How to get all the configuration options with the uci command in OpenWRT

Question

I am configuring a router running OpenWRT, but I am struggling to understand how to use the uci command (Unified Configuration Interface) to inspect an existing configuration file. I would like to automate this configuration in a shell script.

Take for example the firewall configuration at /etc/config/firewall which is 195 long, so a bit difficult to inspect with cat.

There are various rules, take the first one with:

root@OpenWrt:/etc/config# grep -B1 -A6 'Allow-DHCP-Renew' /etc/config/firewall
config rule
    option name     Allow-DHCP-Renew
    option src      wan
    option proto        udp
    option dest_port    68
    option target       ACCEPT
    option family       ipv4

root@OpenWrt:/etc/config# 

I can inspect the various fields of this first rule (@rule[0]) e.g. the field name with:

root@OpenWrt:/etc/config# uci get firewall.@rule[0].name
Allow-DHCP-Renew
root@OpenWrt:/etc/config# 

But I can not see the whole rule as output, I've tried with uci get firewall.@rule[0].* but it's not the right syntax.

There is no manual for uci (man uci), so I am not sure where to find the information on how to use that command.

Is this "group get" possible at all?

Answer 1

If you want to create a script to setup OpenWRT using all current settings on the device.

#!/bin/sh
# Create OpenWRT setup script
script="/tmp/uci_setup_script.sh"
echo "#!/bin/sh" > "$script"
echo "uci -q batch << EOI" >> "$script"
for section in $(uci show | awk -F. '{print $1}' | sort -u); do
uci show "$section" | awk -F. '{print "set "$0}' >> "$script"
echo "commit $section" >> "$script"
done
echo "EOI" >> "$script"
chmod 755 "$script"

If you are using image builder for custom firmware, then create a file for the files/etc/uci-defaults folder in the image builder directory.

#!/bin/sh
# Create OpenWRT uci-defaults file for image builder
# copy generated file to 'files/etc/uci-defaults/' folder in your image builder directory
script="/tmp/99-custom"
echo "#!/bin/sh" > "$script"
echo "uci -q batch << EOI" >> "$script"
for section in $(uci show | awk -F. '{print $1}' | sort -u); do
uci show "$section" | awk -F. '{print "set "$0}' >> "$script"
echo "commit $section" >> "$script"
echo "EOI" >> "$script"
chmod 755 "$script"
done

Answer 2

Ehm... Just found out I need to use uci show instead of uci get, see below for an example:

root@OpenWrt:/etc/config# uci show firewall.@rule[0]
firewall.cfg0592bd=rule
firewall.cfg0592bd.name='Allow-DHCP-Renew'
firewall.cfg0592bd.src='wan'
firewall.cfg0592bd.proto='udp'
firewall.cfg0592bd.dest_port='68'
firewall.cfg0592bd.target='ACCEPT'
firewall.cfg0592bd.family='ipv4'
root@OpenWrt:/etc/config#