Open Source Router To Replace WRT54GL? 344
jeremyz writes "With the inclusion of 802.11n in more and more Wi-Fi devices, the WRT54GL is losing its usefulness, even though it's still the de-facto standard for open source, Linux-running wireless routers. I've been looking around for a 802.11n router to replace the WRT54GL, but haven't really found anything besides the Netgear's WNR3500L. At first look, the WNR3500L looked great, but after some further investigation, I found that Netgear hasn't released all of the source, as they should have to comply with the GPL. Are there any good 802.11n routers to replace my aging WRT54GL?"
I built my own... (Score:5, Interesting)
I was in the same situation... WRT45GL just wasn't cutting it anymore.
So I bought a small ITX board that supports PCI-E, at least 1GB of RAM, a dual-interface PCI-E network card, a case that could house it and a good gigabit switch. I currently run pfSense 1.2.3 off a 1GB USB flash drive.
I deal only with wired clients in my network so this doesn't address the Wifi portion of the question.
I'm not listing any hardware because it changes all too often.
This is the expensive route to go but I felt it was worth it for my needs.
More than likely you won't need the PCI-E dual-interface network card and an onboard dual-nic ITX board would suffice. I just happened to have mine from a previous project.
I built mine before the Intel Atom craze hit the streets. I don't know if they are powerful enough from experience although I'm sure you'd be fine.
As always with hardware and networking, YMMV.
Re:Here you go (Score:3, Interesting)
Build your own out of Mini-ITX with, compact flash, mini-pci wi-fi, PCI etherenet switch.
For the lulz.
Re:Here you go (Score:5, Interesting)
Haven't seen free N yet (Score:3, Interesting)
Lack of free firmware(I need Tomato) is the reason I'm still on 802.11g in my home. I have an WRT54G as the main router and an ASUS WL-520GU creating a wireless bridge to the living room.
RouterStation Pro (Score:5, Interesting)
-gigE
-mini pci slot for wifi cards
-enough ram for pretty much anything
(some assembly required
I do not work for them, and am not payed by them, just a happy user
Re:NO gig-e low # ports and pci bus for most of th (Score:3, Interesting)
I think there was one provider overseas who stated that they intended to offer 100Mb/s to the customer. Since most of us are in the US, we aren't going to see those kinds of speeds any time soon.
I had a quick look at the Verizon FiOS site. 50Mb/20Mb was the fastest residential line they offer. For business customers, they offer a 35Mb/35Mb account if (for those serving or uploading), or the 50Mb/20Mb which would be more targeted towards offices who are downloading more than uploading.
I know businesses can buy GigE loops. It costs a fortune to get installed, and you have to have your equipment on each end. They may offer GigE service, but I'm sure that costs a larger fortune. If you're sending or receiving a 1Gb/s of traffic, you'd be peering with a Tier 1 provider. That's an OC24 circuit.
Several years ago, it was most economical for my offices to have their own T1 loops (no data service included), and stick our own routers on each end. I was very content doing a wireless link from my house to the office, and using their T1 at night. That went straight to our datacenter, so I had the luxury of assigning myself an IP from the datacenter at my house. :) I was in charge of all of that stuff, so there were no real problems doing it. I offered it to anyone in that office who had clear line of sight to the office, but no one else did.
More recently one place I worked was in a building that served as a tower for a wireless provider and they had a GigE loop in the building, and we were provided a 100Mb/s connection from them down to our suite, and paid at 95th percentile for the bandwidth. It was a good deal, but it wasn't anywhere near residential rates.
We tried to get a GigE loop from our office to a Tier 1 provider less than a mile away, and we were handed a 5 figure price tag for the install. Just the loop, no data services at all. We were going to stick our own equipment on each end.
Nope, unless you're somewhere weird, you're not going to get those kinds of speeds any time in the near future.
XEN (Score:0, Interesting)
Why replace the whole router just to get 802.11n? (Score:5, Interesting)
Keep your WRT54G, and just upgrade the wireless to 802.11n. I did it with an AirPort Express connected to one of the ethernet ports in bridge mode. In the real world, 802.11n rarely saturates the 100baseT ethernet, so you get almost all the speed, without having to reconfigure everything from scratch. As a bonus, you can still host a separate 802.11b/g network on the old router to support legacy devices without jamming up your N network.
Crosscheck with OpenWRT list (Score:2, Interesting)
DDWRT Supported Devices [dd-wrt.com]
That's what I thought too. Until I bought an Asus RT-N10 and till today, no wireless. It's basically a cheapskate home router, with the words "Open Source" on the packaging.
The Asus RT-N10 is listed in 3 different places as dd-wrt compatible.
Ergo, this router is fully compatible, until you buy one. Then you find out:
Therefore, do not just rely on the dd-wrt list. Cross-check with the OpenWRT list too.
Re:Here you go (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:NO gig-e low # ports and pci bus for most of th (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm also from Portugal.
Although you are technically correct, if you are referring to ZON's service, I should say that I highly doubt they'll deliver the 1Gbps they claim (given all my previous experiences with this ISP).
Also, given the arbitrary download limits they have, I'm not so sure a 1Gbps pipe from ZON is a good idea (i.e. in the contractual fine print, they say you have unlimited data transfers up to "reasonable levels of consumption" but NOWHERE does it specify an actual objective limit; if you do transfer data above what they consider "reasonable", they _will_ phone you and attempt to harass you, as I've seen being done before, NEVER actually telling you what the "reasonability threshold" really is).
Caveat emptor.
Re:Here you go (Score:3, Interesting)
If you have to go "digging" for the documentation, the project developers and maintainers have failed. The documentation should be clearly laid out, and if it is a project intended for any level of user, not just experience sysadmins, the documentation needs to cover the most rudimentary basics as well as the more advanced stuff.
Furthermore, if you have to go and install tftp to push a firmware update via a router's recovery mode, you need to provide the utilities to do so, and wrap them with a basic GUI so your small office secretary/janitor/"system administrator" can manage to set it up. Until then, OpenWRT, DD-WRT and various other forks are condemned to be available only to sysadmin types who want a more advanced router for home, with only one IP address.
Oh, and another thing; multihoming. If you need multiple IPs, there is NO way to set it up in the GUI. You need to go to the shell prompt to do that, and create your forwarding rules in iptables. If you need to do that, you may as well set up a full-blown PC and forget about WRT altogether.
To date only two states offer 100Mb/100Mb, but... (Score:1, Interesting)
This is lamapper posting as Anonymous as ./ will not let me log on correctly and post...FYI
Currently the only places were consumers can get 100Mbps/100Mbps in the USA are Wilson N.C and 25+ cities in Utah via Greenlight and Utopia respectively.
Thanks to Google's new FTTH initiative 5 more communities will be getting honest high speed bandwidth, but not just 100Mbps/100Mbps, but even more 1Gbps/1Gbps.
Its no surprise that Google is seeking 5 communities where the politicians have not been bought and paid for by the cable/telco lobbyists. The elected officials of Wilson N.C., invited them to provide high speed bandwidth to their citizens only to have the monopolies/duopoly Internet providers refuse. When Greenlight agreed to provide fiber to homes and 100Mbps/100Mbps service at FIOS prices, the telcos/cable companies finally responded. They started lobbying the North Carolina state legislature to prevent Greenlight or any other company from providing decent service to other citizens of North Carolina. The Cable/Telco lobbyist submitted legislation in 2009 and will continue through 2010, only time will tell if the citizens of North Carolina are stupid enough to let them.
Considering that the Japanese had 100Mbps/100Mbps back in 2000 at $55 per month and thanks to Fiber gave those same customers 1Gbps/1Gbps for $52 per month. Yes the markets are actually working in Japan.
Here in the USA thanks to corporations and lobbyists buying our elected officials, no economic markets are honestly working any more.
In 2007, the USA was 23 on a list for high speed Internet or broadband. So there are plenty of countries that have had better access then the USA.
The ONLY way you can be sure that you are receiving the bandwidth you are paying for is to run DD-WRT, OpenWRT or Tomato on a supported firewall/router.
100% of the Cable companies throttle their Internet bandwidth to as little as 384Kbps/101Kbps as shown via the real time bandwidth monitor in one of the above three firmware packages. Sure the speed test might show 25Mbps/2Mbps but as soon as that speed test finishes, your provider is throttling, limiting, restricting your bandwidth to something much less.
I am still waiting to get a report from a FIOS (50Mbps/5MBps for $119 per month) customer running either DD-WRT, OpenWRT or Tomato firmware on a supported firewall/router so that we can see what the actual consistent bandwidth is for that service in real time...not opinions or false marketing claims.
Sadly transferring files back and fort and doing the math does not tell you want your sustained versus throttled service is.
You must have real time bandwidth monitoring software. You must have either DD-WRT, OpenWRT or Tomato.
So far I am unaware of a reasonably priced proprietary software that gives you your real time consistent bandwidth.
Its sad that multiple posts whether FUD or simply uninformed have posted that no one is getting 100Mbps/100Mbps much less 1Gbps/1Gbps Internet bandwidth. This simply is not true even here in the United States. And when someone posts that they do indeed get this level of bandwidth, others come out of the woodwork and attempt to debunk them.
Its kind of difficult to debunk the truth.
Thank everyone for posting their firewall/router solutions that will run either DD-WRT, OpenWRT or Tomato as I am planning to upgrade my current WRT54G DD-WRT enabled routers (have 3 and a WRT150N as well) and have successfully installed the DD-WRT firmware on them by simply following the directions on the website line by line. Even if I did accidentally "brick" the router, there are instructions on how to "un brick" them and since I actually reinstalled the old firmware just to verify that it was a possibility, I know they work as well.
So do not fear trying, just follow the instructions, you will be fine.
Thanks also to the posters that suggested comparing comments on both the OpenWRT and DD-WRT websites and wikis as I too want to ma