Slashdot Mirror
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."
0.7
this sig limit is too small to put anything good h
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
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
The v4.0 (which I have) uses a SoC that combines two chips from the v3.3. It's pretty much exactly the same software wise, just cheaper for Linksys to make.
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....
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
I spent a lot of time working with SveaSoft's images. In general, if you have a old linksys floating around, it's a pretty good way to go. The time requirements for setting things up is non-trivial. This is especially true if you want to do anything sophisticated, ie, bridging, WDS or strange NAT tricks.
I am surprised CISCO doesn't do their own Linux adaptation for these boxes. I had no idea they were so popular that they actually would consider a different model for them.
Strangly QoS does not work very well with the latest versions from SveaSoft, as well as SveaSoft now locking downloads to a particular MAC address. I also had trouble getting the newer firmware (Talisman) to work cleanly with my box. I ended up buying a D-Link Gamer Wireless router and things just worked well. Having built in 1GBPS ethernet, QoS without the configuration headaches of OpenWRT and Linksys was cool. As with all opensource, it's only free if your time is worthless.
Linksys continues to impress. They had a bit of false start when they didn't get the GPL Code out there, but I would say they have really been trying to be good since then.
Re-releasing this marked as a Linux device should be commended. Not only are they selling something that they know people have the intent to modify (which is rare in this day and age), but they are also making it noticable that it runs Linux.
I wish more companies would sell things and be ok with people modifying what they paid money for (MS, Sony, Apple, MPAA,...)
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 $40 USD, the PC was free (technically, it's a sunk cost, so I count it as zero) and that the PC consumed 30W more power than a Linksys.
Here at my work at an small local ISP we use small Soekris boards running Freebsd. Not only is this hardware rock solid but running a fully featured distro gives us the ability to easily remotely trouble shoot network connectivity issues or firewall rules, or routing tables from here in the office.
:)
We mount them in outdoor enclosures for use as access points or as small deployable routers/firewalls for fiber set ups.
However they are rather pricey (250 - 450 dollars a pop) so still a lot less than comparable cisco hardware, but still too expensive to drop on the porch of a customer.
The question I've had for a while is whether or not I can as a distributor legaly hack a linksys router and drop our own distro on it, and give those out to customers. At a much more affordable price.
I called linksys the other day but the lady I talked to had no idea and never called me back
~Anders
Most of us know that the WRT54GS had 16MB flash and 32RAM. This made it a powerfull device that could be outfitted with all the addons making it rival a 600$ router from CISCO (mother of Linksys) therefor killing higher product sales.
:S
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
Adi
I have a WRT54G and I originally purchased it because I heard it was so hackable. However, I haven't dared to touch the firmware, mostly because the thing likes to explode every few hours. This thing will lockup and refuse all traffic going in or out unless I hard reset it. If many people are connected (10 or 12) it drops connections every 2 to 3 minutes. I understand its a remarkable piece of hardware...if it would just do its job. I'm ashamed to say the D-LINK I had worked much better.
I bought the WRT54G ver 1.1 because of its hackability, at the time I was using a Microsoft router (I got it for $10, so I used that) but I bought the Linksys because of the neato factor. Then, I ended up ditching the MS router, because the Linksys with updated firmware is just the bomb. I told all my friends, one, a consultant, began buying WRT54G's for his customers because he could remote SSH into them and open ports etc to maintain their systems. It gave all kinds of flexibility.
.22
:p
I reccomended this model to everyone I knew - we use them at work now, and employees at work have bought them now on my reccomendation. I sent linksys an email thanking them for the GPLed version, and letting Linksys know I was reccomending this model to people.
I was dissapointed with the recent story of the non-linux version, however, with the release of the GL version, I am very impressed by Linksys indeed. Yes, it will probably cost a little more due to the better ram, but hey, I WANT the better ram! (Still seriously considering the flashcard hack...)
For those who care, my router runs:
dd-wrt version
WRTBlog
Uses SMB to save information to one of my network machines
Uses SNMP and MRTG (on network machine) to monitor bandwith (on top of bwlog)
These are worthy additions to your WRT. I am considering purchasing another and running kismet on it for wardrivng.
-- So, thank you Linksys, for releasing the source, and maintaining the WRT line.
Try to hack my 31337 firewall!
I have had three Linksys wireless routers and had pretty good luck. However, the v5 I bought a month ago died in less than two days. Fortunately CompUSA exchanged it and the replacement has been working fine.
One nice feature (which unfortunatly didn't work with mine) is the 'Management Mode' It allows you to put the router in a special mode to re-flash, even if the existing firmware is corrupt. Has a bare-bones web interface to upload the file. Handy.
Too bad mainstream appears to also mean 'cheap, unreliable parts' too...
- Carpe diem, quam minimum credula postero.
I used to run sveasoft on my linksys, but after reading more and more about their business practises, I let my account expire, and have now permanently dropped them in favor of the DD-WRT firmware (http://www.dd-wrt.com/).
DD-WRT is just as feature-rich (if not more) than sveasoft, and doesn't play sveasoft's silly games with their firmware source code, the GPL, and banning people on their forums. Sadly I can no longer recommend sveasoft to any of my friends with linksys routers.
N.
"Nothing strengthens authority so much as silence." - Charles de Gaulle
The link I meant to post for dd-wrt (IMO the best firmware for the WRT, mostly because of Sevasofts treatment of customers)
http://www.dd-wrt.com/
dd-wrt
Try to hack my 31337 firewall!
I wish I had the chutzpah to do it. I'm staring at that unit right now. My big concern with it is if it fails for whatever reason it's probably fried, and I honestly can't afford another one right now. Any cheerful words concerning how easy it was or something like that might convince me to push the red button, but I haven't done it yet...
Just do a little reasearch on your specific model, so you know exactly which version you have. Then, install dd-wrt for your model of router. In fact, if you post your exact model of router here I am fairly certain a kindly slashdotter will give you the specific version required. (As long as they are not trolling, heck, if you reply to this I will even tell you what specific version of dd-wrt binary you need) I have flashed a number of WRT's, each with dd-wrt and the directions here are the best:
dd-wrt flashing guide
If you are paranoid make certain to wait the two min suggested after clicking the upload, and then ok buttons. That is it, you are good to go.
Try to hack my 31337 firewall!
When I purchased the "new" WRT54G, version 5, I expected a router that would at least have better performance than my old, reliable Pentium-II firewall running Windows 2003 and Routing and Remote Services.
Boy was I wrong. Many sites, such as: http://www.tmobile.com/ http://www.realtor.com/ and http://www.gamespot.com/ all had great difficulty loading. It turns out a **LOT** of other people are having the same problem with the Version 5 WRT54G.
My longstanding issue was finally escalated to Linksys Customer Support (you will be escalated to Customer support after dealing with Technical support). At Customer Support, they RMA'd my v5 router, and replaced it with a v4 router. I demanded that they replace it with a v4 router, and I noted that a *LOT* of people on this bulletin board are having the EXACT same problem.
I have literally spent hours trying to solve this problem on the v5 router. As soon as I plugged the v4 router in, my problems were solved!
Of course, Linksys being a company that enjoys wasting their customers' time by not even admitting a problem, you will be forced to pay for shipping charges. No matter that the item is clearly flawed by engineering defects to begin with. I will never, ever, consider buying a Linksys in the future. What a mistake I made thinking they were a premium brand. The fact that they are going to sell a version that finally works as it should, under a different model number and at a higher price, rather than fix the WRT54G Version 5 tells me that they are not interested in providing a quality product. I hope their strategy blows up in their face!
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.
I have always wondered why people who buy the WRT54G to run customized firmwares don't show as much interest as in similar embedded platforms, which are in the same price range ($70 to $130), have a similar or superior hardware config [1], and allow a similar level of customization. So why the WRT54G interest you, but not those embedded platforms ?
[1] Actually those platforms even seem more attractive (faster CPU, more RAM, bluetooth, MMC, etc), the only downside is that, of course, they don't provide 5 ethernet ports, but only 1 or 2.I bought 4 of them (WRT54GS v2.0) and loaded sveasoft alchemy public version on them in order to create a very extended bridged network using wds. The outer two are connected to separate physical networks, and the inner two only have power (no physical network connection) and are situated in weatherproof boxes in the treetops. I am posting this note over them now!
:)
On hindsight, OpenWRT would have been a better choice, but for the minimally-enhanced functionality I was looking for (wds and a shell), sveasoft is dead easy. Yes, you run a risk and void your warranty. But you only go around once, eh?
Make sure your chosen firmware version is known to work on your particular linksys hardware. Here is a good page outlining the differences in Linksys versions. Sveasoft Alchemy doesn't specifically support my version but I found a reference of someone doing it, and it does work for me.
Good luck / happy hacking, and if you mess up, you want to search for the work "debricking"
I can't say I disagree with you, but as I work for a semiconductor manufacturer, I would like to expand on what 'unreliable' means in this case.
Actually, most consumer electronics devices are 'unreliable' in the sense that they experience relatively high failure rates (compared to, say, telecommunications infrastructure devices). This is a result of the (lack of) burn in done before the parts are deployed. Simply stated, it is cheaper to have consumer electronics fail in the field than to burn in all of the parts before-hand. This is not unique to Linksys.
Consumer devices are generally 250 FIT or higher for early failure rate [first year]. A FIT (failure in time) is the ratio of failed devices (in parts per million) to running time (in thousands of power on hours [kpoh])... so 250 FITS translates into 2500 parts per million (ppm) failing after 10 kpoh. That's really reasonable for consumer devices (0.25% failure in the first year). The average failure rate over the life of the consumer semiconductor (probably rated for 100K or 200K poh) is around 100 FITS.
As a side note, telecommunications devices are generally a higher standard, with early failure rate below 65 FIT and average failure rate below 25 FIT. The burn-in required to reduce the failure rate (since most of the failures occur early in the lifecycle, stress testing a part early on can trigger many of the early failures) costs a bundle of money, and can add enough expense to a part to eliminate the entire profit margin on a consumer device. Of course, for more important applications (telecom, brake systems in vehicles, medical equipment), higher reliability parts are used.
So yes, 'mainstream' (actually 'low margin and low risk in case of failure') does mean lower quality, but please don't bash the manufacturers too hard for it. Economics forces their hand, and the result is the system that is set up to take the returns, as you experienced.
> 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'.
Democrat delenda est
On buy.com, the WRT54GS is actually cheaper than the WRT54GL, and has more RAM and more flash (4mb and 32 mb respectively). Seems kind of lame that they take the same device that used to sell for $45 and jack the price to $70, just to take advantage of the "linux" thing.
So to anyone looking to buy this router, consider the WRT54GS. With more ram and storage, you can do more things with it. All for about the same price.
Also, avoid Sveasoft at all costs. They are slimy. I still haven't been refunded my money after I canceled my automatically-renewing annual protect, I mean firmware access, fee. They promised they would, but a month later and several unanswered e-mails and I'm still out my $20 bucks. Next week I'll lodge a complaint with paypal.
For the best capabilities, use openwrt. it rocks! I've done so much more with it than I did with sveasoft, thanks to having a small writable partition to place scripts and so forth, instead of just having to use the nvram.
I have a WRT54GS v3.0, got it on rebate for $30 off. I made sure that I had the right version by using serial number ranges from http://www.linksysinfo.org/modules.php?name=Conten t&pa=showpage&pid=6
The latest GS version v4.0 has half the ram (4 & 16 instead of 8 and 32), but the store had mine and even a few 2.0 models mixed in for those who bothered to check the serial on the outside of the box.
I am running dd-rt v.23 right now, because it is free AND very easy to use, as well as modular (uses ipkg capabilities from openwrt). OpenWRT probably does more but needs more setup. I have been playing with the extra features, checking out all the software people like to use, and enjoying connecting via command line to check and change stuff in addition to browser access.
The G model was also on rebate, for a little less, but again the latest version isnt as good, in fact G version 5.0 doesnt use Linux, and getting a lower model revision required reading a lot of boxes (*or letting the store employees help-- I chased off 3 before I decided to let them help read serials after all)
William
The lack of IPv6 on consumer routers is the single greatest hurdle to wider IPv6 adoption.
Imagine for a moment if
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.
I just installed it and bricked my v2 router after fooling around with it for a few minutes. Thanks, I needed that.
Failing ... yes ... bricking no ... there are many ways to debrick your router including a few cool ways through software and hardware to debrick it. Reading the linked website below has some ideas to fix a briked router. Making it almost impossible to "break" your current router. I have a WRT54Gs v4 and pressing the Cisco button caused it to open up a TFTP mode.
:) but yeah any other little questions just ask and im sure I can help
I prefer the dd-wrt firmware because it has the nice web based frontend plus the ablitity like OpenWRT to install extra software and do intresting things.
Here is an Install Page for the router and once you get it going you can really see what it does. It's awsome. You can use the routers web based frontend without even really having to see the backend but it's still there for those who like to tinker.
Install the v23 beta then Head over here to get ipv6 working this is cool cause it works with a popular free ipv6 tunneling provider. It's so easy to get running and once it's up on the router the clients are easy as pie to setup. "modprobe ipv6" (linux) or "ipv6 install" (windows XP) to get it fired up. He.net gives you 18 quintillion IP's so that should be satisfactory for your small to big LAN.
Solosoft
Solosoft.org - Your Online Resource to Nothing
If memory serves, most of these home routers are running on MIPS based hardware. There is no port of OpenBSD to the sbmips platform (yes there is an SGI MIPS port but I doubt it is similar enough for an easy transition). I believe NetBSD has been ported to this platform but I am unsure of whether the supported chipset is the same as that in a home router. There's also the possiblity that there won't be wifi card or ethernet drivers on NetBSD so you would have to reverse engineer those... Personally I'd just stick with Linux but porting a *BSD for full support would be an interesting exercise.
As another poster said, if you want to run OpenBSD on embedded hardware you are better off going for the soekris stuff but you'll pay a LOT more (prices for just the board without case, wifi card or power cable start at $128) than for the shelf consumer stuff (Amazon has a WRT54 for $54.99).