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Open Source Router To Replace WRT54GL?
jeremyz writes "With the inclusion of 802.11n in more and more Wi-Fi devices, the WRT54GL is losing its usefulness, even though it's still the de-facto standard for open source, Linux-running wireless routers. I've been looking around for a 802.11n router to replace the WRT54GL, but haven't really found anything besides the Netgear's WNR3500L. At first look, the WNR3500L looked great, but after some further investigation, I found that Netgear hasn't released all of the source, as they should have to comply with the GPL. Are there any good 802.11n routers to replace my aging WRT54GL?"
PC Engines' ALIX routers are my favorite: http://www.pcengines.ch/alix.htm
(no I don't work for them, I'm not even from Europe)
They have all kind of configuration options, removable storage, lots of case options, they're reliable and they're pretty fast. They run a few distros, including OpenWRT, so you can choose what your favorite Linux or BSD router distro is and have at it.
Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
DDWRT Supported Devices
CTRL+F
"b/g/n"
Conversation over.
Soekris Engineering makes low power computers that you could easily turn into a router using whatever choice of free/open source operating systems that you like. I have used OpenBSD on one of these with amazing success.
NO gig-e low number of ports and pci bus for most of them and most of them don't even have more then 1 pci slot.
to make a one that can use gig-e and n wifi pci-e is better.
I was in the same situation... WRT45GL just wasn't cutting it anymore.
So I bought a small ITX board that supports PCI-E, at least 1GB of RAM, a dual-interface PCI-E network card, a case that could house it and a good gigabit switch. I currently run pfSense 1.2.3 off a 1GB USB flash drive.
I deal only with wired clients in my network so this doesn't address the Wifi portion of the question.
I'm not listing any hardware because it changes all too often.
This is the expensive route to go but I felt it was worth it for my needs.
More than likely you won't need the PCI-E dual-interface network card and an onboard dual-nic ITX board would suffice. I just happened to have mine from a previous project.
I built mine before the Intel Atom craze hit the streets. I don't know if they are powerful enough from experience although I'm sure you'd be fine.
As always with hardware and networking, YMMV.
You realize it's a router, not a switch, right? This is going to be hooking up to your ISP... which probably isn't anywhere near fast ethernet, let alone gigabit. If you want gigabit, hook it up to a gigabit switch. If your network edge is gigabit, get real networking hardware because nothing netgear (or PC Engines) sells is going to handle that extremely well.
As far as wifi, it's mini-pci, so you can choose whatever hardware you want. Want a really nice high watt atheros N card? You can use it and you can easily use any antenna you want as well.
Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
The ASUS RT-N16 is the best consumer product I've found for dd-wrt so far. 128Mb RAM and 480mHz processor, 802.11n and 2 usb ports.
If you need gigabit routing, soekris is coming out with some new boards that have it, but they're 2x+ as expensive as an Alix. They aren't listed on their main page right now, i believe i heard about it through one of the community forums.
I've got an Alix 2D13 with an Atheros 5416 card in it, works fine with pfSense but the 802.11n rates don't work yet so it's still doing 54g at the moment, stable though. Hopefully once freebsd gets 802.11n rate support it will be a good router for years to come. 802.11n on this card might work in any Linux based system though, such as dd-wrt x86 (but they charge for that...)
Buffalo Technology http://www.buffalotech.com/ is my starting point for all my future networking needs. I don't need anything more than a windows compatable 802.11g router for the foreseeable future, so I have no experience with linux compatability or open source availability.
I bought a WHR-HP-G54 a few years back and am thrilled with it. I think I've only needed to reboot it twice since I bought it and neither time was the routers fault. Possibly the simplest to get working, user friendliest, least problematic piece of tech I've ever owned.
More and more ISPs are offering consumer connections that would require gigE. Would be a bummer to get a gigabit connection for $25 a month and then have to lay out several hundred dollars to actually get that speed routed around my house.
"Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it." -- GBS
I'm very happy with the unit for the following reasons:
1) crack it open and you can remove the wireless card and replace it with your own.
2) will run with openwrt
3) I'm shocked at the amount of abuse mine took. The wireless card had been glued to the router board using some kind of foam. I think the combination of the glue used and the heat from the device made it stick together strongly. I ended up using a pair of scissors to pry them apart and I thought for certain I had ruined either the card of the router board. Much to my surprise when I unbent the clips for the card it started working fine (I was prepared to trash the router in order to try and get the card out).
4) I've flashed the unit several times between the stock and various other images. The thing always comes back from the dead if you take your time and understand what you're doing. I guess it's firmware has some issue in how it addresses the interfaces which causes a conflict when trying to run something like FON (or so I'm told. Not certain how this applies if you're running openwrt). I bought mine a few years ago now when the N standard wasn't on a lot of hardware at the time. I haven't tested it's functionality in that regard.
I'm planning on buying a decent Atheros based card for it and use it in Sept. Hope this was helpful in some way.
Cheers, S.
http://www.trendnet.com/products/proddetail.asp?prod=185_TEW-652BRP&cat=41
Usually goes for $35
Nearly Identical to the more expensive Dlink DIR-615
Runs incredibly well on DD-WRT firmware
--or--
Compile your own firmware from Trendnet's source code.
http://www.trendnet.com/downloads/list_gpl.asp
Lack of free firmware(I need Tomato) is the reason I'm still on 802.11g in my home. I have an WRT54G as the main router and an ASUS WL-520GU creating a wireless bridge to the living room.
Where can you get a gig-e connection at home?
Seriously, that's total bullshit. I don't think I've heard of a consumer connection that does over 100mbps let alone 1000mbps. Hell, even the new VDSL2+ that was reported a few days ago maxed out at around 250mbps.
If you're going to make claims like this, at least have the sense to back it up.
The ASUS RT-N16, Linksys WRT610N, and Netgear WNR3500L look promising. They're all supported by dd-wrt and in theory could work with openwrt. The Asus is some nice hardware for $90.
It's news to me too, but that 250 Mbps you're talking about indeed does require gigabit ethernet.
Truth arises more readily from error than from confusion. -Francis Bacon
Kinda interesting no one mentioned Guruplug yet. http://www.globalscaletechnologies.com/t-guruplugdetails.aspx
Any chance that any of these support tomato? Can't use dd-wrtafter running tomato.
Gone!
The Linksys Refurbished WRT610N-RM for $110 free shipping in the US. The router might not be "open source" but you can and should load dd-wrt onto it. http://homestore.cisco.com/viewproduct.htm?productId=83108078&categoryId=85185 http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Linksys_WRT610N
RouterStation Pro has everything:
:))
-gigE
-mini pci slot for wifi cards
-enough ram for pretty much anything
(some assembly required
I do not work for them, and am not payed by them, just a happy user
i read your email
I think there was one provider overseas who stated that they intended to offer 100Mb/s to the customer. Since most of us are in the US, we aren't going to see those kinds of speeds any time soon.
I had a quick look at the Verizon FiOS site. 50Mb/20Mb was the fastest residential line they offer. For business customers, they offer a 35Mb/35Mb account if (for those serving or uploading), or the 50Mb/20Mb which would be more targeted towards offices who are downloading more than uploading.
I know businesses can buy GigE loops. It costs a fortune to get installed, and you have to have your equipment on each end. They may offer GigE service, but I'm sure that costs a larger fortune. If you're sending or receiving a 1Gb/s of traffic, you'd be peering with a Tier 1 provider. That's an OC24 circuit.
Several years ago, it was most economical for my offices to have their own T1 loops (no data service included), and stick our own routers on each end. I was very content doing a wireless link from my house to the office, and using their T1 at night. That went straight to our datacenter, so I had the luxury of assigning myself an IP from the datacenter at my house. :) I was in charge of all of that stuff, so there were no real problems doing it. I offered it to anyone in that office who had clear line of sight to the office, but no one else did.
More recently one place I worked was in a building that served as a tower for a wireless provider and they had a GigE loop in the building, and we were provided a 100Mb/s connection from them down to our suite, and paid at 95th percentile for the bandwidth. It was a good deal, but it wasn't anywhere near residential rates.
We tried to get a GigE loop from our office to a Tier 1 provider less than a mile away, and we were handed a 5 figure price tag for the install. Just the loop, no data services at all. We were going to stick our own equipment on each end.
Nope, unless you're somewhere weird, you're not going to get those kinds of speeds any time in the near future.
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
You're absolutely right. Several years ago, we were looking at firewall solutions for our GigE pipes. Lots of people had GigE copper inputs, but when we pushed for details it always came down to the simple fact that their hardware couldn't push that kind of traffic.
We looked at building our own PC based boxes to do it. It all came down to the fact that the cards couldn't really push the speeds.
The only solution for GigE that can achieve full line speed is the proper hardware, and you're going to pay a premium for that. You want to route or switch GigE speeds, you're going to put in something like a Cisco Catalyst 6500 series switch (or better). You can pick up a 6500 fairly cheap these days on eBay. Well, cheap in relative terms. It won't be anywhere near the cost of a Linksys AP. :)
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
Real 100mbps do require gigabit. If a router is rated for 100mbps, that's its theoretical limit. It won't actually support constant 100mbps.
Not everyone is from the US, you insentivide clod. We have fiber to home up to 1Gbps.
200mbps + 116 HD channels + Phone w/ unlimited calls = 100E/month.
Dilbert RSS feed
One of my local ISPs in Portugal is offering a home connection of 1gpbs (up and down), plus HD TV for 250E / month. Yes, it's expensive, but it's not a 5 figure, not by a long shot.
Dilbert RSS feed
The ASUS RT-N16 is an awesome router that is supported by DD-WRT and has been reported to work with Tomato. The stock firmware is pretty good too. It has some impressive specifications:
You should be able to find one for about $100.
Keep your WRT54G, and just upgrade the wireless to 802.11n. I did it with an AirPort Express connected to one of the ethernet ports in bridge mode. In the real world, 802.11n rarely saturates the 100baseT ethernet, so you get almost all the speed, without having to reconfigure everything from scratch. As a bonus, you can still host a separate 802.11b/g network on the old router to support legacy devices without jamming up your N network.
"Where can you get a gig-e connection at home?"
Sweden, where an old lady has a 40Gbps connection.
You must be new here.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Cablevision's Optimum Ultra is rated at 101mbps. And they recommend a Gig-e router to get close to the rated speed. Docsis 3 standard is good for up to 171/343 mbps depending on the number of allocated channels so it's conceivable that most cable providers will be able to pass the 100 mbps barrier in the near future. So if one buys a router these days, it's a good idea to future proof it and get one that has gig-e ports.
If con is the opposite of pro, is Congress the opposite of progress?
I was just considering the same question myself not even 2 days ago. I ultimately decided on the ASUS RT-N16 as others here have suggested, as it seemed to have the consensus of several users on the DD-WRT forum: http://www.dd-wrt.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=70817&highlight=rtn16 The WNDR3700 would be nice if they manage to get it past what appears to be an alpha-release support
I just bought a WRT320N a couple weeks ago and promptly installed DD-WRT. It has been solid as a rock. Full N speeds on wifi and full gigabit on wired.
DDWRT Supported Devices [dd-wrt.com]
That's what I thought too. Until I bought an Asus RT-N10 and till today, no wireless. It's basically a cheapskate home router, with the words "Open Source" on the packaging.
The Asus RT-N10 is listed in 3 different places as dd-wrt compatible.
Ergo, this router is fully compatible, until you buy one. Then you find out:
Therefore, do not just rely on the dd-wrt list. Cross-check with the OpenWRT list too.
The netgear WNDR 3700 is running a version of OpenWRT out of the box with a custom interface. OpenWRT has a few builds of their standard distribution which work, with full support being rapidly added. DD-WRT is working hard on adding support for the router as well with at least two test builds being released. Full support should be there within a few months. Again, with it running a customized OpenWRT out of the box, it is only a matter of time for all the router based distributions to have ports which run on it. Add in the fact that it is one of the fastest routers (wan->lan speed, and lan->wan speeds), with some of the best dual band wireless N speeds, a decent amount of RAM, USB ports, gigabit switch/router, and the fastest CPU seen in a consumer class router, you have a very capable device.
We were all warned a long time ago that MS products sucked, remember the Magic 8 Ball said, "Outlook not so good"
Much though it pains me (as a former Ubicom employee) to say it, I would recommend avoiding the earlier DIR-825 rev A which uses a Ubicom processor. Although Ubicom now offers some kind of Linux SDK, as far as I know there is currently no third-party firmware that will run on the DIR-825 rev A. The hardware revision is on the label of the package, and also the rev A and rev B look somewhat different, so if you buy a DIR-825 at retail you can easily ensure that you get the rev B. I suspect that most of the major online retailers probably have exhausted their inventory of rev A by now.
As somebody who lives in Australia, I have to say you probably have no idea what you're talking about...haha
That, or you bought into Telstra's reality distortion field. That 100Mbps service they're offering in Melbourne, is available to a very small minority only - it's available to about a million people in total, I believe, but most of those won't get anywhere near those speeds.
http://www.misaustralia.com/viewer.aspx?EDP://1268174866621
Also, the demand for it is terrible, probably because of the abysmal pricing. Basically, you have to get it in a cable bundle (with their c*appy tv offering), on a 24 month contract, which costs $169 for 50 Gb per month, or $269 for 100 Gb per month. And that includes both uploads and downloads. So no, I doubt it's really "available" in any sense for the majority of people.
Cheers, Victor
See: their commercial site and their community (read: free!) site
I've been using it for the past few months. I must warn that it's not the most user friendly, but it has a lot of commercial backing. As long as you read the documentation, you'll be fine.
It runs on x86 hardware. I'm running it in a virtual machine running on an Ubuntu box, there's one gigabit NIC in it, but the VM has two virtual NICs. It works incredibly well.
The new version has support for wireless, including N, but I can't vouch for that since I haven't used it. If it's anything like the rest of their stuff, it works flawlessly.
One of my favorite parts about Vyatta is that all its configuration is stored in a single file. If you've put this file on a flash drive, you can boot the livecd and run right off of that if you like. Obviously, if you install extra software or configure things outside of the Vyatta shell, that doesn't go in the config file. Although I don't run off of the livecd, this convenient config file is an easy way to verify the integrity of the system. If you're worried you got hacked, just back up your config and do a clean install. All you have to do is look over the file to make sure everything looks right, and you're good to go.
I'm not fond of Vyatta's commercial aspects, but if you can live with the details listed here then the only thing you have between you and a brilliant setup is the manuals!
I was looking at DD-WRT for a while, but then decided against it because of all the controversy. I honestly don't remember what I didn't like about OpenWRT, but something kept me from trying that too. The big difference between almost everything that's been mentioned so far (DD-WRT, OpenWRT, Tomato, etc...) and Vyatta is that while the former are mostly intended for SOHO users, Vyatta is intended as a Cisco competitor for big business. I actually like pouring hours into reading documentation so I can use "enterprise" stuff like Vyatta at home, but it's up to you to decide which way you want to go.
For the record: like many other posters above, I'm not affiliated with Vyatta in any way, I'm just completely startled by the fact that nobody's mentioned it so far. Does Vyatta have a big black mark that nobody's told me about, or is it just not as well known?
By the way: Vyatta sells their own hardware too, but it's pretty pricey. It starts at ~$800 and reaches up over $10K. Personally, I think it's way overpriced, but I suppose there are appropriate situations for such equipment.
It's not that rare in Europe at all.
In Slovenia local ISP, called T-2 is offering Gig FTTH for about two years now, if I'm not mistaken. It's a bit pricey (1000€ per month), but it's there.
Here's price list (in Slovenian, but I think you'll make sense of the prices and speeds).
http://www.t-2.net/?ctxID=000b68&funcID=1
I'm running the WRT160N with dd-wrt for more than a year now and it works perfectly (since I put dd-wrt on it that is, the default firmware sucks). The shop where I got it from now only sells the WRT320N, it has gigabit ethernet and is also supported by dd-wrt. Since it's got the same price I guess that's the new successor....
I got a gigabit connection at home. So do all my 1650 neighbors that live in this apartment complex.
Download test to a server local to the ISP (it is NOT on my home network): /dev/null http://bolignet.farummidtpunkt.dk/1GB
baldur@pkunk:~$ wget -O
2010-04-25 10:32:37 (111 MB/s) - `/dev/null' saved [1073741824/1073741824]
Download test to a server in a different country and a different ISP: /dev/null http://speedtest.tele2.net/1GB.zip
baldur@pkunk:~$ wget -O
2010-04-25 10:36:42 (13,8 MB/s) - `/dev/null' saved [1073741824/1073741824]
Download test to a server in same country but different ISP: /dev/null http://speedtest.it-borger.dk/speedtest/random4000x4000.jpg
baldur@pkunk:~$ wget -O
2010-04-25 10:38:33 (16,8 MB/s) - `/dev/null' saved [31625365/31625365]
My experience is that many gigabit routers can not actually deliver full line speed. The CPU is too weak to perform NAT at those speeds.
Before anyone asks for it, here is traceroute dumps to document the ISP locations:
baldur@pkunk:~$ traceroute bolignet.farummidtpunkt.dk
traceroute to bolignet.farummidtpunkt.dk (79.98.195.61), 30 hops max, 60 byte packets
1 79.98.193.129.customers.telelet.dk (79.98.193.129) 4.188 ms 4.148 ms 4.138 ms
2 79.98.195.61.customers.telelet.dk (79.98.195.61) 0.181 ms 0.171 ms 0.160 ms
baldur@pkunk:~$ traceroute speedtest.tele2.net
traceroute to speedtest.tele2.net (90.130.66.198), 30 hops max, 60 byte packets
1 79.98.193.129.customers.telelet.dk (79.98.193.129) 4.555 ms 4.517 ms 4.508 ms
2 79.98.199.153.customers.telelet.dk (79.98.199.153) 0.744 ms 0.714 ms 0.733 ms
3 79.98.199.149.customers.telelet.dk (79.98.199.149) 5.577 ms 5.623 ms 5.595 ms
4 ge-2-3.bgp1.ip.telelet.net (77.75.166.237) 2.259 ms 2.230 ms 2.201 ms
5 gi9-8.ccr01.cph01.atlas.cogentco.com (149.6.136.57) 2.172 ms 2.176 ms 2.234 ms
6 te1-1.ccr01.mmx01.atlas.cogentco.com (130.117.0.50) 3.761 ms 3.294 ms 3.261 ms
7 te1-1.ccr01.sto01.atlas.cogentco.com (130.117.3.10) 11.951 ms 12.268 ms 12.235 ms
8 avk-core-2.gigabiteth3-18.swip.net (130.244.200.165) 12.430 ms 12.533 ms 12.587 ms
9 kst-core-1.tengigabiteth5-0-0.swip.net (130.244.39.9) 12.266 ms 12.219 ms 12.189 ms
10 kst-ncore-1.tengigabiteth2-1.swip.net (130.244.52.106) 12.803 ms 12.565 ms 12.373 ms
11 kst-ncore-2.tengigabiteth2-2.swip.net (130.244.52.110) 12.254 ms 12.452 ms 12.427 ms
12 kst-spe-2.tengigabiteth3-4.swip.net (130.244.206.134) 12.964 ms 12.935 ms 12.907 ms
13 warp9.tele2.net (90.130.66.198) 12.856 ms 12.828 ms 12.803 ms
baldur@pkunk:~$ traceroute speedtest.it-borger.dk
traceroute to speedtest.it-borger.dk (130.226.157.50), 30 hops max, 60 byte packets
1 79.98.193.129.customers.telelet.dk (79.98.193.129) 4.334 ms 4.289 ms 4.281 ms
2 79.98.199.153.customers.telelet.dk (79.98.199.153) 0.974 ms 0.956 ms 0.928 ms
3 79.98.199.149.customers.telelet.dk (79.98.199.149) 5.765 ms 5.764 ms 5.749 ms
4 ge-2-3.bgp1.ip.telelet.net (77.75.166.237) 1.759 ms 1.798 ms 2.026 ms
5 194.19.218.157 (194.19.218.157) 10.441 ms 10.541 ms 12.759 ms
6 194.255.42.249 (194.255.42.249) 3.467 ms 2.976 ms 3.117 ms
7 194.255.186.126 (194.255.186.126) 2.870 ms 2.957 ms 2.891 ms
8 130.226.157.50 (130.226.157.50) 2.718 ms 2.838 ms 2.726 ms
Have a look at Billion http://www.billion.com/ They may not be Open Source like DD-WRT etc, however for around the same cost as your Belkin, Netgear, Buffalo etc - they totally kick ass, and generally give you a much more feature rich feature set. Some models are 802.11n + gigabit ports + DSL or FTTH + USB for 3G backup path if DSL or FTTH goes down. They have voice integrated models too for VoIP + VPN as well so they are certainly worth looking at.
I'm also from Portugal.
Although you are technically correct, if you are referring to ZON's service, I should say that I highly doubt they'll deliver the 1Gbps they claim (given all my previous experiences with this ISP).
Also, given the arbitrary download limits they have, I'm not so sure a 1Gbps pipe from ZON is a good idea (i.e. in the contractual fine print, they say you have unlimited data transfers up to "reasonable levels of consumption" but NOWHERE does it specify an actual objective limit; if you do transfer data above what they consider "reasonable", they _will_ phone you and attempt to harass you, as I've seen being done before, NEVER actually telling you what the "reasonability threshold" really is).
Caveat emptor.