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Linux Hackers Reclaim the WRT54G
An anonymous reader writes "The world's most ubiquitous wireless access point is free to run Linux again, thanks to a brilliant hack by db90h, aka Jeremy Collake. No soldering is required, as Collake's 'VxWorks Killer' nixes the WRT54G's VxWorks bootloader and installs a normal Broadcom one, allowing Linux to be installed easily. One distribution small enough for the series five WRT54G's 2MB of Flash and 8MB of RAM is the free DD-WRT project's "micro" edition. It lacks some of the fancier Linux router packages, such as nocat and IPv6, but does support PPPoE, and could be more stable than the VxWorks firmware, which seems to have generated mixed reviews." Update: 06/26 22:52 GMT by T : Note that the project's name is DD-WRT, not (as it was mistakenly rendered) WR-DDT. Check out the DD-WRT project's site.
I ran for the longest time various 3rd party firmwares, bouncing from one to the other when one would get updated when it had features that I was looking for. But they all seem to introduce their own set of nasty bugs/gotchas even though they claim to fix bugs in the linksys version. Finally I got fed up with it all and went back to the normal linksys firmware that just works without all the added bloat that these 3rd party ones slap on top. I got tired of futzing with the router more than I was just letting it do its job.
The v5 I bought was returned to BestBuy for explicitly the reason that it didn't support Linux. However, if I bricked it by trying something unsupported like this, I would not have expected free warranty work to get it back into shape. If this was the plan, then at least in my case, it backfired somewhat.
Reminds me of when I upgraded my Version 1.1 WRT54G using the official firmware! Brick City.
Bought a Version 5 WRT54G and the thing turned into a brick all on its own during a normal reboot, after not even owning it for a day.
Bought a wireless print server. Wouldn't connect to my access point and didn't offer WPA as an option. Linksys removed WPA completely from the latest firmware and it apparently never worked in the older firmware. Doesn't keep them from advertising it on the box and their website though. Blatant false advertising.
I also bought a Linksys wirless range extender. A complete failure.
NetGear's business class products on the other hand... w00t.
Can this router be used as a client so that I can connect to the access point of my wireless internet service provider and distribute the connection over cat5 to my computers.
This is fabulous news. I own an early WRT54G which I use as a bridged PPPoE connection, and also as a router (both wireless and wired), and with custom firmware it performs a blindingly good job. As of right now, it has an uptime of just over a month, and I believe that was because of a powerout.
The original firmware was by no means pitiful, but it lacked a huge number of features that coders have 'rereleased', such as QoS, more advanced scripting abilities, better performance with BT and so on.
When I heard that they had moved to VxWorks, with no backwards compatibility with the custom firmware, I thought it was a stupid move. The firmware has improved immensely from the countless iterations created by outside coders, why not let that process continue?
I had lightening somehow take out my cable modem (which I rent) last weekend... it also fried the WAN port on my V2.2 WRT54G that was completely stock.
Needing a WAN port I went and bought another WRT54G (a new one at Best Buy that happens to be a V5)...
I knew that the WRT54G was hackable though, so I figured I would try to make some use out of the one with the dead WAN port. I nabbed the DD-WRT firmware and loaded it up... and on the first try it worked beautifully (well... I mean the firmware worked... I still didn't have a purpose for it yet).
I started looking at what the firmware could do and noticed the "client-bridge" wireless mode... meaning it could bridge two wired networks with a wireless link. I tried it out and sure enough it connected to my new V5 WRT54G without problem. Looking around my apartment I noticed a long ethernet cable running around the baseboards from where my cable modem and router sit (in my TV nook... where my ReplayTV is plugged into them) to where my server and desktop are.... and the thought came to me that I could use the "broken" WRT54G to bridge that gap instead (and make my wife happier... with less cords).
I hooked it up... and it's been working beautifully for a week... a very nice solution.
With how satisfied I was I thought it would be great to be able to hack my new one at some point in the future too... and when I found out that the V5 was difficult/impossible (at that time) to hack... and instead Linksys made a WRT54GL model that still ran linux and was hackable... I ordered one of those up (for about $10 more) and am planning on taking the V5 back to Best Buy as soon as the new one arrives from Amazon (later this week).
This news doesn't really change my mind about this... the WRT54GL is inherently a more hackable system (more memory and such) and should remain a good workhorse into the future.
The moral of all of these ramblings is that Linux is great! How did I come to that conclusion? Well... it's nothing except the open-sourceness of my old router's firmware that allowed me to still get utility out of it after part of it had failed. If it was some proprietary BS (like VxWorks) then it would have just been a plastic brick....
Friedmud
Even with this hack, the WRT54G v5 doesn't have the resources. We should be telling users to buy one of the equivelent routers from another vendor, such as the Asus or the Buffalo.
For starters, we need a new name to identify this platform (vs. calling it the WRT54G). The WRT54G/S is just one product utilizing the Broadcom platform.
Also, what about similar platforms from other wireless vendors? Their is a similar Linux platform from Conexant (Prism), but that's hard to get now. How about a Linux Atheros platform? After all, isn't Broadcom supposed to be the least open source friendly of the wireless chipset companies?
All that is a thing of the past. In fact, here's what my router says now:
-SuperTux
Cisco/Linksys lobotimized the WRT54G by halving the flash and ram from the previous version, not to mention locking down access by puting a locked up vxworks on it. It's also quite retarded by having only two real ethernet ports, one attached to a built in six port switch with vlans. Makes some kind of routing impossible, and is less secure as firewall routing rules don't apply to packets that never get seen by the kernel.
The WRTSL54GS on the other hand has 32MB ram and 8MB flash, perfect for installing lots more software, and all the ports are true ports, making it fully routable/usable and more secure.
Cisco/Linksys:
When are you going to release a Linux Wireless Router that handles 802.11a/5.4GHz?
Why doesn't Compusa and Best Buy carry the units that can be Linuxatized/made useful?
How about a Linux router without wireless?
I know that if this last product existed, tens of thousands of these could be sold, and that's just to the company I work for.
No, Linksys did it the way they did as a backhanded way to cash in on the Free Software crowd. You can tell because the GL is basically the same hardware as the V4, but they increased the price -- anyone buying a GL is paying more for the same functionality!
If Linksys actually cared about the community they'd have just continued with one version, or at least continued to use Linux on the crippled "normal" V5.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
The WRT54GS switched to VxWorks as well. Not sure if the hack mentioned in the post works for it too. However, the WRTSL54GS was released a few months ago. This version of the router has a USB port on it, which opens up a whole bunch of new uses when you replace the default firmware. (The Linksys firmware only allows the USB port to be used for networked storage. Third-Party firmware such as DD-WRT adds support for USB printers, and possibly other fun stuff.)
Not quite: Linksys reduced the memory from 16MB to 8MB and flash from 4MB to 2MB when they changed from v4 to v5 version. They then introduced a new model, the GL one which didn't exist before which has basically the old hardware, memory, flash and all at a higher cost. So yes it's a cash in. Simple greed to exploit the brand they created by cutting their costs and the capabilities of the hardware and pocketing the profits.
Have you thought that they were previously subsidising the lower cost of the WRT54Gv4 by the sheer volume of sales?
Moving it to a specialty product with a narrower audience is going to blow their economies of scale out of the water. They shrunk their consumer product down to save money by dropping the memory, then reintroduced a specialty product to fill a niche demand. Specialty products always cost more than general audience products. Besides, some retailers have already discounted them to the point where they're under $60.
In a way, it is greed. They want to be able to compete with all those cheaper routers with less memory using vxworks. If they don't, then their profits go away. Too bad it looks like their gambit won't succeed. Their vxworks product has been getting horrendous reviews.
I was hoping that they could get Linux on my little WRT54GC as the firmware on the 54GC is okay- miles better than the old D-Link 802.11b unit I had that bricked, but still could use some more stability and speed.
Just "gittin-r-done," day after day.
Why can't someone hack something useful like a cheap gigabit 16 port router? The wrt54g is certainly promising for hacking some private vpn wireless connections but other than that it only has 4 ports.
I dream of a powerful 16/24 port gigabit swiich I could load linux on. I could then get IPv6, broadcast, anycast, multicast, and all the other new IPv6 protocols I'd love to play with and customize it to my hearts content. No more proprietary BS.
I'd settle for an 8 port gigabit switch and a 16 10/100 for appliences.
I need all those ports because eventually everything will be hooked into it, routers, phones, stereo, if it's possible I'm going to do it. It's disgusting how all the home user venders are ignoring a feature they could hype.
I think that they may be hurting the sales of the wrt54gl just by not having a 8mb/32mb version of said product. I searched high and low to find a WRT54GS when I first decided to migrate to a hardware firewall. (I was tired of having a large AT desktop case whose only purpose was to hurl packets around.) The 2mb of usable storage space in openwrt on the 4mb model was just too tiny and the 16mb of extra RAM was too tempting to do anything else.
What some linux users will do, at least until they decide to push that to vxworks, is get the WRTSL54GS. Not only does it have the 8mb flash and 32mb of RAM, but it also has the option of sticking a USB drive on top of it for additional programs, and apparently an extra ethernet port to make it more secure. Now if only it had a removable antenna...
DD-WRT ? Sorry. I use openwrt. Very modified, actually.
About additional capabilities. Double RAM (32), double flash (16), and USB ports.
These days, I use these MIPS based routers for lots of things. Including WiFi access point, but that is actually 10% of the use (at most). Firewalls, VPN servers, Asterisk servers, QoS bridges, security gateways, remote admin boxes (using USB-Serial adapters), backup servers etc etc.
They are cheap, reliable and have VERY low power consumption.
There are, of course, a few things I can't do with them (mail servers due to antispam and av, and a few other things that require too much memory). But the number of different things you can do with one of these babies is impressive.
morcego
I have just receieved the go ahead to create a proof of concept mesh network with WRT54G routers for a small city. The initial phase will provide coverage for a .5KM radius in a downtown core. I am looking at using the DD-WRT firmware with WRT54GL units.
If we can provide seamless roaming across this entire space, then we will try to expand and provide free roaming wifi VOIP.
What I am asking the slashdot community is what sort of management tools have you used to monitor things like node bandwidth utilization, link integrity, rogue access point detection, signal to noise ratio, uptime, etc.
I am looking at WIFI Manager from Manage Engine:
a nager/index.html?tb/
http://manageengine.adventnet.com/products/wifi-m
Has anybody used this or other tools to monitor a larger scale deployment?
I have a 54GL and I use it for lots of things myself. My question was intended to help me answer: should I get one of these as well?
I actually use my 54GL as a firewall, a VPN server, and a traffic shaper (QoS bridge) with DD-WRT.
- Asterisk would be nice to play with, but I have to have the POTS line to have DSL and my mobile is so cheap for 99% of my calls that it would be just for fun.
- Remote admin could be helpful by next year.
- As for a backup server, Infrant makes a much more capable NAS, but nobody's hacking the Infrant firmware yet and there are plenty of things on my Infrant wish list (like being a PXE server). Hm. I just found a HOWTO on using OpenWRT as a PXE server.
Thanks for the response. Led to some interesting googling.Regards,
Ross