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Ask Slashdot: Best Open Source Project For a Router/Wi-Fi Access Point?

Posted by timothy on from the what's-the-nsa's-least-favorite dept.

An anonymous reader writes "My wireless router just died. I have an old netbook lying around that has a wired network interface and a wireless one. The wireless card is supported in master mode by Linux, FreeBSD, and OpenBSD. What does Slashdot recommend I use to turn it into a router/wireless access point? DD-WRT? pfSense? Smoothwall? Fedora/Ubuntu/OpenBSD with a manual configuration? I'm not afraid of getting my hands dirty and I know what I'm doing, but I want as close to zero maintenance as possible."

27 of 193 comments (clear)

  1. DD-WRT on Buffalo hardware by AmiMoJo · · Score: 5, Informative

    If you want something powerful but maintenance free then DD-WRT on dedicated router hardware is the way to go. Running an ARM system-on-chip without active cooling and everything on flash memory is going to be far more reliable than any kind of PC set up. DD-WRT does pretty much anything you want and you can get a root shell if you want.

    For what it's worth I prefer Buffalo hardware. It's robust and performs well.

    --
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    1. Re:DD-WRT on Buffalo hardware by agoodm · · Score: 5, Informative

      A properly configured and set up PC based router with appropriate active or passive cooling will be more reliable than ARM SoC based solutions due to the additional speed providing additional routing capacity. Most SoC solutions ive seen have insufficient power for reliable operation under anything more than a moderate load. Source: I manufacture and install PC based routers in places where ordinary routers are becoming unstable

    2. Re:DD-WRT on Buffalo hardware by AmiMoJo · · Score: 4, Insightful

      That's why I recommend Buffalo hardware. Their main market is Japan where symmetrical gigabit connections are quite common, so their hardware is capable of routing that. I find it to be reliable long term (5+ years).

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    3. Re:DD-WRT on Buffalo hardware by johnnys · · Score: 4, Informative
      This is probably not what the OP wants to hear (surprise! It's Slashdot after all) but I agree that a VERY good option is a Buffalo router. I bought a Buffalo WZR-600DHP running DD-WRT and it has been completely reliable in my SOHO environment. The feature set, tunability and capabilities of DD-WRT on this device are extensive and impressive.

      I have tried DD-WRT on some older routers (Linksys) in the past and although the features were there the reliability and dependability were just not there. I had to reset every few weeks and reconfigure. So when I saw Buffalo was using DD-WRT I decided to try it and I have been very happy.

      --
      Sometimes the "writing on the wall" is blood spatter...
    4. Re:DD-WRT on Buffalo hardware by mellon · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I'm a little bit surprised to see DD-WRT getting such prominent billing. I've been using OpenWRT very happily for a long time, and had trouble getting DD-WRT to do what I want. It's possible that things have changed since I last investigated, of course.

      I'm a bit biased in that I wanted something hackable; I've been able to make packages for OpenWRT and have them work with very little effort, and even been able to debug stuff under gdb on the router. This is probably also possible with DD-WRT, but when I investigated, OpenWRT seemed clearly easier to develop on. Building the router image from source was dead easy; customizing it was easy with "make menuconfig" and building packages within the build tree (with support for the packages in "make menuconfig") was easily done as well.

      My point here isn't to say "don't use DD-WRT," because I have nothing bad to say about it; rather it is that it's worth considering OpenWRT as well. Personally I've had a lot of success with it, and recommend it highly as a development router OS.

    5. Re:DD-WRT on Buffalo hardware by mcgrew · · Score: 4, Insightful

      You guys all seem to be missing the point. He wants to repurpose old hardware without spending anything. I used to do something similar in my teenaged years (this was in the analog era) when I'd turn used transistor radios into guitar fuzzboxes. "But you can get a professional one for only $250!" Yeah, but I could turn a broken radio into one for $2.50.

      If my aging router dies before this notebook does I'll probably do something similar with it. Plugging a new router in is no fun, building your own out of useless junk is.

      --
      Free Martian Whores!
    6. Re:DD-WRT on Buffalo hardware by saleenS281 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      DD-WRT for all intents and purposes might as well be dead. At this point they've essentially stopped releasing updates unless you're paying for a subscription. And their last release for most hardware platforms wasn't even GA code, it was "pre-SPX".

    7. Re:DD-WRT on Buffalo hardware by fast+turtle · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Many folks make the same god damn mistake on the energy cost savings by getting a god damn router. Sorry but even in California (most expensive electricity in the U.S. @ 0.15 per kilowatt) your cost savings would need to be in the 100w per hour range to even be a Reasonable ROI (return on investment). $0.15 x 1kw (100 watts x 10 hours) is a meager $1.50. Take a cheap $40 router and you're looking at half a year minimum the payback to be worth it - that's for a system using 100 watts per hour. In the case of something low powered like an Atom based netbook - 20 watts for the CPU/Chipset (No Screen/GUI) you're now talking 2 years or better to even break even.

      As an example, I have an old HP system with a 700Mhz Celeron (P3 era) using the Intel 810 chipset. Max power is 100w (PSU rating). In testing, the system uses 10w and can successfully boot from a floppy drive (pfsense). Note that it has 512M of ram (most $40 routers only have 4M) plus the CPU is 10-20 times faster. Hell pfsense or anyother floppy based router OS can damn near fit into the CPU cache. Now the cost to convert this to a router/ap is $0.00 for the simple reason it's already got a 10/100 nic and I have an unused b/g wifi card (PCI based) that can be installed. All I need is a bit of time to configure the unit and once done, it'll outperform any >$100 SoHo router on the market simply because of the amount of memory and cpu speed. All it will cost is some time/effort to setup. Value is priceless because I also learn how to do it.

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  2. pfSense by kroby · · Score: 5, Informative

    pfSense is a great open source router distro and should have no problem running on your net book. However, Sophos UTM/Astaro Security Gateway is a commercial product that is free for personal use. I recommend it if you need any UTM features such as gateway AV, IPS/IDS, Spam Filtering, and centrally managed AV.

  3. I've never actually used by opus_magnum · · Score: 4, Interesting

    either, but there are also Zeroshell and ClearOS.

  4. OpenWRT by Knuckx · · Score: 5, Insightful

    OpenWRT Attitude Adjustment 12.04; loads of packages available from official repositories, nice webinterface, and no commercial side selling product activation keys for certain features (like DD-WRT).

    1. Re:OpenWRT by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Yeah. OpenWRT is the way to go. You can build or customise everything and it has pretty decent documentation in the wiki.

      Development for DD-WRT is a mess and the documentation is awful. You can't trust the DD-WRT website with its database since it is massively out of date and has a ton of just plain incorrect information. You need to work out what specific blessed build number works for your particular hardware and revision but the only way to find that out is to trawl around in their forums with the huge threads. Once you've found a working build then don't ever upgrade since it is likely that they've broken it in mysterious ways in a later build.

    2. Re:OpenWRT by jonsmirl · · Score: 3, Insightful

      OpenWRT is the way to go. Just buy a new, cheap commercial router and replace the software with OpenWRT. Don't mess with the laptop. It chews too much AC power and the wifi is probably not as powerful as the radio in the commercial router. You can buy fine 2.4Ghz router hardware for $30.

      DDwrt is a mess, OpenWRT project organization is much better.

  5. Consider a Microtik Router? by mysqlbytes · · Score: 5, Informative

    I recently got a Microtik router running RouterOS, and I have to say I love it functionality at it's price point. Even supports BGP if you are that way inclined. My DSL was annoying me, so I turned it to bridged mode, and now the new router does everything else. NAT seems faster, with pings being 3ms quicker which I was astonished at. My other idea was an old desktop running linux, but I worked out the pricing for hardware vs electricity. And within a year (in Ireland) I am going to save money with the Microtik router. The router uses about 7W fully loaded, whereas my desktop would be churning 250 watts fully loaded... This is my one: http://routerboard.com/RB2011UAS-2HnD-IN

  6. Fix possible? by jones_supa · · Score: 5, Insightful

    My wireless router just died.

    Well, can it be fixed? Maybe it's just a dead AC/DC transformer or blown cap.

  7. Just get a router by SQLGuru · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Using an old laptop as a router isn't the most efficient use of your resources (time, money, energy, etc.). Sure, it can be done......but a router can be had for around $20 that is probably as good or better (I'm assuming your old laptop is at least 5 years old and probably G at best). Spending more would get you a better router (and if you shop around, even open-source compatible), but if the goal is to go on the cheap (assumed because you want to reuse a laptop), I'd still get a stand-alone router.

    But if you insist on going that route, go with Linux and manual configuration. Then you can use the laptop for other things as well. Print server, web server, etc.

    But in the end, giving the laptop to a group such as this: http://www.interconnection.org/ is better use of the technology.

  8. OpenWRT on good commodity home ap by ezdiy · · Score: 4, Informative

    OpenWRT on cheapo commodity hardware - personally I'm using TL-WR1043ND, 4x1gigE/300mbps 2.4ghz N, USB storage is best bang for 50 bucks.

    The system is reasonably specced to run openvpn gateway for home network and serve USB drive miniNAS via smb.

    DD-WRT is basically GUI polish for people who don't wan't to delve into scary command line, but otherwise nowhere near as flexible as openwrt is.

  9. Overkill? by kheldan · · Score: 3, Informative

    In my opinion: Unless you're planning on also running servers (web, FTP, mail, etc) on your new "router/access point", then it's complete overkill to use even a netbook for that. Additionally, you'd be potentially opening yourself up to a world of hurt since your netbook, being a general-purpose computing device at heart, is going to be more vulnerable to outside attack than a purpose-built router/gateway/wireless access point.

    --
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  10. Re:zero maintenance by dugancent · · Score: 5, Informative

    TomatoUSB is another option. I prefer it over DD-WRT personally, but they are both good options.

    --
    SJWs are the new boogeyman. -Me
  11. Power consumption by pla · · Score: 3, Informative

    Keep in mind that while a dedicated consumer-grade wifi router draws around 5W, a netbook will draw 20-25W (possibly more).

    Although that may not sound like much, a 24/7 load of 20W, at $0.15/KWH will cost you $2.16/month. You will break even vs just buying a low-end (Rosewill, etc) new router in about 10 months, or two years for a mid-consumer-grade LinkSys/DLink.

    Admittedly, your solution will give you just about the highest-end wireless router you can get (limited by the radio in your netbook, of course), theoretically supporting any networking feature available with Linux. In practice though, how often do you really need anything beyond WPA2, IPv4 routing with a basic "block everything except what I allow" firewall, and perhaps (if you use VPN a lot) IPSec support?

  12. Beat bufferbloat while routing by billakay · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Look at the CeroWRT project (http://www.bufferbloat.net/projects/cerowrt). They have a fork of OpenWRT that is kept up to date quite often, and includes a lot of fixes for bufferbloat issues. The firmware gives a very low latency experience with very little effort.

  13. Re:zero maintenance by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Agreed. I use the Shibby branch on my ASUS RT-N16. Been running strong about 2 years with no problems.

    http://tomato.groov.pl/

  14. Re:Don't use a netbook by jones_supa · · Score: 3, Informative

    Actually it's not that bad. A netbook idles at 10W, which is on par with the power consumption of a DSL modem.

  15. Hardware router vs laptop by fa2k · · Score: 3, Informative

    Many people say to get a router instead because of power consumption, wireless signal strength and stability.

    You have to work out the power use yourself (some figures have already been posted by pla). Keep in mind though that a laptop using 20 W also provides 20 W of heating. If you're in a hot climate, you may lose twice by having to run the AC harder. If in a cold climate, with electric (resistive) heating, the 20 W may essentially be free most of the year. Also, if you can eliminate other devices (like a VPN gateway) with the laptop, that could be a win. On the other hand, if you need wired network it seems you can't even get away with an extra switch, as the laptop doesn't have enough ports -- here the dedicated ones clearly win.

    The wireless signal can be tested. If you can boot a live-cd you could set up host AP mode and test speed by transferring data and latency with ping.

    The stability is hard to gauge. Both netbooks and consumer routers can be quite bad. I ran a Dell Insiron 1501 as a router for a few years and didn't have any problems (except a ExpressCard NIC, which was later replaced).

    I wouldnt' go for the laptop due to not having wired network, but otherwise I would definitely pick it. It's great for hosting small DIY services like a webcam. I wouldn't host internal-only services beyond those typically hosted on routers, for security reasons (e.g. if the webserver first binds to the local interface, then after an update binds to both interfaces).

  16. Re:zero maintenance by spongman · · Score: 4, Informative

    Please mod parent up.

    Tomatousb is brilliant. Hardware compatibility is a little less broad than some of the others, but once you get t installed the usability is like butter.

  17. Re:zero maintenance by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    Ditto. Shibby on a Belkin F7D3301. Factory firmware on that thing was trash, which happens to be where I found the router to begin with. I was about to trow it out (again) but on a whim tried Shibby's TomatoUSB. Rock solid stable, coverage throughout the house, and it consumes like no power (doesn't even get noticeably warm). But yeah, Shibby TomatoUSB - good stuff.

  18. Hybrid; use a router as a wifi bridge by Khopesh · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I've done this in the past. My routing computer's wifi has never been able to compare with a wifi router, but if you ignore the "wan" port and plug your linux box into one of the other ports, you can use the wifi router for wifi only (essid, etc) and your own router for how traffic flows to the internet and to your wired network. The best of both worlds.

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