created in these operations can be deleted with nvram unset <var>.