Install on OpenWrt

This page installs doona and honk-core on OpenWrt 25.12 from the release archives. After the last step, continue with Minimal configuration.

The release’s .ipk package does not fit either current OpenWrt series. OpenWrt 25.12 installs packages with apk, which rejects the .ipk with v2 package format error. OpenWrt 24.10 still uses opkg, but runs Linux 6.6, older than the 6.12 honk needs.

Before you start

• OpenWrt 25.12 or later, which runs Linux 6.12, and the kernel options listed in Requirements. Check the kernel with uname -r.
• A root shell on the router, such as ssh root@192.168.1.1. OpenWrt has no sudo; every command runs as root.
• About 30 MB free on / for the honk-core binary (27 MB) and doona (2.2 MB), and 15 MB free in /tmp for the downloads. Check with df -h / /tmp.
• From debug.2026.9.28.native-api.4 onward, including the honk builds attached to doona beta.10 and later, geodata updates stream to disk and use an inactivity timeout. Keep MIMALLOC_PURGE_DELAY=0 in the procd service so mimalloc returns freed memory to the system after an update.
• Access to github.com.
• Run every step in the same shell: later steps use the VERSION, BASE and TARGET variables that earlier steps set.

Install the kernel modules before installing honk. honk cannot start without kmod-veth. Without kmod-nft-queue, honk starts with NFQUEUE staging disabled and only logs a warning at startup. kmod-sched-core provides the ingress scheduler.

apk add kmod-veth kmod-nft-queue kmod-sched-core

Firmware that still uses opkg, such as iStoreOS, installs the same modules with:

opkg update && opkg install kmod-veth kmod-nft-queue kmod-sched-core

Stock OpenWrt 24.10 and earlier ship kernels older than 6.12, so check uname -r against Requirements first.

1. Install curl and CA certificates

honk downloads subscriptions and geodata over HTTPS and stops at startup without CA certificates. OpenWrt 25.12 includes ca-bundle; the command keeps it and adds curl.

apk update
apk add curl ca-bundle

2. Download doona

Work in /tmp, which is in memory and is cleared at reboot. Set the release version, then download the archive and the checksum file.

cd /tmp
VERSION=0.1.0-beta.12
BASE=https://github.com/Zakkaus/doona/releases/download/v$VERSION
curl -fL -O "$BASE/doona-${VERSION}.tar.gz" -O "$BASE/SHA256SUMS"

3. Verify the download

grep " doona-${VERSION}.tar.gz\$" SHA256SUMS | sha256sum -c -

You should see:

doona-0.1.0-beta.12.tar.gz: OK

4. Install doona

The doona package is optional when you use ui: embedded with the honk-core builds attached to doona 0.1.0-beta.12; see Minimal configuration.

Extract the archive into /usr/share/doona, the directory honk serves doona from.

mkdir -p /usr/share/doona
tar -xzf doona-${VERSION}.tar.gz -C /usr/share/doona
ls -l /usr/share/doona/index.html

ls prints a line ending in /usr/share/doona/index.html. The optional font archive, doona-fonts-${VERSION}.tar.gz, adds 8.7 MB of Chinese fonts; skip it where storage is short.

5. Choose the honk-core build

uname -m

OpenWrt uses musl, so take a musl build:

The -stock build uses the system allocator instead of mimalloc. Choose it when memory matters more than speed. There are no builds for other router CPUs, such as MIPS or 32-bit ARM.

6. Download and verify honk-core

Set TARGET to the build you chose, then download it from the same release and check it against the same SHA256SUMS.

TARGET=x86_64-unknown-linux-musl
curl -fL -O "$BASE/honk-core-debug-$TARGET.tar.gz"
grep " honk-core-debug-$TARGET.tar.gz\$" SHA256SUMS | sha256sum -c -

You should see:

honk-core-debug-x86_64-unknown-linux-musl.tar.gz: OK

7. Install honk-core

Install the binary as /usr/bin/honk-core, the path the procd service in Service management starts. OpenWrt’s BusyBox has no install command, so copy the file and set its mode. Then remove the downloads from /tmp to free the memory they hold.

tar -xzf honk-core-debug-$TARGET.tar.gz
cp honk-core-debug-$TARGET/honk-core /usr/bin/honk-core
chmod 0755 /usr/bin/honk-core
honk-core --version
rm -rf honk-core-debug-$TARGET honk-core-debug-$TARGET.tar.gz doona-${VERSION}.tar.gz SHA256SUMS

honk-core --version prints the honk build, for example:

honk-core debug.2026.9.30.native-api.5

HONK-SOURCE.txt in the same release names the build it carries.

Next: Minimal configuration. Take the OpenWrt tab there wherever one is offered.

Keep honk across sysupgrade

After creating the service in Service management, add its configuration and init script to OpenWrt’s backup list before sysupgrade:

printf '%s\n' '/etc/honk/' '/etc/init.d/honk-core' >> /etc/sysupgrade.conf

Sysupgrade does not preserve the kernel modules, /usr/share/doona or /usr/bin/honk-core. After upgrading, run apk update and reinstall the modules:

apk add kmod-veth kmod-nft-queue kmod-sched-core

On systems using opkg, reinstall the modules with:

opkg update && opkg install kmod-veth kmod-nft-queue kmod-sched-core

Repeat steps 1–7 above to reinstall doona and honk-core, then restore the service’s boot link and start it:

/etc/init.d/honk-core enable
/etc/init.d/honk-core start

If it doesn’t work

If honk reports persistence_unavailable with reason unsafe, see Troubleshooting.

For problems after installation, see Troubleshooting.