Creating A Super-Router (For Free)

Aaron writes "Kind of an interesting discussion and story over at Broadband Reports about the flurry of vendors releasing modified Linux based firmware updates for the Linksys WRT54G router. The updates bring a whole new level of functionality Linksys couldn't be bothered to incorporate. Among a long list of free improvements is the incorporation of bandwidth management, allowing users to end the days of choppy VoIP conversations without swapping out hardware."

Comments

For the do it yourselfer

[yebb]

Want to hack your Linksys WRT54G Router yourself?

Here's a detailed guide on how to do just that.

Re:For the do it yourselfer

[epiphani]

And for the lazyass:

This guy has packaged firmware flashes that incorporate the most popular expansions. All I wanted was some basic SNMP, and it provided - along with some other handy features.

Re:For the do it yourselfer

[Sloppy]

Want to hack your Linksys WRT54G Router yourself?

Here's a detailed guide on how to do just that.

How strange the world has become, when following someone else's detailed guide, is referred to as "hacking." ;-)

NOW they tell me

[unbiasedbystander]

It's wonderful to learn that I could have powered it up before I sold the piece of junk. *sigh* www.ebay.com

Re:NOW they tell me

[Anonymous Coward]

Sweet! I hope you spelled the listing incorrectly; I'll be picking up my "Linkys wrt54g router" on the cheap!

Wondershaper...

[garcia]

For those of you that don't know, and are interested, Wondershaper can be found HERE.

It is AMAZING.

Sample config:

DOWNLINK=6000
UPLINK=200
DEV=eth0

# low priority source ports
NOPRIOPORTSRC="6881 6882 6883 6884 6885 6886 6887 6888 6889 80"

Sets those ports to only use up 200k of my 256k upstream leaving me the rest for SSH etc. I never have any problems w/my remote connection speeds this way. It's fantastic.

I have only had a single problem, recently, with Debian unstable... It removed my libatm for some reason. I reinstalled that and all was well.

Highly recommended for everyone, not just users of this "hackable" router.

Re:Wondershaper...

[wizarddc]

Are you implying that your file sharing habits are infrgining on your ability to SSH? I mean, I like porn and mp3's as much as the next geek, but like Chris Rock said, put the dick down.

Re:Wondershaper...

[garcia]

BTW:

This runs as a simple shell script on the "router". If you want less bandwith for those ports just change the UPLINK and rerun the shell script. Changes are reflected immediately.

Honestly, when the libatm wasn't working with Debian unstable, I looked at other options but wondershaper was still the fastest and easiest!

Re:Wondershaper...

[ic3p1ck]

Yes traffic shaping is great, but is still not up to ensuring stable pings times for latency sensitive online games (e.g. Q3 + mods). The problem is the packet sizes. A large packet of typical MTU (1500) takes 10s of millseconds to be uploaded (on adsl - 256Kb/s), holding up higher priority traffic.

Still, its much much better than not shaping :)

(Yes, I know the MSS can be reduced, however that messes up overall transfer rates).

Re:Wondershaper...

[pacman on prozac]

Sets those ports to only use up 200k of my 256k upstream leaving me the rest for SSH etc.

Not quite, you're shaping your entire uplink to 200kb and not using the extra at all. To quote the wondershaper source:

# shape everything at $UPLINK speed - this prevents huge queues in your
# DSL modem which destroy latency:
# main class

tc class add dev $DEV parent 1: classid 1:1 cbq rate ${UPLINK}kbit \
allot 1500 prio 5 bounded isolated

Thats the class all uploads are shaped through. If you read the script all the other traffic classes are set with parent 1:1 which is the classid of the above. With tc you have to run all traffic through the available classes otherwise it gets 0kb rather than any remaining bandwidth, I accidently broke a netcafe once by forgetting to put DNS traffic into any class. Wondershaper does actually assign all traffic to 3 classes within the above, each with differing priority.

The ports you mention are given lower priority but within that class, so within that bandwidth set in $UPLINK.

Re:Wondershaper...

[pacman on prozac]

Bit lame replying to myself but while we're on the subject:

You can mark packets from iptables rules and tc can read those marks and use them to classify traffic by using the mangle rules and --set-mark.

Sounds simple but that gives you incredible power to setup QoS on linux routers. You can provide QoS on any of the filters iptables uses, so for instance you could use the layer 7 protocol filters (experimental) and limit traffic by protocol even if it's running over non-standard ports.

Afaik no Cisco/Juniper/Foundary/Anything else can do this. Most seem only able to deal with classifying based on port or IP addresses, and sometimes with diffserv, which is also possible with iptables/tc (reading the TOS field).

Since VoIP and similar are getting more and more popular, QoS is going to become more of an issue, nice to see linux could be well out in front on that one.

Re:Wondershaper...

[Shakrai]

Not quite, you're shaping your entire uplink to 200kb and not using the extra at all. To quote the wondershaper source:

Yeah, but isn't that intentional? I'm looking at Wondershaper right now myself (this is the first I've heard of it) because I want to be able to use SSH while running Bittorrents -- if I max out my upload (approx 390-400kbit -- Roadrunner) my ping times go to 700ms and any web surfing/downloads go to hell (not to mention ssh/telnet).

As I read the Wondershaper faq it seems to suggest that you need to limit your outgoing/incoming bandwidth to just under the max possible because of the queues within your cable/dsl modem. If I understand it correctly the idea is to make Linux handle all the queueing -- not the cable modem.

Is this logical or would it be better to hack up Wondershaper to not limit the speed at all but rather to just prioritize the ssh/ack packets so they go out first? Do most cable modems typically have their own queue? If they do it would seem to reason that the Wondershaper method is the only way to go -- but then I'm new to this so I might stand corrected :)

Cisco will try to stop this somehow

[Anonymous Coward]

Cisco only bought Linksys to prevent their routers from getting more advanced and competing with their expensive stuff.

Re:Cisco will try to stop this somehow

[dasmegabyte]

There is a LOT of truth to this.

Last month, my company was looking for a replacement for the overly expensive, hard to manage firewall. Our favorite consultants (who seem think we are idiots and yet don't understand the words "packet filtering") tried to sell us on a Cisco firewall device that was something like $2000. I thought this was insane, seeing as all we needed was a nice interface to ipchains (nobody but me knows Linux here, so that wasn't an option). I look at LinkSys, but they didn't have anything which would do anything more advanced than direct NAT. This seemed strange to me, as at home I had a Linksys firewall router that allowed me to do pretty much whatever I liked when it came to mapping ports and setting up load balancing.

Dlink -- who used to be a direct competitor to Linksys in every segment of the market -- had an awesome device which rivalled the features of the Cisco router for only $300. I had a problem with the first one they sent out, got good support and they sent me a replacement. I had that one up and running in an afternoon without a problem (well, with one problem, but that was due to the Cisco cable router, not the Dlink). And we saved so much money, we could afford a nice spam filter and a new development server. And the new device has a nice, fairly unbuggy web interface that is way easier to use than plain ipchains/iptables with MOST of the functionality (it does bomb out after a certain number of NAT mappings, but since this thing is only 300 MHz I suppose that's for the best).

Re:Cisco will try to stop this somehow

[leerpm]

The difference between the Cisco routers and the low-end DLink/NetGear are that the former are much more stable, and a lot of the routing logic is hardware based so they are able to scale & perform much better than the latter.

I don't know why they would want to hold back Linksys development though, especially for things such as IPv6. They are a smart company, so I cannot figure out why they think holding back development of Linksys is going to advance their cause of spreading the use of IPv6.

There are lots of people who use Linksys, but are not willing to spend a lot of extra cash just to get a Cisco box so they can do IPv6. And the more people that demand IPv6, the more ISPs are going to have to buy new Cisco hardware to upgrade their higher-end routers.

Re:Cisco will try to stop this somehow

[dagnabit]

I have a friend who used to work at Cisco. After the Linksys acquisition, they put management barriers in place so that people from the Cisco side of the house would be blocked from "infiltrating" and/or influencing Linksys with anything Cisco-related.

Cisco (at the time anyway) wanted to keep them "as is"... dunno if that's still the case or not.

Re:Cisco will try to stop this somehow

[NerveGas]

and a lot of the routing logic is hardware based so they are able to scale & perform much better than the latter

That's only true if you're not doing anything but routing. Start adding in any features that are remotely useful, and you've gone from CEF/fast switching to process switching. And that means you take a 5x to 10x performance hit.

You actually have to purchase a *VERY* expensive Cisco to get one that can't be out-performed by even a relatively modest PC.

And even on the high-end, there are PC's that will completely blow away any but the very largest offerings from Cisco.

There are, of course, several real advantages to using a Cisco router instead of a PC. First and foremost, if you have the money for it, you're going to be able to find a network interface for almost any type of network you can imagine. DSL to SONET, the interfaces are there for the buying. I'd *almost* say that they would "just work", but that's not always the case. I just had to upgrade the IOS versio on one of my Ciscos (a *paid* upgrade) to get nothing but support for an additional ethernet WIC.

Another large (perhaps HUGE) advantage is the fact that as long as you want to keep paying the money for it, there will always be someone there to back you up and make sure your problem gets resolved, even if you're not capable of fixing it yourself.

So, I'm not saying that there's no use for Cisco. I'm just saying that absolute performance (and especially price-for-performance) are not real advantages for them.

I don't know why they would want to hold back Linksys development though

You can't? Let's think about it: Do you think they'd rather sell a $200 Linksys router, or a $2,000+ Cisco router?

I know, it sounds cynical. Unfortunately, I've worked in enough corporations to know that is *exactly* how decisions are made on these things.

They'll keep the Linksys line around for the low-end market, the home users that don't demand much. But for anything above that, they're never going to let Linksys compete with their Cisco line. They're not stupid.

steve

Re:Cisco will try to stop this somehow

[Syrrh]

Linksys equipment won't be running Cisco's IOS, but that doesn't mean it's no good. Pretty common practice for Cisco, there are quite a few companies they've eaten just to cover a particular niche. The 675/678 DSL router sold around 1999-2002 was the same way. They took over the NetSpeed product line, and only changed the sticker on top of it.

Identical in every way, but it let them sell a budget box without dropping the price on anything that runs IOS, since this one ran a dumbed-down version called CBOS. Oh, and it let them eliminate a competitor before they could expand into a bigger threat.

Linksys isn't bad

[SpaceCadetTrav]

Linksys isn't bad at updating their firmware. I was able to update my cheap wireless router so that it supports WPA for free.

A feature I'd like to see added to my router...

[ThogScully]

While my router will update normal DynDNS addresses, it can't update Custom DNS, so my own domain name I have to update from a machine instide my network. I'd rather the router take care of that.

Regardless, my router's a Netgear, so I'm guessing this isn't really applicable here. Although it would be nice to see similar projects for other routers, if possible.
-N

Re:A feature I'd like to see added to my router...

[relrelrel]

couldn't you use one of these free programs to update to Custom DNS instead of wanting the router to do so?

Re:A feature I'd like to see added to my router...

[Milican]

You can also do a CNAME from your Custom DNS to your DynDNS domain. For example:

www.customdns.com -> thog.dyndns.org

The CNAME will always track your dyndns name that way :)

JOhn

Re:A feature I'd like to see added to my router...

[ThogScully]

Yes, and as I said, now I have to. But it would be nice if my router just took care of it, since then I don't need any programs on the machines behind the router. I consider the DNS part of my connection and want the router to take over the connection maintenance. If I'm switching machines around behind it, adding and removing machines, etc, I'd like something to continue updating.
-N

How is this different?

[JediTrainer]

I currently own a BEFSR81, which is their 8-port wired version (no wireless) that I purchased a couple of years ago.

It's got built-in QoS, which can prioritize traffic. You can choose low or high priority based on either your IP port number, or one of the LAN ports (at least, the first four).

I've tried it out, and it worked pretty well when I needed to slow down BitTorrent so that my dad could use his web browser and email (otherwise, BitTorrent was eating *all* of my bandwidth).

It wasn't great for having fine control, but it worked well enough to solve the problem for me.

Re:How is this different?

[SpamJunkie]

The problem with throttling at the client, such as bittorrent, is when you have more than one computer downloading, which many geeks do. The second computer might be the living room box, the girlfriend's or, more likely, the roommate's. You don't want to give each box half your desired max since usually only one machine will be downloading at a time.

The proper solution is to throttle in the router.

Not true

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

One of the problems with VoIP has been choppy communications when users are making heavy use of their broadband connection.

Tha t's abs olutel y n ot true.

-- Reg ards
Sanf ord Wall ace

Re:Not true

[Luyseyal]

Heh, sounds like Marketplace on NPR yesterday... a VoIP advocate was dialed into the studio via VoIP and his connection kept dropping out. It was pretty funny.

-l

Re:Not true

[Short Circuit]

I wouldn't say he was an advocate. He merely said he understood why wired companies were freaking out.

However, I definately noticed a drop in the sound quality when he switched back to VOIP. I also noticed he hadn't canceled his landline subscription yet. ;)

Re:Not true

[Goldfinger7400]

For those of you who missed it, there is a RealPlayer feed on marketplace.org.

And how exactly are we to distinguish the VoIP dropoffs from the RealPlayer dropoffs?

For free?

[burgburgburg]

Is that free as in beer, free as in software, free as in "Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose, Nothing, and that's all that Bobbie left me" or free as in "If you free me from these handcuffs now, I promise not to press charges". I always get them confused.

Re:For free?

[ColaMan]

Free as in "whateva-you-can-pull-outta-the-dumpsta-before-the -truck-comes" free.

so, that's "free, but it stinks?"

hack for WAP54G - higher power output

[davids-world.com]

i'd like to recommend the Neo firmware hack, which boosts the Linksys WAP54G output. That solved some problems for me :)

Is that linux based system available for the WAP as well? (Dunno if it's got enough RAM & flash memory to run&store it...)

Re:hack for WAP54G - higher power output

[dspyder]

As the AC said, this will violate the FCC type certification.

Also, I doubt that people have done much spectral analysis to see if it's dirty like the WAP11 hack (which actually wasn't as dirty as first thought). I've also heard rumors (I tend not to believe either side of an argument) that upping the power drives the power amp harder which could be bad to both it's life and heat spilling into other components could lessen their life too.

Currently people are testing the power-hack on the WRT54G... so far no immediate problems are noticeable.

--D

Re:hack for WAP54G - higher power output

[swfranklin]

Please, unless you live waaay out in the sticks.... the 2.4GHz band is getting crowded enough; cranking up your WAP output by 4 times just so you can use a laptop in the basement crapper can be a very un-neighborly thing to do. I'm having a hard time coming up with a channel that isn't being stomped on or stomping on someone else's nearby WLAN.

Re:hack for WAP54G - higher power output

[tgd]

But its worth noting that 802.11* is in open frequency ranges, and if you have a amateur radio operators license, these power levels are perfectly legal. Max power at that range I can legally broadcast is 2500w, which will cook you from across the room in short order.

There's no good reason to, however. These use lousy transmitters, and S/N goes way downhill as you boost power levels. Quadrupling the power could end up cutting your speeds in half at the expense of a bit more distance.

Re:hack for WAP54G - higher power output

[Hobophile]

I'm having a hard time coming up with a channel that isn't being stomped on or stomping on someone else's nearby WLAN.

802.11b and 802.11g only have three non-overlapping channels: 1, 6, and 11.

So your useful choices are fairly limited. You might have to coordinate with your neighbors to determine who picks what channel, but it should definitely be possible to get one that doesn't overlap.

Linksys + Broadband + Vonage = cheap phone

[Mysticalfruit]

Combine this with a good Broadband/DSL provider and Vonage and you've just freed yourself from the tyranny that is Verizon...

Re:Linksys + Broadband + Vonage = cheap phone

[eggoeater]

Unless the only good broadband available is DSL....
through your phone line...
which is provided by...
Verizon.
*SIGH*

Not entirely accurate...

[Anonymous Coward]

In order for this to be true, where is my free Linksys router?

Re:Not entirely accurate...

[kfg]

In your neighbor's house. Just remember to wear gloves and a ski mask.

KFG

Very important story

[Quixote]

There's a very important lesson hidden in here, which I hope the other hardware vendors will see and take note.

Linksys is a hardware company. They make money by selling hardware. By opening up the software (and making their hardware "hackable"), they will increase their hardware sales.

My hope is that other hardware companies (you name 'em: ATI, nVidia, Intel, Broadcom, Logitech, etc. etc.) will see this, and make their drivers (and associated software) open-source, thereby making their products "hackable" ==> increased sales.

I hope the "media" will take note of this, and put it out in plain words so that the PHBs who make the decisions will learn the lesson.

Re:Very important story

[Kishar]

Linksys is a hardware company.

Linksys is now owned by Cisco Systems, who considers themselves to be a software company.

Re:Very important story

[junkymailbox]

They also take an increase risk in people screwing their hardware up and damaging their reputation .. or arguably worse .. try to get a warranty / refund.

Re:Very important story

[nelsonal]

Cisco is very much a hardware company. Their hardware requires some software to operate, and they found software licensing terms quite useful when all the failed dotcom hardare was hitting the market cheap, but they are still in the hardware business. It's interesting that this would be so easy to add, and isn't probably because there is a Cisco VoIP router for enterprises that costs 10 times as much and does the same thing.

Re:Very important story

[kiwimate]

From the posted story:

The updates bring a whole new level of functionality Linksys couldn't be bothered to incorporate.

From the parent post:

There's a very important lesson hidden in here, which I hope the other hardware vendors will see and take note.

Why would they, when the story gets picked up by the open source community (represented here by Slashdot) and is immediately regurgitated using phrasing which insults a company that is actually doing something we like? Perhaps other people see it differently, but if I were a Linksys person reading this, I'd be pretty bugged by the "couldn't be bothered" cheap shot. Especially for a product that is apparently under a hundred bucks.

Linksys

[FrostedWheat]

I wonder how many of these routers Linksys have sold simply because it runs Linux and is hackable (in the good sense). They were originally very resistant to the idea of letting people do this. Infact it all started because of a bug in there old firmware!

Now, if only Linksys could release proper Linux drivers for there other wireless goods. At the moment they are all useless to Linux users.

Re:Linksys

[angusr]

I wonder how many of these routers Linksys have sold simply because it runs Linux and is hackable

If that number is X, it's now X+1 - I just ordered one to replace my Belkin wireless router, which replaced the Netgear router that started giving off "the Brown Smell" before dying completely.

Why? The Belkin is a nice piece of kit, but it doesn't have the features I need. The Netgear had most of the features, and was actually pretty okay. The Linksys doesn't have the features I need, but looking at the hacked firmware versions available it'll be soup and nuts to give it those features, and the price is right.

Someone said that they may be hurting sales of their more expensive products which have the advanced features these hacks are adding. I don't believe that's true. People who need those features badly (from a business sense) will still buy the expensive kit; they need the support. Cheap-ass hobbyists like myself will buy the cheaper kit and hack it. So all they're doing is persuading me to buy their cheap kit over someone else's cheap kit, and sales are sales...

Comcast Users:

[Pirogoeth]

Once Comcast lets you in on what your unlimited bandwidth limits really are, you could use this to meter your access to help keep you under the unlimited limit...

Couldn't be bothered to incorporate?

[Anonymous Coward]

The updates bring a whole new level of functionality Linksys couldn't be bothered to incorporate.

Thanks for the link to the modifications you couldn't be bothered to make for me, Aaron. I guess I'll have to go buy a Linksys, since you couldn't be bothered with buying one for me.

Nice little anti-corporate jab there. Linksys builds good solid stuff for a reasonable price, and all you can do is complain that it doesn't do everything.

Different routers?

[t0ny]

Is there any way to improve Netgear routers? Their firmware pretty much sucks, and you can only manage it via thier browser-based tool (no telnet or tftp).

Or is there just something inherently more hackable about that Linksys router?

Re:Different routers?

[kbahey]

Not true.

I have a Netgear RT314, and it can be managed via telnet, no problems.

Re:Different routers?

[amias]

I use a Netgear DG834G which appears to run linux 2.4.17 on its MIPS malta processor.

You can download a bundle of the packages it uses from netgear but they are not configured so its
hard to patch or hack with it cos you'd have to
redo their work.

This seems at odds with the GPL , on the grounds
that if you use GPL'ed code you must publish not
just the original source but your modifications as well . or am i wrong ?

The firmware upgrade patch is easily dissasembled and i've managed to hack the file system (cramfs) out of the firmware . So there is a possiblilty
that modifying the filesystem might open up safer
modification by making telnet accessable. but i'm
too much of a chicken to try it and i expect the
checksum would fail.

What about 6to4 tunneling?

[Phil Karn]

It's really great to see people finally enhancing these boxes. These routers have ideal form factors compared to, say, a dedicated router PC running Linux, but their default firmware has always been very poor.

I didn't see one feature mentioned that I'd really, really like to see added to these boxes: an IPv6 6to4 tunnel. This is an ideal way to penetrate a NAT so you can establish direct TCP connections (and speak UDP) to any servers on your LAN from the outside. IPv6 support has been in all of the major operating systems for some time now, including Windows XP, Linux and Mac OS X, and while not every application is IPv6 ready, the important ones (like SSH) already are.

If 6to4 tunneling could be added to these consumer routers alongside IPv4 NAT, IPv6 stands to really take off without any help whatsoever from the ISPs. In fact, I almost prefer that my ISP not implement native IPv6. I like the fact that they now carry my encapsulated IPv6 packets without any ingress filtering, port blocking or other end-to-end-wrecking nonsense, and that they are oblivious to (much less control) the IPv6 address space. If or when the ISPs do implement native IPv6, you can bet that they'll exercise the same degree of arbitrary control that they now do over IPv4.

Re:What about 6to4 tunneling?

[NotoriousQ]

6to4 is your friend. For linux please refer to the Linux IPv6 HOWTO

For windows, go to your network configuration. Find your lan, and enable their IPv6 driver. XP only.(SP1 only?) I believe it self configures to use anycast, so that should be it.

Mac....do not know. I assume something along the lines of what linux does will work.

Good luck.

This will certainly ...

[HawkPilot]

This will certainly move a lot a hardware for linksys. Look at the Rockbox mods for Archos for another example. Those who think that you can't make money off the GPL are wrong, at least in the case of hardware makers GPL'ing their firmware. (Although they didn't have a choice since they used linux as the firmware.)

Their was a story awhile back here on slashdot that discussed that Intel didn't want to release open source drivers for Centrino. They should. Open source drivers and firmware can be a boon to hardware makers.

Re:i'd like to know

[grub]

Cisco products are expensive but pretty damn stable.

Your "open source" comment is stupid, Cisco uses ASICs and other hardware level goop for much of their routing. Unless you're going to open a chip fab plant and start open sourcing your chips... need I say more? (There are some exeptions, ala the Cisco PIX 525 firewall, basically a PC motherboard with some custom stuff for failover etc.)

"Open Source cures cancer!" blah blah blah Use the right tool for the job, you won't paint yourself into a corner and you leave your options open, lad.

Not quite

[binaryDigit]

Linksys is a hardware company. They make money by selling hardware. By opening up the software (and making their hardware "hackable"), they will increase their hardware sales.

That's a very simplistic view of the world and one that only works if the hardware manufacturer only sells a single product or has large jumps in capabilities between products within a family. Suppose Linksys intended to supply many of these features in a more expensive (i.e. more profitable) version of the router. They're now hosed as it is now possible for users to upgrade their firmware for free. So sure, they sell more of the cheaper routers, but this is not what they want. This problem will occur anywhere hardware manufacturers try to take advantage of hardware commonality and differentiating similar products through software based features.

Another potential issue is fighting "cloners". If Taiwanese company CloneCo now has easy access to the software feature set, they "merely" have to develop a clone architecture to run the now readily available software.

Re:Not quite

[leerpm]

That's a very simplistic view of the world and one that only works if the hardware manufacturer only sells a single product or has large jumps in capabilities between products within a family. Suppose Linksys intended to supply many of these features in a more expensive (i.e. more profitable) version of the router. They're now hosed as it is now possible for users to upgrade their firmware for free. So sure, they sell more of the cheaper routers, but this is not what they want. This problem will occur anywhere hardware manufacturers try to take advantage of hardware commonality and differentiating similar products through software based features.

But they have not. All the evidence so far has pointed to the contrary. The only features that Linksys continues to add are hardware features like 802.11g instead of 802.11b, or adding extra ports. So by opening up their software, they reduce the need to do their own R&D in that area, can concentrate more on hardware based R&D and sell even more routers with newer hardware.

If people want more advanced software capabilities, then Cisco does not want people to buy more cheap low-end Linksys products, they want them to upgrade to expensive Cisco-branded products.

Re:Not quite

[LostCluster]

Cisco now has three very distinct product lines...

- "Network Everywhere" which is now being called "Network Everywhere by Linksys"... which is for generic-level parts such as basic NIC cards and dumb hubs. You'll find this line at Wal*Mart, and it's Cisco's entry into the low-end market.
- "Linksys" is aimed at the advanced home consumer. The trademark here is the "blue box" which is stackable, but not directly rackable. (There are a few rack-mount Linksys products, those are exceptions to the rule because they're too cheap to be Cisco.) Some pretty advanced hardware with easy to use software is found here.
- "Cisco" is the business line, for those looking for full control and full support contracts. This is the top of the line stuff.

Now, what's basically being discovered is that it's possible to get Cisco-level features out of the Linksys hardware by hacking the software. However, if you mess with the software, you've just voided the warranty. So, Cisco doesn't really need to be scared of businesses using hacked Linksys equipment in place of full-fare Cisco-branded equipment... businesses are going to want warranty-backed hardware. But, for a home user, this is perfect... it costs Linksys nothing, and in fact just might drive more home sales.

Thats pretty cool and all, but

[steak]

I like my ClarkConnect box better. All it cost me was a pile of old parts that were headed for the dumpster and a ~300 MB download.

Re:Thats pretty cool and all, but

[Flabby Boohoo]

Can't VPN with the free version...

OPENWRT!

[Anonymous Coward]

OPENWRT!

http://openwrt.sourceforge.net/

Source for netgear is here:

[threeturn]

Netgear's support web site contains the source for some of their routers (eg the DG834 series). Cool idea for people to be able to add their own features.

Works great

[prator]

I replaced my WET11 with a second WRT54G with modified firmware which allows me to set it to client mode like a WET device. I use this to connect to my TiVo and Xbox.

The newer revs of firmware will have WDS which allows the routers to bridge to each other and client devices to connect to them. However, I think it does half the throughput.

I just got Vonage, and I plan using Wondershaper once these firmwares mature a little bit more.

-prator

Re:Works great

[milkman_matt]

I replaced my WET11 with a second WRT54G with modified firmware which allows me to set it to client mode like a WET device. I use this to connect to my TiVo and Xbox.

No shit? I've got a WRT54G and Cisco told me that you can NOT connect 2 of them wirelessly.. I'm currently running wires to my neighbor's apartments to share the line (and network our xboxes, and systems, etc) Is this the latest LINKSYS firmware that allowed you to set it as a client? If not, what did you use? This could be -extremely- helpful to me.

-matt

Re:Works great

[DamnYankee]

There are two ways to link WRT54G's using the Sveasoft firmware. The simplest is to set one WRT54G to client mode and use the other WRT54G's IP address as the client mode gateway. This turns the WRT54G into a WET54G or WET11 equivalent.

The second method is to use WDS and link two AP mode WRT54G's point-to-point.

Please do a search on the Sveasoft forums for more info (http://www.sveasoft.com/forums.html).

Not so much, actually

[Sycraft-fu]

Linksys is Cisco, perhaps you hadn't heard (wasn't hugely publicised) but Cisco bought them up. Now Cisco is a hardware AND sofware company. Some of their hardware, like their Pix 535s, are little more than a PC with a special flash card to boot off of. The price is not for the hardware, it's for the software and support.

Soooo, Cisco actually has an intrest in seeing that the stuff they sell as Linksys does not start to compete with their bigger stuff they sell as tehmselves. Often the difference is mainly software, sometimes completely.

Like take a cable modem I bought from them (a Cisco one, this was before the buyout). As shipped to me it was a basic cable modem. It would hook up to a DOCSIS provider and do waht cable modems do. However the thing ran IOS, and, had I paid for it, they had a version of the code with a firewall, VPN, IPSEC, and a ton of other things.

So just because they sell rocking hardware, doesn't mean they don't also have an intrest in certian software restrictions.

WRT55AG

[Sir Pallas]

Is anyone working on the WRT55AG, the dual-band (a/b/g) cousin of the 54G? I've got one of those and it actually has a lot of problems. (I haven't gotten the source code on Linksys's site to work properly yet.)

New Industry?

[WC as Kato]

How come there isn't a whole industry around this? I imagine there is a whole slew of firmware that could be 3rd party modified to incorporate new features. For example, there are many old laptops that could incorporate newer hardware if only the firmware recognized it. I understand that the laptop manufacture wants you to buy a new laptop, but sometimes the only reason why a newer processor can't be used is because the firmware won't recognize it so it won't boot. Argh!!!

how about mesh routing?

[itzdandy]

what are the chances of someone modding some wireless router to the linux mesh router project. this would make an inexpensive AP for all your wireless mesh routing needs.

Re:how about mesh routing?

[MbM]

I think somebody needs to organize a development community around this. Creating a good stable version of Linux that can be easily installed onto the router. Of course this would require some sort of installer program, that could fetch updates & upgrade the firmware more easily too.

We're trying to address some of these issues with openwrt. Openwrt provides a minimal firmware image with support for add-on packages via a writable filesystem; essentially a linux distro. The idea is two fold, it allows developers to focus on specific pieces rather than an entire firmware and end users to free up precious resources and customize the firmware by adding or removing features.

Mesh routing is on the list of things to do with some progress being made in that direction already.

Re:more hardware restrictions?

[Tassach]

Why would Linksys be upset about a thing like this? It does no damage whatsoever to their business model; in fact, it helps it. Linksys sells inexpensive networking gear for primarily the small business and home markets. They don't make any money selling updates or service contracts (At least, I can't find anything on their website that shows that they even sell service contracts). They make their money selling hardware, period. Any support they have to provide after the sale, including firmware updates, costs them money.

The fact that their hardware can be upgraded with an unauthorized firmware image actually helps their business. First off, the fact that their hardware is customizable helps sell more hardware to geeks (who in turn recommend their hardware to friends, family, and clients). Secondly, using an unauthorized firmware voids the warranty, which saves them money -- if you flash it and break it, you're screwed. If you flash it and a component fails for a totally unreleated reason, they don't have to give you a free replacement; you'll have to buy a new one, so they still come out ahead.

This is a very different situation than things like the Dakota Digital camera hack or the i-opener hack. In those cases, the companies involved were/are selling the hardware at a loss as an incentive to get you to use a paid service. In these cases, hacking the hardware eliminates the need to use the service, thereby disrupting their business plan and letting you use the subsidised hardware for an unintended purpose. Linksys sells their hardware for a profit. Hacking it does nothing to disrupt their business plan, because they already made all the money they planned to make when the wholesaler bought a truckload of their hardware.

New Business Model

[mariox19]

All kidding aside, here's the business model for 2004:

1. Develop a Linux-based product that, while operable, lacks everything but bare bones functionality
2. Wait for the hacker community to rush to outdo one another adding functionality -- and hence, value -- to your product
3. Profit!!!

WRT54G Mesh is on it's way!

[DamnYankee]

Sveasoft is working on a mesh firmware for the Linksys WRT54G. We hope to have a preliminary release sometime in late March.

Open wireless nets

[elgaard]

I would like to see a firmware that would

1. Limit bandwidth from unauthorized users to a fraction of the connection the owner is paying for (eg xDSL)

2. Route all traffic from unauthorized users through the gateway (eg xDSL router)

3. Block unauthorized access to port 25 to avoid spam from people on the street.

That way we could all share our internet connections and read our email when travelling without the hassle of commercial hotspots.
Guest visiting us could use our networks without exchange of keys and passwords.

BSD has already done this!

[piett134]

Figured i'd better point this out, but there are already some good solutions to fixing this problem with FBSD. Check out this software router project called M0n0wall. http://m0n0.ch/wall/index.php I currently use it on a old p1, 200mhz, 40Mb of ram to control up and downstream bandwidth, so my computers dont interfere with my Vonage phone service. Works like a champ! Must have taken a total of 30 minutes to setup.

Mobile computing

[thalakan]

I had a rather power hungry PC based wireless/3G/APRS/AX.25 router in my car for a while which I used to serve Internet at conventions and such. I recently replaced it with the WRT54G and the sveasoft firmware, which has several benefits:

- The WRT54G only uses a few watts, whereas the PC based router spiked at 300W during startup and consumed north of 60W at idle and south of 100W during load. I also lost between 10-30% of the power due to conversion losses from the DC-AC-DC conversion through the auto inverter, since I couldn't find a good ATX power supply that ran on DC that I could couple to the car's batteries...

- The WRT54G has dual antenna jacks that I don't need to buy delicate adapters or pigtails for. I couple them directly to the jacks on twin high gain 2.4GHz dipole magmounts on the roof of the car, which gives me way better reception than I was getting from the orinoco, a pigtail, and a single one of the same antennas.

- Speaking of reception, kismet has been ported to the WRT54G! I don't need to screw around with the orinoco patches or hack my prism2 cards to add an antenna jack; it just works. I currently feed wifi data from the WRT54G to another computer which actually merges the GPS data with the wifi data from the WRT54G, because the WRT54G only has 4MB flash and 32K NVRAM for persistent storage, and you have to solder a USB serial chipset to the WRT54G PCB to add a serial port to it (for reading GPS's NMEA output); it doesn't come with one.

- Now that sveasoft added dropbear to their latest firmware, you can ssh into the device and run wakeonlan to power up other devices on your network remotely. This is seriously cool shit; I park my car, it associates with my home AP in client mode and shows up on my home network. I can then ssh into the WRT54G to power up the other computers in the car using wakeonlan to transfer files to them (transfer rate is somewhere around 1 megabyte per second in my environment), start the car, use the TNC in the car's ham radio, etc. I had to turn off the PC based router I was using before because it would drain the deep cycle marine batteries I'm using to power the car computers in an hour or two at load, but now I can leave the WRT54G on for a few days before the batteries even get low.

- If I forget where I parked my car, the antennas I'm using for the WRT54G are +6dBi, so I can pull out something with 802.11{b,g} and warwalk the parking lot looking for a strong signal from the WRT54G :)

- It's only $80 brand new around here in the bay area, which is damn cheap for a low power 200MHz Linux box with 16MB of memory, FIVE ethernet jacks, your choice of DC or AC power, pretty lights, official vendor provided source code for the firmware, an active community hacking on it, and a 802.11g capable wifi chipset with diversity antennas in form factor half the size of the smallest mini-ITX machine you can possibly get. And they're on the used market for prices approaching numbers that make me want to say it's close to disposable pricing. Heh, disposable routers :)

Hacked firmware concerns

[jjwahl]

I've got a WRT54G that I tried to install for a client to connect with her corporate PPTP VPN. It didn't work with PPTP VPN - apparently it was dropping GRE packets.

...I then tried various versions of the Linksys firmware to no avail. Eventually I stumbled across http://h.vu.wifi-box.net and found a hacked firmware upgrade that fixed the problem but I have serious reservations about using this for my client!

I have no access to the source code so how do I know whether or not this hacked upgrade monitors outgoing connections and passes interesting bits of information on to the author?

Certainly I could sniff the wire and find out for sure but I don't have time for this!!! There's tremendous potential for a malicious third party to monitor traffic using this. It just makes me leery when there's no source code to preview. Even if there was, I don't have the time to review it!

Any similar thoughts/concerns?

Re:Hacked firmware concerns

[jjwahl]

It wouldn't take nearly as much time. It would be relatively easy when one diffed the hacked code against the original.

I would also feel much more comfortable knowing that the source is open and available for anyone to review (not just myself). That in itself will stop the vast majority of those that would code such hacks from doing so, being found out and effectively ostracized by the community. Maybe I wouldn't spot the malicious code, but surely one of the hundreds of others that review it would.

slash 22

[MisanthropeLifeform]

If it wasn't on slashdot, I wouldn't know about it. Because it is on slashdot, downloading it will be hell.

Debian has problems

[Anonymous Coward]

Debian is Slow, Worse, Expensive

Open source may be good, but there is one example that sticks out like a sore thumb as a problem with open source. Debian gnu/Linux. It is offically the Worst Linux Distribution ever made.

First of all, Debian has the most out of date software packages of any major mainstream distros. Even in the unstable version, is KDE 2.2 and Gnome 2.0, with Xfree86 4.1 (A version that really sucks). There are literally years that pass between each update of Debian.

Secondly, its a pain in the goatse to set up, first of all, you are forced to use Kernel 2.2, which is horribly hacked with "backports" to get any use on any modern machine (Read, made after 1999). Good luck memorizing all the *.ko files in /lib/modules, as you are going to need it.

Configuring XFree86 is hell! If you don't have a Thick X11 orilley book, and a list of your horizontal sync values from your monitor's intruction manual (if you even have one), BOOM! There goes your monitor.

Even then, good luck getting anything over 640x480@16 colours.

The most common response to help questions on the Debian mailing list is "n00b, READ THE FUCKING MANUAL, you idiot, go back to WINDOWS XP if you can't learn to use dselect", true too, search the archives if you think I'm lying. Other distros give you comprehensive PRINTED MANUALS, PHONE SUPPPORT and/or freindly forums where repling RTFM gets you banned!

Debians support for any decent hardware, including USB mice, scanners, Sound cards, heck even Serial devices struggle. If you can even get 80x25 text mode with PS/2 input devices you are really lucky.

Apt-get has many flaws. First of all it uses a non standard package format (the rest of the world uses RPM, deprecate the DEB format!), has broken respetories, and out of date software to install. All this combined with the kludgey dselect user interface make package management a nightmare.

And if you think I'm joking about this, find out why THOUSANDS of Debian users are switching to REAL distributions Debian is falling to pieces, if it is to survive any market share it will be through its superior forks (Xandros, Lindows, K/G-noppix) and unoffical package respetories.

Of course, while all this is going on, the only thing the Debian maintainers do is argue about politics on the mailing lists. The distribution decays while its creators argue over inane details like software licensing and the virtues of Marxism. Please! Spare me the political rhetoric and just give me a working distro!

Don't get me wrong, I love Linux, and I'm happily using distros such as Mandrake, SuSE, Gentoo and Fedora. But I'm sick to death of zealots that push obsolete Distros on me EVERY FREAKING TIME linux is mentioned. I'm speaking from real world experiance here.

Dlink DWL-900AP+ Power over Ethernet (POE) Hack

[npendleton]

Power over Ethernet hacks (PoE) are very cool.
Ralph Fowler PoE hacked Dlink DWL-900AP+. Tons of photos and some brave soldering.

MacOS refugee, paper MCSE, Linux Wanna-be

no hardware based routing in a $2k cisco im afraid

[bani]

"a lot of the routing logic is hardware based"

No it isnt. Not in a $2000 cisco.

You need a (starting at)$15k cisco for that.

The $2k ciscos are all bottom-end ciscos which do everything in CPU and software.

WRV54G - Any for this model?

[unsigned integer]

Can I use the WRT54G's firmware on this model? My current WRV54G locks up every 5 minutes, and since there are no newer firmware items available, I was hoping to try some other solution to turn my current paperweight back into the all-in-wonder it was supposed to be.

Re:WRV54G - Any for this model?

[fltsimbuff]

I had these same issues after upgrading from version the 2.03 that came with it, to 2.1... I went back to 2.03 as a result, which is available here.

NoCat.Net nocatauth/splash support

[gyp]

Anyone manage to get the captive portal running on one of these things? (Such as http://nocat.net/ 's splashd)

I've got a public location that would be great to dump yet another trashheap box on the network for a captive portal.

Public hotspots generally don't have much room for hardware.

Proxim makes an access point that has a captive portal bundled in (the ap2500), but it is cost prohibitive ($800'ish last time I checked) and if you want to customize it for your location and user policies, you've got to run a webserver that it redirects you to.

Bundling this in would make this (more) useful for many more people.

Thanks,

Gyp

WRT54G hacking group

[EverLurking]

Also a wealth of information is this WRT54G Hacking on Yahoo Groups where most of the ongoing discussions on hacking/customizing the WRT54G is going on.

DaveC