Computer Tips -Tech Info

dd-wrt is an alternative firmware for a variety of routers. The most popular (and one of the first) that can be used with dd-wrt is the Linksys-Cisco WRT54GL Wireless-G Broadband Router. So, why would you want alternative firmware on your router? The stability can be improved for one, but there are also a large number of features that you can enable and configure through alternative firmware. The device that was originally just a wireless router can become a repeater, a client bridge, can serve separate subnets from each port, can broadcast multiple SSID (and BSSID’s) with different encryption levels, can act as a captive portal/hotspot system. This is… just a few of the really interesting features that you can get from v24 of dd-wrt.

So far I have configured a number of linksys wrt54gl boxes with dd-wrt.

1) Router/captive portal for a large wireless installation. Modified with scripts to monitor the devices status and send daily email reports. (Used v23sp2) (NOT serving wireless directly - just captive portal via the LAN ports. Other devices deal with the wireless. As many as 20-30 users/day maximum. (NOT WIRELESS - JUST ROUTER))
2) Simple Encrypted (WPA) router with QOS bandwidth limitation on one port of the LAN switch (to cascade to a second open access point.) (Additional firewalling rules on selected LAN port as well to prevent access from 2nd open ap into protected wpa network.) (v23sp2) (3-5 users/day)
3) Open captive portal for public use (nocatsplash) light use public hotspot (averages a couple visitors a day.) (v23sp2)
4) Dual SSID broadcast (one WEP for legacy support/one WPA2(TKIP)). (V24)
5) Repeater/client bridge for one WPA encrypted network (V24)
6) Test bed duplicate of #1 above
7) Spare on hand replacement of #1 above
Openvpn server box to be placed directly a network and serve up openvpn for the outside world. (So remote clients can vpn into the internal LAN.)

You can see that there is some overlap in these items. I haven’t used anything but the wrt54gl for this, but there are some devices with host usb support which allows for much more interesting things (network storage/print serving/etc.) This page will be updated as time permits.

Popularity: 1% [?]