Ask Slashdot: Best Flash-Friendly Router To Replace Aging WRT54GS?

New submitter Juggler00 writes "I have been running DD-WRT (v24-sp2) on my Linksys WRT54GS for a couple of years now. I'm now finding that the box cannot keep up with the requests/requirements I have for it--it simply does not have the MIPS/horsepower. I am turning to the collective wisdom of the Slashdot community for 2 things: what alternative firmware should I be using (DD-WRT, Tomato, OpenWRT, or something else?) and based on the answer to this question, what is the suggested router to purchase to flash? My software requirements include DynDNS client, DHCP server providing option 66, static IP assignment based on MAC, port forwarding, and basic QoS (bittorrent lowest priority). For hardware, I'm looking for GigE ports and 802.11N (5.8GHz not a requirement)."

Comments

Jedi?

[mx b]

DHCP server providing option 66

What did the Jedi ever do to your DHCP server? That seems a bit harsh.

Re:Jedi?

[blair1q]

i'm glad i didn't get that joke, and not really happy that i'm starting to infer where it comes from

my lack of ignorance is disturbing

Re:Jedi?

[Baloroth]

If this has anything to do with those stupid prequels, then this is a bad joke

Why? You can make jokes based on bad movies, especially the Star Wars prequels. Just about all they're good for.

Re:Jedi?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ok, I admit it: I don't get it. I don't remember anything about the number "66" in the classic Star Wars movies. If this has anything to do with those stupid prequels, then this is a bad joke, as those movies are complete trash.

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Order_66

I find your lack of internet search disturbing

Re:Jedi?

[Grishnakh]

You can make jokes about how bad the movies are, but you can't make jokes requiring deep knowledge of the movies themselves. Making in-jokes requiring deep knowledge of a movie is only done when you can rightfully assume the crowd you're talking to is a fan of the movie, and has seen it many times and would be very familiar with it. So in this forum, a joke involving the lines "You will never find a greater hive of scum and villainy", or "Game over man! Game over!" should go over well, because it's probably safe to assume that most people here have seen A New Hope and Aliens many times. But Making a joke around geeks/nerds involving trivia from a star wars prequel is a lot like making a joke around that same crowd involving trivia from Battlefield: Earth, as far as I'm concerned.

Re:Jedi?

[rbrinkman]

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Order_66

Re:Jedi?

[tommy8]

The first was horrible, the second was average. The third was better but not great.

Re:Jedi?

[KarrdeSW]

Strange that I've modded so many posts and yet never heard of this rule. I'll be sure to take your recommendations under consideration. Would you mind writing a memo to all mods regarding this new joke-making process? Be sure to cc the rest of Slashdot.

Re:Jedi?

[thisnamestoolong]

What Star Wars prequels?

Re:Jedi?

[Grishnakh]

It's not a rule, it's common sense. Think about it: if I made a joke about some obscure line in Battlefield: Earth, would you get the joke? Would anyone here get the joke? Probably not. It's universally reviled as a horrible movie (except by Scientologists, who swear it's the best movie ever made), with one of the lowest ratings on IMDB. The only time it comes up in jokes on Slashdot is when people make fun of it for being a horrible movie, but you never see anyone quote lines from it, probably because most people either haven't seen it based on reviews, didn't bother to sit through the whole thing, or only watched it once and promptly did a memory dump because of its awfulness. You only really get to know a movie well, to the point of remembering lots of lines from it, when you actually like it and watch it many times.

The star wars prequels were about as bad as Battlefield Earth, maybe worse if you just focus on the dialog (the FX were the only good things in them), so it's the same thing; expecting people to know trivia from them is unreasonable, and doesn't make for a funny joke, it makes for a lame joke.

Re:Jedi?

[ericloewe]

Ignorance is sometimes a gift.

Re:Jedi?

[Anonymous Coward]

Natalie..
oh wait, this thread isnt natalie vs keira vs scarlett,
it was about hackable routers...
doh!

Re:Jedi?

[Anonymous Coward]

And the acting in the original Star Wars movie was better?? When I went to the re-release of the original trilogy I couldn't believe how bad the acting was. The theater was busting out laughing at dialog not meant to be funny in anyway. It was just bad. When I was a kid I didn't notice it.

Re:Jedi?

[Belial6]

Manos: Hand of the Jedi?

Re:Jedi?

[Belial6]

No kidding. You need the proper leverage for in jokes.

Re:Jedi?

[Skarecrow77]

So, if I'm following you correctly, because you think the movies were bad, that means that no jokes requiring knowledge of them should ever be made, on the assumption that because you dislike them, nobody else liked them either, and thus nobody is familiar with them?

The Prequels, for whatever opinions you may hold of their quality, SOLD TICKETS. They are among the highest grossing films of all time. Hell, Episode 1 and Episode 3 (the one which the joke in question references) both outgrossed the originals.

People saw these movies.

Your analogy falls flat on it's face right there. Battlefield earth grossed $29m worldwide. Episode 3 Grossed $848m worldwide.

Re:Jedi?

[cyberchondriac]

Eh, I really don't get the prequel bashing thing. Were the originals truly all that, in comparison? I was in in high school when the original Star Wars came out, and have a sentimental attachment to it, but in retrospect, those movies are old now and their flaws more obvious.
Have you watched the original three lately? They're not much better in comparison - except maybe episode IV. "Return of the Jedi" should have been named "Muppets in Space". The opening scenes of Jabba's lair were really silly, like muppets gone wild. Granted, Jar Jar was really annoying, but no more silly really than those short fat teddy bears on Endor, and their victory over the occupying stormtroopers just flew in the face of all credibility . (I know they're called Ewoks, but they looked like children and dwarves in really bad suits to me - which is exactly what they were).
I think, if anything, what ailed the prequels is that their plots got bogged down in dialog and complex politics; they weren't the same happy-go-lucky simple shoot-em-ups that the original three were.

Re:Jedi?

[Grishnakh]

What third film? Oh yeah, the one that came after the other two prequels that were so shitty I never even bothered to watch the third one.

I guess you're probably a Battlefield Earth fan too.

Re:Jedi?

[Fnord666]

my lack of ignorance is disturbing.

Maybe it's a lack of faith.

Re:Jedi?

[Bucky24]

I think a lot of people grew up with the original trilogy, and as such still see it through the eyes of a child. I, on the other hand, grew up with the prequel trilogy, and so I view them thruogh the eyes of a child. I know hayden christensen can't act, and I know there were other problems with it, but for some reason I can't shake that idea that they were amazing. I think those movies were my first experience with laser-shooting robots and Jedi.... Maybe that's why.

Re:Jedi?

[laurelraven]

Haven't you heard of Google? Of IMDB?

I must say that I find it slightly creepy the fact that Google and IMDB knows the name of that 10 year-old actor. ;)

Re:Jedi?

[smash]

No, its about hot grits and petrification.

Re:Jedi?

[Anonymous Coward]

Order 66 was an order that told the clone troopers to start whacking away at Jedis, thus beginning the Great Jedi Purge.

Re:Jedi?

[tqk]

Natalie..
oh wait, this thread isnt natalie vs keira vs scarlett,
it was about hackable routers...
doh!

+100 Insightful, damnit!

Re:Jedi?

[tqk]

Oh FFS, option 66 is a crucial plot point in the third film that you would have had to have your head planted firmly in your ass to miss.

Uh huh. AND SOME OF US WROTE IT OFF AS RELIGIOUS DRIVEL WHEN IT FIRST SHOWED UP!!!111

Star Wars geeks are *the* lowest form of geeks. I pity you bastards.

Case in point: Annikin was a virgin birth. Oh, FFS! That again?!?

Religious Drivel!!!!111 # FFS!

Re:Jedi?

[tqk]

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Order_66
I find your lack of internet search disturbing

I nominate this for "most boring internet search EVAR!"

Fneh.

Re:Jedi?

[quenda]

If this has anything to do with those stupid prequels, then this is a bad joke, as those movies are complete trash.

Maybe they are all kid's movies. You watched the first set as a kid, and the second as an adult. Of course they did not meet your expectations.
As a kid it is easier to appreciate the wonders in a movie while ignoring flaws. If you want polished perfection, these are not the movies you are looking for.

Re:Jedi?

[dogsbreath]

It's a gift . . . and a curse.

Re:Jedi?

[lucm]

Natalie..
oh wait, this thread isnt natalie vs keira vs scarlett,
it was about hackable routers...
doh!

You ruined everything. The discussion was going somewhere, talking about cute chicks (still can't believe someone prefer the fake Padme to the real one), but you HAD to burst that bubble and bring back the router thing.

Reminds me of a guy I know. One time we were at Best Buy and there was that pretty lady, so I said to him: "I think I'm in love" and he said: "Me too!" then he walked right past her to go check out the new Vaio that was on display. I think if we went to the strippers he would probably focus on the laser thingy or on the sound system, ignoring Bebe and Cassandra.

Re:Jedi?

[MikeBabcock]

The acting in both sets of movies is completely different in style, that's the only issue. The dialog in the prequels is poorly written; the actors didn't have much to go on to be honest. In my opinion, it had bad directing, not bad acting -- if that's the performance we got its because the director kept that take.

All six movies are silly in a lot of ways, but fun to watch. They all have terrible issues, but fans of a specific set of them will always prefer those to the others. Personally, I found prequel 2 to be the most interesting of the movies. It was probably the only one of the six that wasn't full of "saw that coming".

YMMV.

Re:Jedi?

[Grishnakh]

The Toy Story series, Finding Nemo, etc. were also all kid's movies, and I saw all these as an adult and enjoyed them. They obviously weren't adult movies, but they also didn't have horrible dialog and wooden acting. They also didn't have somewhat complex political plots, battle scenes, and people dying left and right, which are things that no "kid's movie" has (or should have at least).

Re:Jedi?

[dontclapthrowmoney]

Shame, I eventually succumbed to watching the third one when it was on free to air - in my opinion, a much more well put together movie than the first two, it was as though they realised it was make or break and they had to get it right. In some ways the third one "fixed" the first two for me. I remembered enough detail from the first two woeful movies for me to understand the plot points behind the third one. I have only ever watched the first two once and intend it to stay that way, if it were the only thing on TV I'd probably watch the third one over again because it wasn't so bad. If you get a chance to watch it I'd recommend it because it does round out the story.

Yes I realise saying a movie is worth watching because it wasn't as woeful as the previous ones isn't really a great way to sell it to anyone - but you've done the hard work wading through the first ones already...

Re:Jedi?

[cynyr]

Scarlett seems to always be a blond, so that means it is really a 2 horse race.

Natalie has more curves than Keira, so Natalie wins.

Re:Jedi?

[quenda]

Good points. Pixar do real family movies - appealing to just about everyone, including kids too young for Star Wars.
But I don't see why battles and death are taboo for kids. Much easier to explain and deal with than the violent crime that fills so many other movies.
Even a 4yo can understand the concepts of war and death in battle. There is nothing overly graphic in Star Wars.

How many threads like this?

[GameboyRMH]

This is at least the second, if not the third Ask Slashdot on this subject in the last few months.

I'll make the same recommendation as before: Buffalo WZR-HP-G300NH.

Re:How many threads like this?

[GameboyRMH]

Also, on firmware: OpenWRT if you want to do something really fancy or unusual, DD-WRT if you just want a feature/reliability improvement.

Re:How many threads like this?

[JBMcB]

Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo //off-topic, but relevant

Re:How many threads like this?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll make the same recommendation as before: Buffalo WZR-HP-G300NH.

I would no longer make that recommendation. Buffalo has silently started shipping WZR-HP-G300NH2 (version 2) models in the old WZR-HP-G300NH boxes. The G300NH2 models have a different Atheros wireless chip which does not work fine under DD-WRT, and hence with its own custom Buffalo firmware. The end result is constant wireless drop outs (BSSID is broadcasting, client shows as connected, but packets go into la-la land). I have tried two different G300NH2 routers and both have the same issue. Buffalo forum is filled with posts about this issue, and what makes it worse, is that Buffalo U.S.A Tech support has no knowledge of this router (version 2) existing, and say that product is only supported in ASIA. DD-WRT firmwares also can't be flashed into this router as it will brick them.

Disclaimer: I too have a WRT54G(L) router that needs replacement and have already began researching. Going to try Cisco Small Business WRVS4400N-RF due to the number of features it seems to have.

Re:How many threads like this?

[adolf]

Is the WZR-HP-G300NH substantially different from the WZR-HP-G300N? I've used several of the latter and while they all seem to work OK (given the correct build of DD-WRT), there are still hardware functions which don't seem to play right (VLAN, for instance).

Re:How many threads like this?

[watice]

I use the WZR-HP-300N at one location, & the E2000 seems to fit all the OP's requirements.

Re:How many threads like this?

[GameboyRMH]

The N variant has swappable antennas (which the NH doesn't) but no gigabit LAN (which the NH does).

Re:How many threads like this?

[GameboyRMH]

Good point, OpenWRT is adding support, you can build a prerelease version for it right now. I see people in the DD-WRT forums saying they've flashed their v2s but I can't find a binary for it.

Re:How many threads like this?

[drainbramage]

Well, I wasn't buffaloed.
Forgot about that.
Nice breakdown here: http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/13120

Re:How many threads like this?

[VGPowerlord]

I'm glad I bought mine a year ago, then... even if it did take me some time to figure out why my wireless network would randomly shut off.

Apparently the router will shut off its wireless antennas if it determines another router on a different network is broadcasting on the same channel... and the neighbors were *just* close enough and conditions would be *just* right for that to happen every few days.

Re:How many threads like this?

[GameboyRMH]

Sounds like you got a defective unit. I have 2 and there's been no trouble.

Re:How many threads like this?

[skids]

Seconded. Bought one for home. Liked it so much, I had work buy one for a terminal server (via USB hub/dongles.) Running OpenWRT. DHCP, iptables, tc, iproute2, ipset, freeradius, strongswan, perl, all available as precompiled packages. Minus getting oriented on the hardware and with a bit of the config file layout, was easy to configure to do everything my old laptop-based router did, while drawing 1/5th the power and making no noise whatsoever.

Re:How many threads like this?

[GameboyRMH]

Another great feature is the plain 12v power input...what a convenient voltage for running on batteries!

Re:How many threads like this?

[Martin Blank]

DD-WRT if you just want a feature/reliability improvement.

I don't know about that. At least from the view of official builds, DD-WRT has stagnated. The last official release was more than three years ago and the last pre-SP2 release was more than two years ago.

Even the unofficial builds aren't much of an improvement to me. I was using a couple of different builds to get IPv6 functionality and while it worked, I had problems with odd setting resets or services just stopping for no clear reason. Ultimately, I decided to just go with a new DLink router because it provided the functionality that I wanted and pretty much Just Worked. No messing with scripts, no tinkering with poorly-documented settings. It just worked like it was supposed to. (Well, mostly. There's an issue where .11n connectivity breaks, but .11g still works, but that's far less irritating as there's an effective fallback that works.)

I understand the desire to have control over the firmware, as I ran OpenWRT or DD-WRT for several years. I'm also not averse to installing things of questionable stability, as I use Fedora for most of my Linux stations. I enjoyed what I was doing for a while and I learned some things on how the services worked, but it became more of a distraction where I was spending time fixing issues instead of learning other things.

Re:How many threads like this?

[Cyfun]

I have one, don't like it. Some weird bugs such as wifi dropping, and you can't use Tomato cause DD-WRT is the only custom firmware supported. Used to love DD-WRT, but it hasn't hardly been developed in the last year or two, and there are some gaping bugs, such as DDNS and QoS not working.

Re:How many threads like this?

[loxosceles]

I have one. It would frequently hang (over WIRED connection) for anywhere from a few mins to 15 minutes, then suddenly start working again. I monkeyed around with settings including disabling the AOSS and WPS stuff, and it stopped hanging. I don't know what specifically fixed it, but I'm using openwrt now so I'll never know. I suspect many of the "omg my wzr-hp-*300* router is broken" stories are just bugs in dd-wrt.

Re:How many threads like this?

[Anonymous Coward]

I can confirm this problem. I bought this router after reading TONS of GLOWING recommendations, but it's since been nothing but trouble. I did flash dd-wrt successfully, but this description of wireless dropping is CONSTANT. The router is configured to reboot automatically every 60 minutes but I must still reassociate my NICs or reboot the router at least once a day.

Re:How many threads like this?

[Xyverz]

I have the WRVS4400N-RF ... and my experience is very very mixed with this device. I have to reboot it at least once a month, and configuring it via the web interface isn't as easy as using Cisco IOS' CLI. It also only does 2.4ghz N, so if you want the 5ghz speeds, you'll need either a seperate AP or router running in AP mode. (I actually have a WRT610N in AP mode for my 5ghz needs.)

Just my 2c worth.

Re:How many threads like this?

[harl]

Why or link to previous posts please.

Re:How many threads like this?

[bedammit]

Whatever you do... Dont get the buffalo WZR-HP-AG300h I have an older WHR-HP54S which ball all accounts is the best router they ever made. I can say that the AG300h is very flaky and technical support will pretty much tell you that they "wait" for updates and have no resolution to the problems people report except to send another router. http://forums.buffalotech.com/t5/Wireless/WZR-HP-AG300H-Pro-firmware-still-in-alpha/td-p/79827

Re:How many threads like this?

[bedammit]

see my post above on bufa-f*cking-lo

Re:How many threads like this?

[mcrbids]

Back on the topic, a Buffalo router is what you want. There are several models, but bang for the buck, they're faster, bigger, more RAM, and they work awesome.

For some reason, they don't sell them at the local Best Buy, but online purchases aren't a big deal. I bought mine about 6 months ago for $50, it was an excellent purchase and even came with its own build of DDWRT as an optional install! (took about 20 minutes)

OpenVPN works great now!

Re:How many threads like this?

[emag]

Wow, that would make it totally useless where I am, then. There are *no* clear channels in my neighborhood (townhouses), from either where my router is, or where my laptop is, or what my phone can see. The router would constantly be shutting off... My currently solution is 2 separate WRT54G(S) routers, same SSID, different channels, different floors of the house...

Re:How many threads like this?

[GameboyRMH]

DD-WRT isn't the only custom firmware supported, it can also run OpenWRT:

http://wiki.openwrt.org/toh/buffalo/wzr-hp-g300h

Re:How many threads like this?

[Anonymous Coward]

I also agree, go with Buffalo. Buffalo is using DD-WRT as their stock firmware from the factory.
http://www.dd-wrt.com/site/content/buffalo-highpower-routers-with-dd-wrt-factory-firmware

Re:How many threads like this?

[kcitren]

Using the default firmware, have you been able to use the web interface with Firefox or Chrome? I can only seem to get it to work with Opera.

Re:How many threads like this?

[GameboyRMH]

Shoulda scrolled down:

http://ask.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2553856&cid=38228958

Re:How many threads like this?

[GameboyRMH]

Haha sorry I flashed both of mine right out of the box. But IIRC I used Firefox to do both, so they at least worked once with Firefox on the stock firmware.

Re:How many threads like this?

[harl]

Why should I have scrolled down?

Re:How many threads like this?

[GameboyRMH]

Because you would have seen the same post I linked you to.

Re:How many threads like this?

[Katmando911]

Assuming you even know who owns the nearby access point. There's an idiot in my neighborhood using channel 2 instead of 1, 6 or 11.

Deja Vu

[dmesg0]

http://ask.slashdot.org/story/11/09/19/0315258/ask-slashdot-good-gigabit-80211n-home-router

Re:Deja Vu

[L4t3r4lu5]

I'd ask if you're new here, but seeing as that story is less than three months old, that's no excuse.

This is expected.

Buffalo

[zbobet2012]

The buffalo WZR-HP-G300NH meets all of these requirements and ships with DD-WRT. However, as the last, very recent thread mentioned DD-WRT is not well maintained anymore. Your best bets are either TomatoUSB or straightforward OpenWRT. I prefer openwrt because it allows simple configuration of hardware taged vlans.

Re:Buffalo

[nschubach]

I just put Tomato on my v1.0 WRT54G router and it breathed new life into it. I had previously been running DDWRT. I'm not sure if the submitter can do "option 66" with Tomato but it has everything else.

Re:Buffalo

[billcopc]

I've got the WHR-HP-G300N with DD-WRT, and yeah, support has been kind of nonexistent in the last year. That's always been the problem with DD-WRT though, it's kind of half-assed, presumably to create a market for the Pro edition. QoS is still very hit-or-miss.

Re:Buffalo

[Lucky75]

I recommend Gargoyle Firmware. It's based on OpenWRT.

Re:Buffalo

[ne0n]

As others have mentioned, Gargoyle is a superb alternative to Tomato (which is fairly limited in comparison) or OpenWRT (which is a bit frustrating for newbs). Gargoyle gives you the best of OpenWRT while also providing a useful, easy and intuitive user interface. LUCI is a bit rough :)

For the record, DD-WRT sucks monkey balls in comparison. I've been using my G300NH for months of uptime, heavy (multi-TB downloads, plenty of bittorrent uploads) usage, while SSH-ing into my work and home computers at need. No problems, no hassles. DD-WRT, which I ran for years on my other routers, and followed devel on too, required monthly reboots and tinkering to get anywhere. On the G300NH DDWRT is a piece of poo.

Possibly related

[Anonymous Coward]

http://ask.slashdot.org/story/11/10/25/1429235/ask-slashdot-dd-wrt-upgrade-to-80211n

I remember seeing some decent suggestions here.

Buffalo N300

[sohmc]

I've found it to be very useful since it runs DD-WRT already and has many of the features you mentioned.

It's a bit on the pricey side but I didn't want to do Linksys again after they've locked their routers.

Netgear WNDR-3700

[Microlith]

Or its newer variants. Loaded with OpenWRT, there's nothing you can't do with them. Newer variants have even more flash and RAM.

Re:Netgear WNDR-3700

[noahm]

Seconded. I've got WNDR3700 and I love it. I'm running a custom build of OpenWRT that has all the following built in to the squashfs image:

• ISC DHCPD
• ISC bind9, including slaving some authoritative zones from my master
• racoon for ipsec
• xinetd running munin-lite for metric graphing
• radvd for IPv6 router advertizement

It's really pretty impressive what you can pack in this thing. Note that I save a bunch of space by not including the web interface at all.

Re:Netgear WNDR-3700

[Oo.et.oO]

second

Re:Netgear WNDR-3700

[blair1q]

But if you get the WNDR-4000, first thing you do is update the firmware. The one I got kept toggling the wireless on and off until it snagged a patch. Pretty sure it will phone home the first time you plug it in, but check manually to see.

I don't know about other models, but this one has gotten some bad customer reviews, and NetGear are proactively responding and trying to get those reviewers to update their comments now that things are working cleaner.

Of course, if your goal is to go open-source, none of this is really a problem for you. It's a nice piece of hardware.

Re:Netgear WNDR-3700

[manaway]

Or its newer variants. Loaded with OpenWRT, there's nothing you can't do with them. Newer variants have even more flash and RAM.

Except (some of?) the newer variants, particularly the Netgear WNDR-3700 version 3 with the Broadcom chipset, do not run OpenWRT. Yet.

Re:Netgear WNDR-3700

[danbob999]

Yes, OpenWRT supports many VPN protocols.

Re:Netgear WNDR-3700

[danbob999]

there is a TP-Link device very similar to the WNDR3700. It doesn't support the 5 GHz band but has removable external antennas.

Look at TomatoUSB

[PhrostyMcByte]

I've been a long-time DD-WRT user, but its development seemed to stagnate. I recently put TomatoUSB on my Linksys WRT160N v1, and it is working wonderfully. The interface is much nicer, and exposes more QoS and bandwidth management features which I've found useful. Check out the TomatoUSB website for a list of routers it supports.

Re:Look at TomatoUSB

[CRCulver]

I've been a long-time DD-WRT user, but its development seemed to stagnate.

The last release of TomatoUSB was over a year ago. My own version of DD-WRT dates from about the same time. I don't see how you can hold the former up as making more progress than the latter.

Re:Look at TomatoUSB

[Elbart]

tomatousb.org isn't the only place, where progress is being made. http://www.linksysinfo.org/ is another one.

MIPS/horsepower?

[Hazel Bergeron]

Sorry, which activity is CPU bound here?

Re:MIPS/horsepower?

[X0563511]

Um, all of the routing? You know, the stuff that a router does?

Re:MIPS/horsepower?

[Oo.et.oO]

tack onto just general routing ANY QOS stuff, or say a VPN server, or SSH tunneling and my wrt54gs ground to a halt.
i have a wndr3700 now and it flies and does everything i want with dd-wrt/open-wrt on it

Re:MIPS/horsepower?

[blair1q]

That may actually be done in hardware. And shouldn't be much of the router's processing. I mean, just how many routes are you trying to resolve in a second, anyway?

Re:MIPS/horsepower?

[tomherbst]

The only thing done in hardware is generally the LAN switching. All bridging to/from WIFI and all traffic to/from the Internet (WAN port) is via a software path. The technology exists so it could be done in hardware, it just isn't necessary because the software path is fast enough.

Re:MIPS/horsepower?

[Hazel Bergeron]

So the CPU can't keep up with routing? Really? (As in, evidence please?)

Re:MIPS/horsepower?

[mattventura]

Generally not for home routing, but worst case, you might be routing 4Gbps on a device with 4 gigE ports. A 200MHz cpu found in older routers isn't going to keep up with that.

Re:MIPS/horsepower?

[X0563511]

This is not x86. There's the hardware switch - then there is the routing CPU that has to handle all traffic going between LAN, WAN, and Wireless (if applicable). The only stuff that's I/O bound is LAN->LAN (over the switch) assuming it's simple traffic that doesn't go out the gateway (which is the routing CPU).

To complicate matters, the wireless is usually software defined - meaning CPU is dedicated to the radio signal generation/modulation (or at least directing the chip(s) doing so) - think winmodem, but less retarded.

ASUS RT-16N / DD-WRT

[jipis]

I recently put an RT-16N in service in my office running DD-WRT. As the the Internet sez, the stock firmwire is crap, but this thing flies while running DD-WRT.

Re:ASUS RT-16N / DD-WRT

[Ron Harwood]

I'm going second this recommendation. I've got an RT-16N and it's a pleasure to work with. Between the USB ports, the decent amount of RAM and flash... and the peppy CPU... It's more than one should expect for the price.

Re:ASUS RT-16N / DD-WRT

[darkmeridian]

It is also compatible with Tomato/TomatoUSB. The Asus RT-N16 is a monster with 128 MB RAM and 32 MB flash. That's overkill for most people, but hardcore dorks need that extra RAM and flash for their Optware packages. But OpenVPN works awesomely with TomatoUSB and the Asus RT-N16. If you don't need dozens of concurrent connections, it will probably do the trick for most small businesses.

Re:ASUS RT-16N / DD-WRT

[Anonymous Coward]

Agreed. The RT-16N is the best way to go. It's open and runs TomatoUSB great.

I don't care for DD-WRT and especially wouldn't suggest that to someone who just wants an appliance. Tomato is much more friendly.

Re:ASUS RT-16N / DD-WRT

[blackC0pter]

3rd for this router. I'm using this as a router + qos + asterisk box for the in-laws. I set them up to have all IP phones connecting to this router and then the router registering with vitelity for phone service. Great setup and saves them a lot of money compared to the bells. The router has 128MB of ram and 32MB of flash so it is one of the most powerful and has the most space for adding stuff than most other routers. I also setup a vpn connection to my house and some custom routing so I can directly access their internal subnet from my computers and diagnose if necessary.

Router is flashed with tomato and then loaded with Optware in order to install asterisk and other addons. Here are some steps to get this done. One side item, the guide for optware has you install it on an external USB drive. But I installed it directly on the /jffs partition so you don't need to add a usb drive. The router has plenty of space to add data to it so I just used this. Also, if you want to do any custom linux commands in tomato, the root os doesn't preserve state after reboot. So be sure to put all the commands you want run in the web gui under administration->scripts. Custom routing commands will need to go there since tomato is limited in the custom routing you can do with the gui (no interface routing? bah)
--Install tomato: http://tomatousb.org/tut:installing-on-asus-rt-n16
--Install optware: http://tomatousb.org/tut:optware-installation

Re:ASUS RT-16N / DD-WRT

[rotorbudd]

Had a Asus RT-16n with Tomato for over a year with only power outages for downtime.
Like the other poster said, go to http://tomatousb.org/ for all the latest info.

Re:ASUS RT-16N / DD-WRT

[guruevi]

Get a second power supply though (12V 2A works well) as the standard supply burns out when (I suppose this is the cause) attaching USB devices.

Re:ASUS RT-16N / DD-WRT

[MoFoQ]

u mean the RT-N16?

I have several of them (using DD-WRT and one I use to experiment with debwrt [derivative of openwrt]).
And I just got another one during the Newegg Black Friday sale.

Re:ASUS RT-16N / DD-WRT

[Have Brain Will Rent]

ok this may be slightly off topic but I'm curious... we (a couple) are considering to dump Primus VOIP and go with just cell phones (already have them) but will miss the call screening function Primus provided like specifying individual call treatments for different incoming numbers, which afaik aren't available on cell phones and what functions are available cost way too much on the available cell plans here.

It sounds like what you have done would be interesting... what functions is asterisk providing that your in-laws needed?

Any recommendations for cell phones that also provide wifi voip? I've been planning on waiting to upgrade my cell a bit until IceCreamSandwich is generally available early in 2012.

Re:ASUS RT-16N / DD-WRT

[blackC0pter]

You are probably better off using google voice. GV lets you screen calls as necessary. Then your android phone can connect directly to GV and make calls through it.

I use asterisk for the in-laws so that incoming calls can ring all phones in the house at the same time and so they can also transfer calls to each phone in the house independently. Also, using a sip trunk to the voip provider allows them to have as many concurrent incoming and outgoing calls as the bandwidth provides on their internet connection. They just pay per minute for each call and not per line. Asterisk also allows multiple different DIDs to be forwarded to their house and ring the same phones. If I ever wanted to have a single DID ring only one phone it's pretty easy to change that as well. Also, asterisk can setup time-based ringing for lines, blacklisting, and lots of other things. But the main reason for asterisk is so that I can use low cost SIP trunk providers. Services that abstract away from SIP will charge you a lot more money.

However, configuring asterisk is not the easiest thing to pickup. It does give you complete control over the phone call and routing of the channel but getting it working perfectly takes some time. There are some guis that try to make it simple, like freepbx, trixbox, elastix, but I prefer a barebones asterisk install. If you learn how to configure the extensions and endpoints properly, you can have a lot of control over the system. You can even have incoming calls be passed to a perl or python script to control the flow of the call. It's an easy way to create a nice IVR (interactive voice response) system so you can have a fancy menu system for incoming calls.

Just went through this myself

[G]

I finally landed on the Netgear WNDR3700-v2, a nice dual-band atheros box. Got two of them for wireless bridging.

So far I've flashed DD-WRT and OpenWRT without any trouble at all. Though I've historically used WW-DRT and Tomato I'm still torn on which will be permanent. Tomato isn't an option with these due to them not being Broadcom based. I'm leaning strongly to OpenWRT as it seems to be the most mature and flexible of the two.

Re:Just went through this myself

[G]

P.S. This is sold as the Netgear N600.

Buffalo WHR-HP-G300N

[FlashBuster3000]

I just ordered a Buffalo WHR-HP-G300N for 30€ (Amazon Cyber Monday).
Had the same thoughts.. running a WRT54GL with Tomato and want to upgrade to 802.11n.
The Buffalo one runs DD-WRT, so it seems like a good choice..

Re:Buffalo WHR-HP-G300N

[GameboyRMH]

Just remember the N-variant has swappable antennas but no gigabit LAN, the NH-variant has gigatbit LAN but non-swappable antennas.

WNDR3700v2

[raul]

Just because for installing this great firmware http://www.bufferbloat.net/projects/cerowrt/wiki/Wiki Kill the bufferfloat, and make your wifi faster and you can play with incredible mesh technologies.

Asus makes a good one.

[Anonymous Coward]

Personally I have become a fan of the Asus RT-N16. VERY fast, TONS of RAM, USB ports for expansion, runs TomatoUSB and DD-WRT. These have been dead on reliable so far (I have one personally, and we use 4 for remote offices at work). The only negative I can say is that the LED's are extremely bright. You won't need a night-light in your living room with one of these, that's for sure.

Re:Asus makes a good one.

[rotorbudd]

Know what you mean about the LEDs.
Had to put tape over them, at night, could see them lighting up the den down the hall.

I prefer hardware that's designed to be flashed

[matty619]

Like an Alix Board and run pfSense on it, with the available packages, there are likely few network related tasks you'll find that pfSense 2.0 on Alix hardware cannot handle. You can also put in whatever wireless card you want, but I prefer to run a dedicated AP. Used Cisco Aironets can be found on Ebay for under $100 and are rock solid.

Re:I prefer hardware that's designed to be flashed

[Victor_0x53h]

This is my exact setup, but I used Soekris hardware with Slackware. A little more expensive than buying consumer-grade hardware and flashing, but I learned a lot and it's much more flexible.

Re:I prefer hardware that's designed to be flashed

[bengoerz]

If you're going to drop that much cash, why not just get a standard 1U Atom setup. Example: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816101332

Re:I prefer hardware that's designed to be flashed

[houstonbofh]

Funny enough, I often use Tomato flashed devices for APs hanging off m0n0wall and pfSense boxes. More stable than most APs, and cheaper than the good commercial APs.

Re:I prefer hardware that's designed to be flashed

[atamido]

Like an Alix Board and run pfSense on it, with the available packages, there are likely few network related tasks you'll find that pfSense 2.0 on Alix hardware cannot handle. You can also put in whatever wireless card you want, but I prefer to run a dedicated AP. Used Cisco Aironets can be found on Ebay for under $100 and are rock solid.

I second this (or sixth, seeing the comments). You could also use any old PC laying around and it will have orders of magnitude of more power than any consumer router. I personally like old laptops and netbooks because they have built in battery backups + screens.

eBay

[acoustix]

Just go to eBay and buy some used enterprise equipment dirt cheap. Cisco 2600 (2611 or 2621) or 2800 series routers will do what you want and have the horse power and code base for your needs. There are some good bargains to be had.

I guess they probably won't support DynDNS, but everything else should be covered.

Re:eBay

[jon3k]

send me a message, I've got about fourty 2651XMs in the storage room I need to get rid of, I'll give you a good deal.

Re:eBay

[joshio]

As long as you have a new enough version of IOS, they will support Dyndns.
http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/ios/12_3/12_3y/12_3ya8/gt_ddns.html

I have a Cisco 3640 at home that takes care of my Dyndns for me with no issues.

Re:eBay

[acoustix]

I just love it when someone say, "I'm looking for a motorcycle," and some smart alec says, "What you really need is a pickup," like he knows better than the OP what it is he really wants...

Not sure if serious. The OP said that he wanted a router that he could customize with lots of features - quasi enterprise features. What he's looking to purchase will likely cost $50-$70. The information that I provided can get him enterprise functionality for $50 to whatever he wants to spend.

I used lots of enterprise equipment at home because it's fun, educational, and just because I can.

Re:eBay

[barc0001]

Depends on the complexity level required also. Stuff like Tomato and DDWRT are pretty straightforward to configure, whereas playing with Cisco IOS can be daunting. So that might be a hidden cost.

Re:eBay

[houstonbofh]

But, once you need to recover a password, or upgrade the firmware, all of that savings is gone...

Re:eBay

[acoustix]

What are you talking about? You can find Cisco IOS firmware pretty much anywhere. Ask the IT department at the office. I'm sure they can get it for you. Plus recovering a password does nothing to the "savings". Reset the password and move on with life.

Re:eBay

[tibit]

1. No way to compile your own software for those.
2. No way to download firmware updates IIRC without an active support contract with Cisco.
3. Fail.

If anything, HP gear seems to have firmware downloads available without having to jump through hoops. Cisco is their exact opposite.

Re:eBay

[TennCasey]

Actually, you can recover the password. You just have to boot it into ROM Monitor and change the config register so it'll bypass the startup-config. Then load the config and change the password.

Re:eBay

[houstonbofh]

Point being, putting the used item under support so that you can get updates and instruction in how to recover a password will cost more than you saved. And if you have the skill to do it yourself, you would not be asking this question on slashdot.

Re:eBay

[swalve]

Resetting a password is right on their website.

Linksys E3000

[chis101]

I've been very happy with TomatoUSB on the E3000. Only $60 refurb, or $70 new from NewEgg ( http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833124419 ). Simultaneous 2.4/5GHZ g/n, USB port for NAS/Printer, 64MB RAM, gigabit switch. Only has 8MB flash though, if you were planning on storing lots of programs on it (you would want to put those on a USB flash drive anyway, so I don't think internal flash really matters)

Re:Linksys E3000

[synapse7]

I've been running dd-wrt on an e3000 and have been happy with it, great performance. After reading about tomato I think I'm going to reflash the router tonight and give it a try. My e3000 runs rather hot, I believe it was around 140F with a temp gun measured on the plastic case, perspective buyers be aware of that, I actually placed a netbook cooler under it as I was worried about burning it up on hot summer days. The dd-wrt forum I have not found to be friendly, I had general questions about issues with QoS policies that I think may have been firmware version related, but my thread kept getting deleted. Also, the update process for dd-wrt seems convoluted, where some articles explicitly state to flash with an initial flash firmware then the target firmware.

Re:Linksys E3000

[batkiwi]

I second this recommendation. I run two of these (1 as a router, 1 as a bridge) with tomatoUSB.

DD-WRT runs just as well on it.

Re:Linksys E3000

[alexo]

I've been very happy with TomatoUSB on the E3000. Only $60 refurb, or $70 new from NewEgg ( http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833124419 ). Simultaneous 2.4/5GHZ g/n, USB port for NAS/Printer, 64MB RAM, gigabit switch.

I didn't know TomatoUSB supported simultaneous dual band.

Re:Linksys E3000

[Scaba]

I also would like to give the E3000 and TomatoUSB an AOL-style "me too!"

Re:Linksys E3000

[synapse7]

I just installed tomato on my e3000, I've been using it all of 15mins and I highly recommend it over dd-wrt. To answer your question it does support dual band, I have separate SSIDs for each band. I like that it shows device info for devices with satic IPs, dd-wrt did not show this. Tomato also shows wireless connection strength for each device which is nice for bridges with no connection info. Tomato also knocked about 200ms off the latency reported in WoW, I'm not sure this can be accurate but that is what I'm seeing, and I haven't setup QoS yet.

Re:Linksys E3000

[Shadow Labs]

I've been running dd-wrt on an e3000 and have been happy with it, great performance. After reading about tomato I think I'm going to reflash the router tonight and give it a try. My e3000 runs rather hot, I believe it was around 140F with a temp gun measured on the plastic case, perspective buyers be aware of that, I actually placed a netbook cooler under it as I was worried about burning it up on hot summer days. The dd-wrt forum I have not found to be friendly, I had general questions about issues with QoS policies that I think may have been firmware version related, but my thread kept getting deleted. Also, the update process for dd-wrt seems convoluted, where some articles explicitly state to flash with an initial flash firmware then the target firmware.

+1 recommendation for the e3000. I just recently purchased mine during an Amazon Black Friday lightning deal and am running TomatoUSB Ext on it. It's been working great for my Windows b/g/n laptop, a/b/g/n MacBook Pro, and b/g Wii (streaming Netflix and playing Mario Kart Wii).

I was initially worried about the numerous reports of the e3000 running hot, but I turned the Transmit Power setting down from a default of 42 mW to 24 mW on both the 5 GHz and 2.4 GHz radios. I haven't had any problems at all with heat since making the change and still get great coverage in both bands in my (small) house. The setting is under Advanced --> Wireless in TomatoUSB. Be sure to change it for both the 2.4 GHz/eth1 and the 5 GHz/eth2 interfaces. YMMV.

Re:Linksys E3000

[alexo]

Found this on the changelog page:
"Currently only 2 dual-radio models are supported, and only by K26 builds: Linksys WRT610Nv2 and Linksys E3000"

However, the latest build was a year ago.
Maybe some of the forks support more models?

Re:Linksys E3000

[synapse7]

Apparently there are multiple distros, I happened to use the Victek RAF build.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomato_firmware

Re:Other alternatives?

[GameboyRMH]

pfSense is good for office firewalls but it's severe overkill (at least in hardware) for most home uses.

RT-N16 also runs Tomato

[LanMan04]

This is what I run at home, and it works awesome (although I use Tomato).

Also supports sharing an NTFS or NFS drive to the network via a USB2.0 port.

Re:Pedant Slashdotter is Confused!

[matty619]

Pretty sure he's just clarifying that he needs hardware with more processing power. MIPS for the geeky geeks, horsepower for the casual geek. Take your pick. But i'm pretty sure he's not looking for a router w/ a pull-start lawnmower style.

WNDR3700 + OpenWRT

[danbob999]

Really, OpenWRT is the only clean firmware out there.

Avoid anything with a broadcom wireless nic. The open source drivers aren't on par with atheros yet.

The Netgear WND3700, with its 680 MHz CPU, 64MB RAM, gigabit and concurrent dual band support is still pretty much the top. Some newer routers support 3x3 MIMO (450 Mbps) instead of 2x2 (300 Mbps) but I don't think they run alternatives firmware well yet.

PacketProtector

[jensend]

Up till recently I would have recommended PacketProtector, which has a lot of useful features including Snort, DansGuardian, and ClamAV integration. But both because OpenWRT, which it was based on, has lagged in hardware support and because the main developer's work and Masters are eating up all his time, it's kind of stagnated. If one or two people were to pick up some of the slack it could again be a fantastic solution.

This subject has been beaten to death

[funkboy]

1: go read smallnetbuilder and decide for yourself.

2: Mikrotik probably has something you'd be happy with for not a lot of money.

Re:This subject has been beaten to death

[Anonymous Coward]

Funk Boy deserves an upvote for Mikrotik. I've been using that for over two years now. It is stable and reliable and supports just about every configuration you can think of. I have a bridge between the main router and my home entertainment center that runs at over 300mbps using the 5.8ghz band. I have 802.11n throughout my house with at least 5-6 devices on it without any hiccups (to include skype / vpn / bria VOIP via Wifi on my mobile).

Re:This subject has been beaten to death

[Matt_R]

I was thinking about buying Mikrotik, but the lack of OpenVPN UDP support combined with all the problems my friend is having with his & IPv6... I'll stick OpenWRT on one of these: http://wiki.openwrt.org/toh/tp-link/tl-wr1043nd

pfSense + WRT54GS

[iMouse]

You could always set the WRT54GS as a wireless bridge and use pfSense 2.0 on the backend for all of the firewall, DHCP, QoS, RADIUS, etc.

You won't be upgrading to 802.11n support or GigE on the wireless end, but you could certainly use an old PC with GigE NICs in pfSense on the backend.

I currently have an old Dell Dimension 2400 configured with pfsense 2.0 and two WRT54G v.2.2 APs with Tomato in bridged mode and have no performance complaints (other than maybe the 54Mbps limitation of the actual AP)

netgear n600 (wndr3800)

[Oo.et.oO]

is still top of the charts in most regards at smallnetbuilder at reasonable price point and open-firmware compatible

n750 is a bit faster but way more $$. now someone find me one with good external antenna connectors!

Re:netgear n600 (wndr3800)

[loxosceles]

wndr3700 or 3800.

They are atheros based, so there's the issue of occasional wireless drop-outs that may be fixed in openwrt snapshots (check svn changelog for late November '11), but that's a lot better than the wndr4500 and other broadcom SOC devices that are proprietary and difficult to reverse engineer.

Also, the wndr3700 is hard to brick, and easy to tftp to. There are similar atheros-based devices like the buffalo wzr-hp-g300nh (2.4GHz-only) and ag300nh (2.4 + 5 GHz), but they're harder to flash and maybe have quality control problems on transmit power (some people complain).

Re:netgear n600 (wndr3800)

[loxosceles]

Oops, the dual band buffalo is wzr-hp-ag300h, not -nh.

Atheros:
Netgear wndr3700v1: 8MB flash, 64MB ram
Netgear wndr3700v2: 16MB flash, 64MB ram
Netgear wndr3800: 16MB flash, 128MB ram
Buffalo wzr-hp-g300nh: 32MB flash, 64MB ram (more chance of a lemon than the netgear wndr series)
Buffalo wzr-hp-ag300h: 32MB flash, 128MB ram

Broadcom
Netgear wndr4000: 8MB flash 64MB ram (BCM4718 ?)
Netgear wndr4500: 128MB flash 128MB ram (BCM4706 ?)
Linksys/Cisco e3000: 8MB flash 64MB ram (BCM4718 ?)
Linksys/Cisco e4200: 16MB flash 64MB ram (BCM4718 ?)

The ciscos from what I've read are very picky about nvram size.

Re:netgear n600 (wndr3800)

[bill_mcgonigle]

Wndr 3800 (not 3700) if you're buying online. There are some versions of 3700 you don't want, and it's almost impossible to know what version you're buying online. The 3800 currently only has one version, which is supported in the current trunk of OpenWRT.

I ordered from Amazon both new for the office and refurbished for home, and I got 3700v2 for both.

I think it's a matter of who has old inventory vs. high turn-over (though I guess refurbished could be a crapshoot). But the refurb 3700 is half the price of a 3800.

For those on a budget

[ndogg]

WNR3500L

I put Tomato (by far the best firmware for a router ever made) on it, and it works like a charm. They can be found pretty easily on eBay and other places for $40 to $70.

RouterStation PRO by ubiquity

[LinuxOnEveryDesktop]

It ships with (an old version of) OpenWRT preinstalled. It doesn't get better/friendlier than that :)

Add a nice case (for instance from netgate.com - they have them but the page for that product seems to be broken right now, sigh) and powersupply (48V DC, netgate has them too).

Finally, add up to three minipci wifi cards (and make sure to get pigtails and antennas). A good vendor for that stuff is pcengines.ch; the Wistron DNMA92 Atheros 802.11a/b/g/n card is cheap at $26 and it uses the ath9k driver (no binary blobs). PCengines also has cheap pigtails and antennas.

All in all this costs quite a bit more than your run of the mill access point, but this puppy is a lot more powerful than your average access point.

Give TP Link a try

[Megor1]

I have been using linksys E3000/E2000 routers, but recently I have switched to TP-LINK, they are Atheros based and take the usual custom firmwares (DDWRT etc). They are much cheaper than the other brands, the high end model is only $55 (Newegg even had them for less over the weekend) and works much better than my Linksys WRT400n/E3000/E2000 ever did.

Tp-link Wr1043nd

[s4nt]

Meets all requirements from the OP.
runs openwrt and dd-wrt
4x gigE
wireless N (no 5GHZ tough)
USB port
CPU Atheros AR9132@400MHz
RAM 32MB
FLASH 8MB

http://www.tp-link.com/en/products/details/?model=TL-WR1043ND

http://wiki.openwrt.org/toh/tp-link/tl-wr1043nd

Re: Tp-link Wr1043nd

[james_marsh]

These are excellent,widely available and very cheap devices. Mine was £33.

I have it running OpenWrt and as well as managing the network it gets reasonable speeds as a backup with a 6TB lvm volume. "Reasonable" disk write speed in this context is in comparison to other devices like slugs etc. I get just over 10MB/s sustained write via vsftp (proved to be quite a bit faster than samba, nfs and sftp).

Re: Tp-link Wr1043nd

[Timothy Dyck]

I have also had good results with the TP-LINK TL-WR1043ND Ultimate Wireless N Gigabit Router running OpenWrt and use them as network firewall/gateways, OpenVPN server/clients and small VLAN-capable switches.

The hardware specs are great for the price ($55-$65): 5 gigabit ports, 802.11n and the real winner is that OpenWrt has good support for the RTL8366RB switch chipset, including tagged VLANs. Getting a switch that has VLAN support for this price is not otherwise available, that I've found. The stock TP-LINK firmware does not expose the VLAN features but they are there and available if OpenWrt is used.

- Chipset is the Atheros AR9132 rev. 2 WISOC, which contains: Atheros 3×2 (3rx, 2 tx) MIMO wireless + MIPS 24Kc V7.4 CPU running at 400Mhz) – 266.24 BogoMIPS
- RAM: 32 MB
- FLASH NVRAM: 8 MB
- 801.11n/g/b 2.4 GHz
- 4+1 gigabit Ethernet ports (RTL8366RB chipset with 802.1Q VLAN support – see http://www.realtek.com.tw/products/productsView.aspx?Langid=1&PNid=18&PFid=15&Level=5&Conn=4&ProdID=197)
- 1 USB 2.0 (can put a small USB stick in and use it as swap space to run programs that otherwise wouldn't work given 32 MB of RAM, such as dansguardian)

The one main problem I've found is that some wireless clients have problems connecting using 802.11 -- see the bug "Backfire ar71xx error: ath: Failed to stop TX DMA!" at https://dev.openwrt.org/ticket/9693 for examples. This has improved with -rc5 and -rc6.

-Tim Miller Dyck

Mini-ITX

[MightyMartian]

I've been running various routers (Linksys, Asus) under DD-WRT or Tomato, but I'm finally just going to bite the bullet, and build a Mini-ITX machine with a flash drive and a wireless AP card. Then I can install a full pop Linux install without all the oddities I've experienced under DD-WRT and its cousins and derivatives. The worst one was a Tomato router that was supposed to run two segregated subnets with one subnet having full access to the other, but not visa-versa, but the iptables script would be overwritten after a minute or so, obviously because some other daemon was starting and resetting iptables. After an hour or two of kicking this around, I pulled out an old shitty desktop box, tossed another NIC in it and built a router with Debian. My time is money, so even if a mini-itx hits five hundred bucks, it represents a lot more functionality.

Re:Other alternatives?

[anagama]

Probably true -- I use pfsense in my office and I like it a lot. However, I wouldn't discount it for slashdotter home use -- there's a good liklihood the person asking this question has a computer in a closet he hasn't been using -- perfect pfsense platform for the cost of a wireless card, a gigabit nic, and gigabit switch (assuming he doesn't have a few of those laying around as well -- if he does, pfsense just costs the download).

re WRT-54GS

[freddieb]

I have struggled with the same. I have put dd-wrt on a couple of clones and ending up bricking them with updates or modifications. I have two suggestions. Mikrotik has just come out with a high power ap / router for under $100 bucks. Their routeros is linux based and the new ap/router has a usb port also. I have had good luck running hostapd on a linux server. I presently use one of the high power (EPI-3601S) available from Amazon or Newegg and the latest version of Ubuntu server edition. Works great however, this card doesn't have wireless N.

Re:Other alternatives?

[ifrag]

Or at that point, just go all out and pick a BSD distro if spare hardware is on hand. Although beware that the OpenBSD version of pf has diverged slightly, so the syntax is going to be a little bit different going with anything past 4.6 IIRC. Supposedly NetBSD has the fastest IP stack of them all though, and should probably have the more classic pf.

And if anyone feels the need to chime in about iptables here, I don't care what extra useless features it has, pf is much easier to use.

Re:Use a PC

[schnikies79]

and spend 10x as much for electricity to it. No thanks.

More than that I'd say

[BLKMGK]

With all of these requests and demand you would think someone would sit down and figure out a good set of hardware for this and build specifically for it - completely open and supported! I too have a WRT54G that needs replacing and spotted a cheap dual radio Linksys on BlackFirday sale for $70 that I ordered when I noted the comments stated it worked well with OpenWRT. That will be an interim solution at best.

Honestly I'd even build an Atom PC or something like it to best support this if I could find a distro that worked and hardware that made sense. So far no go....

Re:More than that I'd say

[GameboyRMH]

There are a decent number of models aimed specifically at firmware modders who want high-end hardware, the demand isn't going unnoticed.

Re:More than that I'd say

[ckaminski]

Links?

Re:More than that I'd say

[GameboyRMH]

I can't find any lists of such models, but that's almost what this discussion is - a list of high-spec consumer routers that can accept custom firmware. I know that the boxes of many such models advertise this capability. Scroll through and look at the suggestions.

Cisco E4200 with Shibby's Tomato build

[Gordo_1]

Rock solid combo that I use:
Cisco E4200 refurb for $99: http://homestore.cisco.com/en-us/Routers/Linksys-Refurbished-E4200-MaximumPerformance-Wirelessn-router_stcVVproductId133604734VVviewprod.htm

Shibby's Tomato build (use AIO for most complete featureset):
http://tomato.groov.pl/index.php?dir=K26RT-N%2Fbuild5x-079V-EN%2FE4200

Do not use DD-WRT with this router as it's a mess (been there done that.)

Linux?

[jon3k]

whats wrong with x86? just build a cheap x86 box and add whatever components you want. you could even throw untangle on something. i'm sure you've got an old pc sitting around somewhere, or someone has one you can have.

Re:Pedant Slashdotter is Confused!

[blair1q]

It's a tradeoff metric. If you want it to go faster on the freeway you may have to give up some integer-processing performance. A unit with more MIPS/horsepower would let you get more of either or both.

And now I'm actually highly curious as to what a table of MIPS/horsepower would look like for current production vehicles. Some new cars have upwards of 100 embedded CPUs.

Re:Other alternatives?

[bussdriver]

I'm running it at home.

Doubles as a file server and uses only about 60W power! VIA mini + 2 HDs + Intel multi-port nic + boots from flash and almost is the size of a lunchbox. (I couldn't fit the HDs into the lunch box I bought for the project. next time...) An oversized Fanaflow fan and the thing is fairly quiet. Someday I may add a music server since it has audio out and I'm thinking about a bit torrent client (since my desktop uses way more power doing that.) I have a USB wifi nic but haven't bothered to play with it yet. Plus it runs from 12V DC (80W) so I can easily have a redundant power supply. Oh, if your curious, I made the case from sheet metal HVAC ducts and pop rivets.

While not as stable as I'd like, I can run snort as well. Otherwise it runs longer than the WRT54G did between crashes.

Apple Airport Extreme

[Wingsy]

I've used several routers in the recent past, and every single one of them would bog down to around 100-300kbps when I had a couple hundred peers connected in a torrent. Then I got an Apple Airport Extreme and now I get my full bandwidth of 15mbps with the same load. That sold me.

Re:Apple Airport Extreme

[danbob999]

You should try something else than cheap $10 routers.
Seriously, Apple routers are not bad, but there are other good (and often cheaper) alternatives out there that can do torrents at well over 15 Mbps. And the OP is looking for a device on which you can flash a 3rd party firmware so I don't think the Airport would be of any use.

Re:Apple Airport Extreme

[MikeDataLink]

I second this. I have 50/50 Fios and tried every stupid Linksys, Dlink, Buffalo and other router you could find and they all wound up crashing constantly under a load.

I finally got an Apple Airport Extreme and I can use my full 50mb with zero crashes. IT JUST WORKS. That's Apple for you.

Re:Apple Airport Extreme

[theurge14]

I mentioned this in the last router thread we had here on Slashdot. Best router I've owned, but this thread is about router modding...

Re:Apple Airport Extreme

[brianerst]

I have an Airport Extreme (Generation 3) which is supposed to have Gigabit ethernet ports but they never worked - they always connected at 100mbps. I tried everything I could think of - updated firmware, changed network card, changed to Cat6 cable to no avail.

I just got Comcast Digital Voice service which comes with a required SMC cable modem with a built Gigabit router. Plugged it in and gigabit ethernet suddenly worked - it was literally plug and play.

(I have a big Cisco gigabit switch in the basement, so everything else was running at gigabit speeds, but anything going thru the Airport router was 100mbps.)

There are literally dozens of complaints on the Apple support forums about this sort of thing and they are never resolved, so I'm less impressed with the Extreme.

Re:Other alternatives?

[GameboyRMH]

I have my home server down to 40W @ idle, doing BT, file server, HTPC and more. It has 4 HDDs, 2 are spinning most of the time. I'm using some cheapo mobo with an Intel 2.8 dual core CPU (E5500) and cheapo PSU. All onboard peripherals except one hot-swappable SATA controller. I set up passive CPU cooling with a script to reduce the CPU frequency stepping if it gets too hot. If I had money to throw away, I'd get a fanless PSU and a mesh-faced case, and go with positive pressure passive cooling - just one jumbo filtered intake fan to cool everything, and it would stay clean inside.

Once every 4 months is OK with me

[PingXao]

I have not yet had a really good reason to switch away from my WRT54GS routers yet. One day there will be a compelling reason to do so. When that day comes I want to hear about it on slashdot.

Re:Once every 4 months is OK with me

[GameboyRMH]

I guess you're pretty gentle on your Internet connection and don't move big files over your LAN at all, or you would have run into some reasons by now.

Re:Once every 4 months is OK with me

[ckaminski]

Um, the WRT54G has enough oomph to run Wireless-G. If you want gigabit performance, get a dedicated gigabit switch.

Re:Once every 4 months is OK with me

[damiangerous]

I have no reason to move from my WRT54G and I use it heavily. I download enough to routinely be over my "suggested" cap and stream HD around the house, but that's not really relevant because those go through a GigE switch, not the WRT54G.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

If you have some old hardware...

[sco_robinso]

If you have an old PC sitting around, why not use one of the excellent software-based routers out there? pfsense is one of the most popular (given it's BSD based), there's also IPCop, ClarkCounty, etc. There's even some free commercial options like Astaro, who's home-license only limits you to 50 internal IPs (plenty for most people, even by today's standards).

I use Astaro, and used to use pfsense. You get all of the features of a high end enterprise router, basically for free. The only obvious limitation is no built-in wireless, so you just hang an AP off an interface. Astaro offers their software as a VM appliance as well, so then you virtualize it if you so chose (as I do on ESXi 5).

I've used DD-WRT quite a bit, and I'd still personally prefer Astaro or pfsense.

Re:Other alternatives?

[rootchick]

What's so wrong with a little overkill? :D

Re:WNR 3XXXX

[mcomeau]

Very happy with my WNR3500L using DD-WRT. Have tried Tomato as well, worked fine.

RouterBOARD (Mikrotik)

[Anonymous Coward]

Mikrotik makes their own custom hardware (called RouterBOARD) for RouterOS (also developed by Mikrotik). It has all the features you're looking for, the boards are reasonably priced and can deliver way better performance than most SOHO equipment. If you're feeling short on cash you can buy a standard Mini-ITX board (basically any model will do) and slap RouterOS on it (a license costs less than $50 if I remember correctly and comes with lifetime updates). Mikrotik also sell some of the best wireless NICs on the market.

While we're on the subject - ADSL?

[jimicus]

Can someone explain why ADSL (and for that matter PPPoA) support in F/OSS firmware tends to be so patchy?

Re:While we're on the subject - ADSL?

[lanner]

Yes, it sucks. It's complicated.

Check out the Sangoma S518 card. I was shocked they were still selling it all these years later. Be warned that the drivers are really difficult to get working though. I never did get this card working with my local ADSL provider.

http://wiki.sangoma.com/wanpipe-linux-adsl-support

I think these are mostly for development rather than actual use, but whatever.

Single pair is just so dead.

Re:While we're on the subject - ADSL?

[rahvin112]

I can't answer your question but I do have a word for you. Sangoma.They have internal ADSL modems that have their own tools including PPPoA that's pretty brainless to setup.

My experience was that PPPoA is fully supported in generic Linux, just the documentation on how to set it up blows balls for English speakers as the highest concentration of Linux users using PPPoA is European, particularly French, German and Dutch. That I don't speak those languages severely limits the available help. If you need help search for the Kiwi and Aussie Linux PPPoA instructions (several LUG's have documentation) as theirs was the best English documentation available when I was looking.

Netgear wnr3500 v2

[sl4shd0rk]

I replaced my old wrt54g and buffalo routers with two of these and flashed with dd-wrt. Can be had for around $30.00 on ebay. Gig ports, N wi-fi. Way more ram for connection tracking than the wrt. Make sure you get the version 2 model. Version 1 will not flash.

Re:Other alternatives?

[ob0]

Or on some hardware more like a traditional home router, e.g. a PC Engines Alix, or Soekris. Either will give you a very powerful router that runs on only a few watts. The downside of these is they're (AFAIK) 100Mb only, and it's hard to find a suitable wireless-n card. I've found pfSense to be much more powerful and stable than DD-WRT. pfSense 2.0 onwards will let you set any DHCP Number, Type, Value combination you want.

Flash

[Dan East]

What did the Jedi ever do to your DHCP server? That seems a bit harsh.

Furthermore, everyone knows Flash is on the way out. I'd skip the Flash-Friendly routers and go straight to an HTML5-Friendly router.

My question is..

[thejynxed]

Which ones support custom firmware, non-gimped RAM, IPv6, are STABLE, have GigE ports, and have true dual-band G/N support? I am price-constrained as well, as I don't want to spend $300 on a freaking home router, and seeing the brick and mortar prices going $150 or higher where I live is pushing it also.

I've always used the WRTG series, but mine is also feeling it's age and I'd like to update it and retire the WRTG to secondary AP support for PS3/XBox/Wii connectivity.

This help is greatly appreciated, and a short list of 5 or so from various manufacturers would be nice. TYIA.

WRT54GL

[0101000001001010]

After all these years, I still consider the WRT54GL to be the best wireless router for home use. I don't know if that's impressive or sad.

Consider giving Tomato a spin for firmware. Very user friendly, especially for slightly advanced uses like bridging.

Re:WRT54GL

[CaptSlaq]

As someone who uses Tomato on a pair WRT54GLs (mesh network in the home for lan parties), I can saw without reservation that I feel that it would hit 95-99% of what most people want out of their home network. The hardware is still good if a bit dated and the Tomato firmware blends all the control into a very nice GUI. Shell access for power users as well.

Or Netgear WNR3500L.

[Skvate]

Netgear WNR3500L. The open source version of WNR3500.

Re:Or Netgear WNR3500L.

[Dr. Spork]

That's what's routing my packets, and the firmware is the brilliant TomatoUSB. The reason why I have this router is that I wanted Gigabit lan, N wireless, Tomato support and a USB port for a network disk. I even successfully got a nice spindown script for the disk for those long stretches of time when it's not being read or written to. It all works brilliantly, and I bought it for $55 from NewEgg. My uptime has literally been 100% since I flashed to TomatoUSB. I don't think you can get a better deal if you're like me and insist on all these features.

not routing...other stuff

[Chirs]

As mentioned earlier, things like caching DNS server, QoS, and IPsec are generally done in software, as are things like making USB-connected external drives available as network storage. Often bridging between wired and wireless is done in software as well--my wndr3700 is way, way faster connecting between my wired and wireless networks than my old D-Link was.

ASUS RT-16N / DD-WRT

[jcltoday]

It has working really well for me for many months now. I used: dd-wrt.v24-14929_NEWD-2_K2.6_mini.bin dd-wrt.v24-14929_NEWD-2_K2.6_big.bin

If you get an old mac mini...

[cmholm]

Since @sco_robinso brought up the old PC as router idea, I'll suggest an old PPC Mac Mini. Available cheap on ebay, etc. Add the Apple USB NIC, and you've got a router. It'll run Linux and its various routing solutions, or OS X and either the built-in connection sharing or Sustworks IP Network Router. The Mini has the added benefit of being discrete, quiet, and easy on the electric bill.

There are small, non-Apple PCs that'll match the requirement, but the Minis are plentiful and easy to find.

Re:If you get an old mac mini...

[KozmoStevnNaut]

How is the latency on the USB NIC?

I'd assume it was worse than a dedicated PCI or onboard NIC, but I've been wrong before.

Re:If you get an old mac mini...

[cmholm]

Latency on the USB NIC? I sure it's worse than anything on a faster bus, but I've never tried to quantify it. The IPNR author has a short write up with some test results. For my home DSL network needs it has worked well enough. I've streamed Daily Show episodes, Youtube HD, and Hulu to a laptop over wifi behind the mini without a problem.

I've hosted IPNR on a number of older Macs over the years, using PCI for the second NIC on a G4 tower, and USB on a G3 iMac and G4 Mini. The iMac required kernel patches for IP over USB and was very flaky. The other two were hassle-free.

Make one using this

[mrops]

http://pcengines.ch/alix2d13.htm and a wireless minipci card of your choice (also available form the same vendor)

pick either dd-wrt or better freebsd based router oriented distros like pfsense

or get a Netgear WNDR3700, which IMO is a direct 2011 era replacement for WRT54G. Though what I found was that the built in firmware is rock solid and has QoS out of the box. doing bit-torrent full stream my Vonage VoIP and Facetime calls go through without a single hickup.

TL-WR1043ND

[citizenr]

Cheapest hardware with 1Gbit and USB 2.0 (~$50).
Only problem with it - bootloader doesnt setup vlans on teh ethernet bridge = you have WAN and LAN port bridged for few seconds after every boot :/ Maybe they fixed it already.

Tried a couple recently, settled on Asus RT-N56U

[gerald626]

My WRT54GL wasn't keeping up either with DD-WRT. Tried Tomato, but it just didn't do the trick for me. I tried the Linksys E3000 model, but my throughput went down by 100K/s. I swapped that out for the Asus RT-N56U and my throughput has never been better! Stock firmware is sufficient, and it has most of the features I wanted. Only missing feature was dns-o-matic support. QoS support is detailed enough for my needs (DNS, then VPN, then gaming, then everything else).

I know that custom firmwares typically let you do more, but I'm quite happy with the stock firmware on this model, for now at least. Still have to try the UPnP feature though.

Re:Other alternatives?

[fa2k]

If you want to roll your own traffic shaping on Linux, I have an example script. It can't be used as is, as it relies on my dynamic IP update script, and there are some commented out blocks. It implements bandwidth sharing per IP address, but not protocol based. I find that this setup is quite nice, since I don't have wi-fi encryption, so I need to guarantee my hosts some bandwidth. It may give you some ideas. http://www.fa2k.net/2raffic-20111201.py . I sort of recommend it if you have a lot of time, but it makes the most difference on a slow connection.

DreamPlug

[nickovs]

While it's a bit more targeted at the "server" market rather than "router" market, the DreamPlug does all that you want. It has dual gigabit ethernet, 802.11 b/g/n, a 1.2GHz ARM processor (with a decent crypto co-processor that can handle full duplex gigabit VPN encryption), USB2 and eSATA ports for adding discs, an external SD card port and 4GB of flash inside for the FS. It even has both analogue and SP/DIF audio out in case you want to stream music into your server cupboard. It's very low power too (typically about 10 watts).

Re:Use a PC

[fa2k]

and spend 10x as much for electricity to it. No thanks.

It's a cost-benefit analysis. A PC can do much more than routing, such as acting as a NAS (with proper firewalling of course), do large downloads that you would otherwise have to leave a PC on for. And there is no practical limit at all on bandwidth or number of connections. It can record TV if you have the right hardware, you can add a webcam to look at the house when away. I think the cost of electricity is overrated, but one should at least consider the advantages and opportunities of having an always-on general purpose device.

tp-link wr1043

[whoisisis]

I run OpenWRT Backfire on my TP-link WR1043. It even comes with an USB port.
It's MIPS based, comes with 32 MB ram and a gigabit switch etc.

Can only recommend.

Dlink DIR-825

[0100010001010011]

Supports DD-WRT & OpenWRT.
Gigabit ethernet.
Dual Band.
Includes USB port and if you're good at soldering there is a second USB port inside. I soldered in a 1GB flash stick and run that as rootfs.

Re:Other alternatives?

[MailtoDelete]

Another vote for PF. I run it on a virtual that has a few vSwitches, so I can have PF talk to the cable modem, and everything else talks to PF (Trusted and Untrusted interfaces). Since it's in virtual, I can maximize the use of the one machine at the house running all the time to also run a print server, VoIP server, etc. WoL allows other machines to be turned on remotely as needed.

Re:Other alternatives?

[atamido]

pfSense is good for office firewalls but it's severe overkill (at least in hardware) for most home uses.

Pretty much all consumer router hardware I've seen locks up at least once a month with a high number of connections and/or data. I've never seen pfSense do that. pfSense also has some pretty advanced QoS features that can do a lot to keep high bandwidth applications from interfering with other people in the home. (My wife likes to upload HD videos of the kids, and it's nice that it doesn't kill the connection for everyone else.

Routerboard

[weegiekev]

I've used Mikrotik Routerboards for years and have been very happy with them. They're very flexible, relatively cheap, and I've not had any issues with reliability. I don't think they run anything like DD-WRT, but their supplied OS is very powerful. Has ssh login for admin and a Cisco IOS like interface.

The following RB435G should fit your needs:

3 x GigE ports
3 x miniPCI slots for wireless (R52nM for 802.11n)
DynDNS Updates: [Yes]
DHCP Sever with Option 66: [Yes]
Static IP based on MAC: [Yes]
Port forwarding: [Yes]
QoS support: [Yes]

Soekris DOES have a 4 x GB unit now

[NXIL]

Quote: "PC Engines is so behind the times that you might as well just go Soekris. Oh wait, they don't have gigE either."

Um, no, you are wrong, AC, they do:

http://soekris.com/catalog/category/view/s/net6501/id/76/

Four Genuine (R) Intel (C) GB adapters, Atom CPU, small form factor, low power consumption.

And no I do not work for or at Soekris....I am rocking a cheap Airlink 101, ten bucks from Fry's.....

Router Station Pro

[farkus888]

I have a Ubiquiti RouterStation Pro. I am using a discontinued card but would recommend the SR71-A for wireless. Netgate was my source for mainboard, minipci wireless card, enclosure, jumpers, and power supply. I already had my own 9dbi antennas to use. Running OpenWRT this setup has amazing range, tons of processing power and has NEVER caused any downtime for me since I built it over a year ago.

TP-Link WR1043ND

[cciRRus]

I have this cool router and I must say, it's really the best deal out there! I paid peanuts for this router. What I truly love about it is that it has a USB port. After installing OpenWRT and the required packages, I turned this router into a mini home server. The USB port allowed me to connect a flash storage device which acts as data storage as well as swap for the router.

By the way, avoid trying DD-WRT on this router. It is unpolished.

RALINK 305x chip with WIVE-NG

[Jimbookis]

Even though it's mostly in Russian it's Linuxy and open source and updated every week and I highly recommend it. http://wive-ng.sourceforge.net/?WR-NL_RT3050(2)

Re:RALINK 305x chip with WIVE-NG

[bwanaaa]

ok, this is getting boring. can we talk about the routers they used in star wars? i think the ton-ton would overheat too much. the ewok was too small.

Re:mini-ITX

[mattventura]

These generally have a lack of expandability. Mini-ITX generally has one expansion slot and one onboard, leaving no slots for wifi. Unless it has mini-pci onboard (the form factor used by all the good cards), then you're stuck with no slot for a wifi card.

I use the Routerstation Pro. It has 4 gig ports, 3 mini-PCI, serial, USB, SD, and GPIO.

My choice: Alix + OpenWRT

[Malibee]

I've been very satisfied with my alix2d13 SBC running OpenWRT. A bit pricier than most routers, and you might need a separate wireless AP, but it has processing power aplenty, and the removable storage is awfully handy for hacking.

Had the same problem - WNR3500L

[andsens]

I had the same issue, I wanted Gigabit Ethernet and stumbled upon tomatousb during my research. It works really well together with the Netgear WNR3500L.
It can share a USB HDD via SMB has really good 802.11n tuning and loads of other special features (like VPN and DLNA).
http://tomatousb.org/

Re:Had the same problem - WNR3500L

[EmagGeek]

Another vote for WNR3500L. The hardware is a little bit dated, but it works great with DD-WRT or TomatoVPN.

pfSense and an embedded system

[bluec]

Personally I've had huge success with pfSense running on either cheap Dell servers for high WAN throughput or embedded devices for lower requirements. The hardware is dirt cheap, the software free, and for me it has a far better feature set than any of the router firmwares you mentioned. It is FreeBSD based and absolutely rock solid in my experience (I've never had to reboot one in over 3 years). The out-of-the-box feature set is incredibly impressive but this can be supplemented by a huge choice of plugins too. Example hardware: http://linitx.com/product/12647 pfSense: http://www.pfsense.org/

My router is an ESXi box

[EmagGeek]

I built an AMD E-350-based box to be my router. It runs ESXi 5.0 and has virtual machines for pfSense, an Ubuntu Server for a fileserver, and a couple of others.

If you're going to have a PC running all the time for the fileserver mission, it makes some sense to run ESXi on it and have it serve other 24/7 missions as well.

D-Link DIR-825 w/ openWRT

[dcornewell]

I like my DIR-825. I have openVPN on it to get to work. Two separate wireless networks. One for G, one for N. It was one of the fastest and most feature rich devices I could find. Even picked it up local at office depot for a decent price.

Re:Mini-ITX

[MightyMartian]

Nice! Thank you very much!

Re:Mini-ITX

[LWATCDR]

If one is in a hacky sort of mood I would suggest
A Beagle Bone http://beagleboard.org/bone
and then add this http://redpinesignals.com/Products/Chipsets/RS9116.html
and maybe this http://search.digikey.com/us/en/products/ENC424J600T-I%2FPT/ENC424J600T-I%2FPT-ND/2126005
It is only 100Base-t but it would probably be good enough for the connection to your broadband.
Linux plus less power use. Of course a LOT more work.

5 GHz fixes that

[billstewart]

While 2.4GHz is pretty crowded in environments like that, 5 GHz usually isn't - very few people use it, and the channel separation is better, so you really get N different channels, not just 3-4 of 11. If your laptop doesn't support it, you might need a $20 USB dongle. A year or so ago a bunch of my neighbors got 802.11n, crowding out my 802.11g, so I had to do the same :-) I also used an Android app to find which 2.4g channel was quietest, so I didn't have to mess with 5g or using Channel 14 (a not-for-US-use channel that's usually quiet enough.)

Software sells hardware

[NXIL]

Yes, a Soekris unit, or a Supermicro mini ITX cost more than an Asus, but putting together something like a Soekris opens up many more software options.

OpenBSD if you're paranoid? Check.

Monowall, sure.

BSDs, Linux, and Plan 9: all good to go.

Also, Soekris and Supermicro both have great reputations for reliability--set it up, forget it, it works for years.

Take a look at the HP Microserver

[mattbee]

For a home hub & router, the HP Microserver is pretty good: low-power AMD processor, 4 3.5" drive bays, gigabit ethernet, internal USB header and a very nice, small chassis. They are still selling in the UK for about £120 after cash back (hmm, pricier, $319 from newegg). Maybe that's a bit more than you wanted to spend but you can run a normal Linux distro.

Re:Use a PC

[ewok85]

Mini-ITX cases are not much bigger than a large router, and use a comparable amount of electricity as a router.

You would get something that is much more powerful than a router, far more flexible, and the option to do more like be an FTP server, torrent box, NAS, media center, etc.

It's on sale NOW

[Duggeek]

Micro Center is a store here in south Denver, CO. It has many other stores nationwide. Visit them to learn more.

They are selling a refurbished D-Link DIR-601 (hardware rev. A1) for something like fifteen bucks. Typical WiFi router; one aerial and four LAN ports.

That hardware is confirmed to work with current DD-WRT builds AND you can easily convert it back to OEM. There's OpenWRT support as well, but I just prefer the browser GUI over CLI.

I bought one, immediately converted it, and it's working like a champ. If you want to stay with the OEM firmware, it's IPv6 ready with QoS, traffic filters and all the typical bells and whistles. It's actually quite impressive out-of-the-box, considering the price.

My old WRT54GS is still in use... as a switch. (DD-WRT Repeater Bridge mode with radio off, WAN port bridged to switch, still hummin')

Good luck!

Mikrotik

[vladoboss]

If you're willing to spend a little bit more money then Mikrotik is the answer. You'll have to try very hard to find the feature that is missing in RouterOS. Rock solid hardware. http://www.mikrotik.com/

Re:mini-ITX

[swalve]

Use the pc for all the heavy lifting, and then just use any old wireless AP as just an AP. Works great for me.