Linksys Adds Linux WRT54G Model Back

Glenn Fleishman writes "Last month, Slashdot and others wrote about how the Linksys WRT54G, a popular embedded Linux-based Wi-Fi gateway, had switched to VxWorks's OS for its v5 release. Because the WRT54G has become the standard as a cheap commodity device for building your own platform (like Sveasoft, Fon, and many others), this seemed like a big blow to hackers and developers. If you could still manage to flash the device--not sure if that was possible--it had half the RAM and flash of the v4 model. It turns out Linksys wasn't killing the Linux model. They've released it as the WRT54GL with v4.30.0(US) firmware and will sell it under that name for about $70 retail. It's already in stock and the new firmware is on their GPL software download page. Linux sales represent a few percentage points of their overall volume, based on the Linksys product director's remarks. The lesser quantity of RAM puts money back in their pockets on the mainstream model."

Comments

Re:open

[TheCarp]

What?

um... you are joking right? Having a linux kernel on the router is great. It means being able to write iptables processing rules for your packets.

It gives you alot of flexibility beyond just being a firewall and ip masquerader. Plus you can do great things if you care about security. Syslog to a loghost dropped packet logs maybe?

Admittedly your setup will work just as well, but this is sleak and can be easily deployed and maintained.

-Steve

money in the pockets

[way2trivial]

better (likely) represented by the fact that
anyone who buys the more expensive model is 90% more likely to load their own firmware *since that is the market it's for*
    and Linksys will be a whole lot less responsive to people making warranty claims when they fuckup the firmware flash.

calling tech support and saying "I dunno" what happened is not gonna cut it on these models.. void the warranty, no service for you...
that will undoubtedly keep a few bucks in their pockets from less repairs....

Re:money in the pockets

[Mr. Flibble]

As buying it implies intended use that is not covered by warranty--- and denying the claim entirely.

And this, IMO is fair. After all, if you flash it, and you brick it, and then you try to warranty it, you are really cheating Linksys. They are telling you, Hey we will support you UNLESS YOU DO X. So you do X it breaks, and then you claim warranty? That is duplicitous.

It would be like backing over it in your car, and then saying "I dunno what when wrong with it.." The only difference being that Linksys could tell if you backed over it in your car, in this case they cannot. Linksys is a company that exists to make a profit. Bricking your router by doing something non-warranty safe and getting a replacement is unfair to Linksys - big faceless corporation or not.

Re:open

[JanneM]

It does make sense to have one "internet device" like this, with all the persistent stuff collected onto it, especially since it's expected to be running all the time.

The $10 crappy PC is cheap - but one faulty part and it'll be as expensive as the router again. And the router is small, it is quiet (no fan or harddrive), and you'll save enough on your electric bill compared to a whole PC that I really wonder if the PC is worth it at all.

Re:open

[Jeff DeMaagd]

One thing I've found is that the dedicated hardware firewall like a Linksys could pay for itself in electricity in less than a year over a repurposed desktop PC, assuming the Linksys was $40 USD, the PC was free (technically, it's a sunk cost, so I count it as zero) and that the PC consumed 30W more power than a Linksys.

I call it BS

[Anonymous Coward]

Most of us know that the WRT54GS had 16MB flash and 32RAM. This made it a powerfull device that could be outfitted with all the addons making it rival a 600$ router from CISCO (mother of Linksys) therefor killing higher product sales.

We also know, that besides the flash and RAM size difference, there was no other difference between the G and GS versions.

Linksys(or Cisco) decided however in the GS v.4 to castrate it to half the RAM and flash and sell it at the same freaking price as previous versions !! So there was no advantage to buy the GS version instead of the G version ( 60$ instead of 100$).

So pple said, screw the GS, let's go for the G. Well well well, not so fast, since they crippled the G v5 to a puny amount of flash and ram : 8M RAM and 2M flash !! that is unusable with linux even if pple figure out a way to somehow flash linux on it !!

So what was linksys's next move ? release a GL version as the old G router and sell it for 20$ more !! Bastards, i tell you.

In conclusion, they're efectively selling 2 devices : the G and the GS with lower specks for both of them, and they are charging us MORE for the G(GL) and the same price for the GS but with HALF the RAM and HALF the flash.

In other words, WE GOT SCRWED and yet the slashdot editor, paints a rather positive spin on this !!

Way to go guys :S

Adi

THANK YOU CISCO/LINKSYS

[Anonymous Coward]

I hope someone from Linksys/Cisco reads this forum. The ability to run Linux on it was indeed the #1 reason I bought that wireless router. Yes, I reallize I had no "need" to - but it is an interesting experience being able to ssh to my router.

Linksys - keep up the good philosophy, and I suspect you could become the IBM-PC-like-standard of consumer appliances that anyone's software can run on.

Re:Impressive

[Comatose51]

Don't know about the rest of you but they just won themselves a new customer today because of this. I've been looking to get a new router. At least with this, I know I have the free to muck around with my router if it doesn't work as well as I like.

Re:open

[jmorris42]

> The question I've had for a while is whether or not I can as a distributor legaly hack a
> linksys router and drop our own distro on it, and give those out to customers.

Depends on which hack you install. Hyperwrt is a modified copy of the Linksys code. While the linux binaries and a lot of the other stuff is licensed under the GPL, you might want to make sure it ALL is. Openwrt on the other hand is plain old linux. No licensing problems there at all.

As for the other reply about a EULA, ignore that guy. You are buying hardware. Hardware IS sold and not licensed. Yes there is software embedded in it, but you are planning on blanking that out before you resell it so that is a moot point. The day a judge says a piece of hardware sold over the counter at Walmart is bound by an unsigned EULA is the day I declare the Revolution to have begun and load up my 'sporting goods'.

Re:Similar embedded platforms

[Anonymous Coward]

You are confused in your math. The gumstix starter platform costs about $100, then for another $150 you can add ethernet and wifi (and you have to go to another vendor to get the wifi card, after you buy the adapter for gumstix). Dont forget, you still need details like a case, power supply, and antennas etc.

The wrt comes 'off the shelf' for about $70 (depending on where you buy it), comes in a nice little case, complete with power supply, 5 ethernet ports, wifi, antennas, and as a bonus, inside the box is a 6' ethernet cable and a nice coaster (cd). If you are going thru enough of them (I have over 1000 in the field), you will never run out of 90 day 'free trials' for an anti virus, every one of those coasters has one of those too.

I use the wrt as an edge device, loaded with my own custom firmware specific to our network. It can go out to any location, and they just plug it in. When it 'wakes up' at the new location, it brings up a vpn link back to head office. Voila, instant access to locations from the arctic down to locations in mexico. It's solid state, not a power hunger computer, and gives me all the flexibility I need in a custom linux edge device.

With the numbers I have in the field, it's important to look at the 'total cost deployed', not just the sticker price on the 'basic item before necessary add-ons'. If I could deploy gumstix at even double the cost of using wrt54, I probably would, but I cant. the reality is, I can put 3 WRT routers into a location for about what it would cost to build up a gumstix with ethernet and wifi, and it still needs an external switch to give multiple ports.

The WRT54 has yet one more fabulous redeeming feature. It's available EVERYWHERE. On more than one occaision, instead of shipping a pre-configured router, i've had somebody run to the local computer store, buy a wrt54, take it back to the office, plug it into a dsl connect and give me remote admin access. 10 minutes later, it's re-flashed, and they have a highly customized router that automatically integrates into the bigger picture corporate network.

Bottom line, gumstix and wrt54 are not similar platforms. gumstix is a hackers toy, meant for hardware hackers that want to do thier own soldering to hook it up to stuff. WRT54 is a complete/finished edge device, ready to go, out of the box, just add firmware.

IPv6

[gjh]

The lack of IPv6 on consumer routers is the single greatest hurdle to wider IPv6 adoption.

Imagine for a moment if

• 99% of new PCs run Windows XP - which they do
• IPv6 was enabled - which takes one command, but is not the case by default
• over 50% of new personal NAT firewalls run 6to4 to give IPv6 LAN emulation behind your single legal IPv4 address - which is developed by the community for the wrt54g

Suddenly all machines behind all of those users have globally unique IPv6 addresses. The easy P2P access that is suddenly available would revolutionize the Internet and light a fire under IPv6. Sadly there is no immediate profit for the NAT/firewall/router vendors in it, and this firmware change represents a sad step in the wrong direction such that - even if a killer app came out for IPv6 that made this desirable - the possibilty of providing an easy IPv6 upgrade for the average users' NAT frouters is now dissolving.

Re:IPv6

[grozzie2]

You are confused, you view nat as a _bad_ thing, and publicly addressible computers via ipv6 as a _good_ thing. That's fine in theory, but, out here in the real world, the internet is a nasty place, and to put a windows machine into a slot where it is ip accessible from the outside, well, that's just begging for problems.

NAT came about because of a percieved shortage of ipv4 address space, it was a 'kludge' developed as an interim solution prior to wide acceptance of ipv6. The real issue since then, it professionals quickly discovered, nat is a great helper in the security aspects of managing a netowrk. A computer sitting behind a nat has a really good first wall in front of it, assuming it's been issued an ip address in the private non routeable ranges for internal use. Folks can go on and on about all the various means of locking the internet out of your internal network, but, the fastest/simplest/easiest first step, is to make sure the local network is behind a nat, and non routeable private ip is used inside the nat router.

I hear a lot of whining about ipv6 acceptance, or more appropriately, the lack thereof here on /. Most /. junkies seem to think this is some sort of plan by the 'big boys' so they dont have to upgrade major network infrastructure. The reality, most corporate it departments DONT WANT ipv6, the absolute LAST thing they want, is ip addressability on all the computers inside thier network, making them visible to the internet at large. Every time you hear about yet another vulnerability in [insert os/program name here] it's another nail in the coffin for ipv6. If I count up all my computers, test machines, and embedded platforms on the ethernet here in my house, I've got 18 boxes taking ip from the dhcp server. It's all behind a nat, and I only have to put effort into locking down ONE box to protect this network, the internet exposed nat router. I'll be damned if I'm gonna let ipv6 sneak it's way onto this network, and potentially expose all of these boxes to direct attacks from the outside.

The lack of acceptance of ipv6 is not due to lethargy, or a 'dont care' attitude on the part of it sysadmins. It's a definitive choice by most of them, they specifically DO NOT WANT IT. The nat barrier at the network edge device is thier first line of defence, and they want to keep that in the network defence arsenal. After the nat comes a firewall, and after the firewall comes intrusion detection. On many 'paranoid' installations, after the ids, comes 'yet another nat', with honeypots dropped on the first segment, just to keep any penetrators distracted long enough for them to be noticed.

Altho, i must say, i like your premise of 'imagine if 50% of personal systems were ipv6 enabled'. That would give the black hats a superb target rich environment, such that, those of us that prohibit ipv6 on our networks, would become far less appealing targets, making life considerably more fun. We can sit back and read about how all the folks with ipv6 enabled are being subject to daily attacks from all over, while the black hats are ignoring those of us taking steps to make our systems harder to reach. Why bother trying to get in thru locked doors, when there's a whole slew of folks out there with wide open front doors, an absolute invite to 'come on in and join the party'.

Re:IPv6

[petermgreen]

You are confused, you view nat as a _bad_ thing, and publicly addressible computers via ipv6 as a _good_ thing. That's fine in theory, but, out here in the real world, the internet is a nasty place, and to put a windows machine into a slot where it is ip accessible from the outside, well, that's just begging for problems.
being on a public ipv6 addrss is much safer than on a public ipv4 address simply because the hit rate of random attacks is about 16 billion billion times lower. but yes there is still the possibility of targeted attacks (e.g. by a server you connect to) and windows is shitty enough to make running it on a network that is end to end open require care.

but anyway you can have a no incoming connections unless i specify otherwise policy perfectly easilly without having nat.

say for example you wan't to be able to admin all your boxes remotely with ssh. it would seem far more convinaiant to be able to just say "allow ssh from theese ips" once rather than making a mapping for every single machine and trying to memorise which port maps to ssh on which machine.

and besides if someone really wants to get into any nontrivial sized network its probablly not that hard to get a box on the inside.

Re:Unfortunately force is present but not obvious.

[Somegeek]

"There is a force that exists, and people are being screwed."

What force, gravity? Dark Energy?

Does Linksys have some monopoly on the ability to build routers? No, anyone is welcome to start building a competing product at any time for a lesser price. The fact that no one has may be evidence that in fact this is still a very good value. Who are we to say how much is a reasonable profit for Linksys to make off of these routers? What if they have determined that their support costs for the Linux routers are higher than normal and they have raised their prices solely to be able to continue to offer the product? What if the choice was between no Linux version or a version priced $20 more? Did they screw you by giving you the choice of paying the extra money to pay for the item instead of taking away the choice entirely?

You also seem to think that they have some nefarious scheme built into the release dates of the different models. Was there in fact any gap between the availability of the old models and the new ones? Or a significant gap between the release of the new regular and Linux versions, or was that just a misunderstanding in the news reporting? I saw posts in the last Slashdot discussion about this that stated even back then that there was in fact a separate Linux model available, so this is not a new fact. If Linksys wanted to maximize their profits, don't you think that they would've released the higher priced model first?? And even if there was a gap, don't you think that it might have been due to any number of legitimate reasons? Maybe their Art department did the work for one version before the other. Maybe their QA department finished testing one version before the other. Who knows. Who cares.

They released the Linux version, which's all that matters. If you don't want to buy it great; but you're not being screwed by Linksys.

Re:Linksys is ruining their reputation

[Trekologer]

Try turing the firewall off on the router. This disabled SPI on it (the inherent network protections of NAT remain). I have yet to see a consumer-grade router do SPI (stateful packet inspection) with zero problems.

Re:Impressive

[zotz]

"Not only are they selling something that they know people have the intent to modify..."

This is not quite accurate.

On my recommendation, I would say ten to twenty of these have been bought so far, perhaps more.

I recommend them because they can be hacked to run Linux. To date, to my knowledge, none have been.

Even mine, which I keep buying, which are specifically to play with, I have never yet gotten around to actually putting something else on.

I always end up having to loan it out (as currently) or sell it to a client because the local stores are out of stock and they need one asap, etc.

So, it is the potential to do something special if needed that has been selling them in my case. I wonder how much this is so in other cases.

Now, will this L model purposely make it easy to put something else on? That would be a welcome move on Linksys' part. And note, my customers will still be buying the L models if they follow my recommendations in case they need the added features in the future. (Depending on price points.)

all the best,

drew
---
http://www.ourmedia.org/node/85937
Tings - a CC BY-SA novel written for nanowrimo 2005
And for you gentle reader

The broadcom reference design

[mstadtler]

All of these units are based on the broadcom "airforce" reference design. Instead of having to purchase a Linksys or ASUS I would actually prefer to just be able to purchase the reference design from broadcom or have some one like gumstix manufacture this reference design "specifically to support Linux hacking". Here is the link to broadcom site http://www.broadcom.com/products/Wireless-LAN/802. 11-Wireless-LAN-Solutions. So someone could partner with a group like OpenWRT and sell them. This should not be to hard to do with the current offerings of cm, like flextronics.