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Teach Your Router New Tricks With DD-WRT
snydeq writes "InfoWorld's Serdar Yegulalp offers an in-depth look at DD-WRT, open source router firmware that can 'breath new life — and advanced features — into your old wired or wireless router.' Quality-of-service controls, iptables-based firewall, IPv6 support, DNS controls, Kai Daemon for allowing game console network tunneling, and a host of features for using your router as a public-access hotspot are among the many possibilities for hacking your router with DD-WRT."
welcome to 5 years ago dipshits
Since when has dd-wrt been "Open Source?" It's very much closed-source. OpenWRT is actually open source, as in, you can download the code, modify, and compile it yourself. dd-wrt is closed, and often includes proprietary drivers.
You can also enable rflow (which appears to match NetFlow v5) on DD-WRT routers, so you can find out who's hogging the bandwidth.
This is old news, also DDWRT is a closed source solution that for some routers you have to pay for features. Openwrt has much more for the price and if something is wrong you can fix the bug yourself.
I used DD-WRT for some time, but if you want QOS bandwith managment for games (which was what I was really after), you have to buy your way into the forum where a premium version can be downloaded.
Anyway, after some more looking I found 'Tomato' which fitted what I was looking for a lot better. Feel free to try it for yourself.
http://www.polarcloud.com/tomato
into a brick.
Which, interestingly enough, was an improvement. WiFi is from the devil.
This sig is not paradoxical or ironic.
Props for being the first to have custom firmware for the Linksys WRT54G but talking about earning the right to be the poster boy for "complete fucking asshole".
Heard you're broke - sucks to be you.
Pain is merely failure leaving the body
Leave it to InfoWeek to be both completely confused and 5 years behind the times.
To wit, this article with the same premise from Lifehacker in 2006. And that was before DD-WRT sucked.
First, the author's router is not "an old router". In fact, it ships with DD-WRT. Take an old WRT-54G 1.0 and stick DD-WRT and that would be breathing life into an old router. All you're doing here is using a Buffalo-preconfigured (and encrypted, closed-source) version of DD-WRT.
But more to the point...DD-WRT? Ick. If you want QoS (as the author seems to), you need pay for the commercial version. The QoS in the free version is known broken and has been for quite a while, and there is little motivation to fix it. Also, old routers cannot use the QoS, because you need 4MB or bigger flash. Maybe it works in newer routers but who cares - there are plenty of better alternatives to DD-WRT.
Finally, for Slashdotters, let me say two words that will have you running screaming from DD-WRT: software activation.
Tomato is a fine, free (in all senses) alternative, and I personally love the Tomato-USB version.
Advice: on VPS providers
Tomato?
Not until they legalize marinara.
...the future crusty old bastards are already drinking the Kool-Aid.
I used DD-WRT for years on an old Linksys WRT54GS (I think that's the model) router and it worked great for me. But after upgrading my internet to 100 Mbps I found out it pukes out at around 20.5 Mbps or something like that, haha. Almost wanted to swear at my ISP, and then decided to try plugging straight into the new Cisco modem/router they gave me, and found all the bandwidth I was paying for was there after all. Haha. But plug back into the Linksys and it chokes me back to just over 20 Mbps again. Couldn't believe it.
I think the reaction is hostile because it's not news, and it's probably not the most appropriate advice for most people. I spent a long time, years ago, looking very hard at the choices for my router (Linksys WRT54G 2.2) and settled on Tomato because that looked like it maximized the feature/hassle quotient. I'm pretty sure it's the right choice for most people who might ever install 3rd party firmware on a router.
Perhaps it is not news, but it "matters" to me. I am actually really happy that I read the comments on this article. I think there is sometimes a syndrome with geeks where they assume everyone is precisely at - or proximal to - their level/experience. My guess is that many readers are still unaware of the alternatives in firmware. And I still think that regardless of error, the discussion accomplished something; it introduced better options. I just finished a two-year degree in IT, and I am no wizard - not even close. Just 4 months ago, I was thrilled to discover open-source firmware for my router. Am I naive for thinking there are not more like myself? Do the little guys not count?
Laws are like sausages. It's better not to see them being made. - Otto von Bismarck
More work, but OpenWRT is probably your best bet. ymmv though. I'm pretty happy with myy RouterstationPro board and OpenWRT setup.
Michael J. Ryan - tracker1.info
The "CPU" that is used in that device won't actually go much beyond 20mbit. It just simply can't handle faster streams, especially if you're using NAT on your internal network. NAT adds a bunch of overhead. Supposedly the GL can go up to 30mbit as it has a newer processor.
Very few consumer routers can handle 100 Mbps throughput across the NAT (well, technically PAT) layer. They simply don't have the CPU power, bus speed, and memory required. I would be interested to know what routers are capable of such speeds and are compatible with the likes of OpenWRT.
Well, this might get you started :
http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/lanwan/router-charts/view
http://wiki.openwrt.org/toh/start#buffalo