Comments on: Beef Up Your Wireless Router

By: Rick

Rick — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 17:47:39 +0000

I have just installed a Linksys WRT160n to replace a dead Netgear. Everything is working but after reading so much about it, I am beginning to wish I had gotten an Apple Airport Xtreme

By: high

high — Sat, 02 Feb 2008 07:56:02 +0000

Grandnube:
Regarding your discontinued wireless router, if it has a USB or parallel port to which you can connect a printer, then you could likely use OpenWRT/DDWRT/Tomato to turn it into a print server. However, if there are only ethernet ports then you will not be able to use it as a print server.

By: grandnube

grandnube — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 14:24:20 +0000

I appreciate all the comments. I’ve learned a lot here.

However, i have a question: I have a wireless router that has been discontinued but it still works fine (but it can’t access the internet).

Right now i’m using it as a switch but i was wondering, would i be able to use it as a print server? Any feedback or suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

By: Idetrorce

Idetrorce — Sat, 15 Dec 2007 18:37:51 +0000

very interesting, but I don’t agree with you
Idetrorce

By: Randy Bryan

Randy Bryan — Sat, 21 Jul 2007 20:08:20 +0000

Hey Tomato does exactly what I want it to do: 1) I want to be able to boost the power output. 2) It blocks users past a certain distance, so even though I am high powered, I can keep my neighbors off my router 3) It has security 4) It’s Ajax Powered, at least the web bases interface is… ! I would use tomato just for this one feature only! 5) Did I mention that it has Ajax?

Randy

By: Haus

Haus — Sun, 01 Apr 2007 08:36:09 +0000

OpenWRT provides a great deal of flexibility, and there have been a few interesting packages that have been built on top of it. My personal favorite is a security package that adds functions such as IDS/IPS, VPN, AV, and more.

http://www.packetprotector.org

By: markvanhaze

markvanhaze — Tue, 27 Mar 2007 22:07:22 +0000

Kraftor: Please get in touch with me, i would need help to copy your weather station setup. my email is : mark at kiteibiza.com

thanks a million!

By: sBox

sBox — Tue, 20 Mar 2007 18:05:46 +0000

Unless you are a die hard, paranoid parent, good luck on keeping up with the logging. While you are at it, you can add monitoring text messaging via cellphones. There is too much information to monitor everything. Education is your best and first line of defense.

By: Josh Kuo

Josh Kuo — Tue, 20 Mar 2007 17:56:36 +0000

For those of you who want to monitor your kids’ online activities… I am not going to debate/discuss the moral issues about that, that’s for each parent to decide. As for the network traffic monitoring, the easiest way I can think of off the top of my head is to run tcpdump and send the output somewhere. For example, if my WRT box is 192.168.1.1, I can run this command from any other machine with storage (for the potentially large dump):
$ ssh root@192.168.1.1 "tcpdump -i eth0 'tcp port 80'" > /var/log/http-dump &
This command will execute tcpdump on the remote machine 192.168.1.1 via SSH, records every packet that is sent to/from port 80 on eth0, and save it to a local file /var/log/http-dump. I will leave the exact syntax of tcpdump up to you to figure out.

A word of caution, this will slow down your WRT router’s performance.

By: tcc

tcc — Tue, 20 Mar 2007 17:26:27 +0000

DangerMouse,

I have had to think about the same stuff with my kids.. I do not want to get into monitoring everything though… If kids go around someones back then their is another problem to solve… not the stuff said “secretly”.

I recommend setting IM defaults to not allow any IM except from people on your kids buddy lists. That will eliminate most potentially “bad messages”. Then talk with your kids about IM, phone, and other communication with their friends.

To go one step further you may set a “rule” that your kids tell you who they are wanting to add to their buddy list. That would be similar to who they are going to go hang out with somewhere.. just getting to know their friends.

By: FCS

FCS — Tue, 20 Mar 2007 12:03:25 +0000

I have tried most of the firmwares listed and my vote goes to DD-WRT. I have several friends and family members using it. I am very comfortable with Linux, so I also like to mess around with OpenWRT.

By: Roger

Roger — Tue, 20 Mar 2007 09:29:54 +0000

I personally had no luck with chillispot on my WRT54GL. It used too much memory on the WRT and crashed about once a day. Had to move it to standard linux box and use an ordinary old access point.

By: Anonymous Coward

Anonymous Coward — Tue, 20 Mar 2007 07:28:32 +0000

> I trust my kids, but with so many bad people in
> the world I want to make sure I’m keeping an eye
> on their chatting! Any suggestions?

I have a good suggestion. Respect other people (and even your kids) privacy. No need to “homeland secure” them.

A parent should provide love, guidance and support to their children. Not policing. They need to learn from their own mistakes.

By: DangerMouse

DangerMouse — Mon, 19 Mar 2007 23:54:56 +0000

The one thing I haven’t found a way to make the alternative firmwares do is log AOL and Yahoo Messenger traffic. I trust my kids, but with so many bad people in the world I want to make sure I’m keeping an eye on their chatting! Any suggestions?

By: Mike McG

Mike McG — Mon, 19 Mar 2007 19:52:42 +0000

I’ve used DD-WRT and OpenWRT, and I give my vote to Tomato hands down. Regular releases and a consistent, well-defined interface. It’s more than just pretty graphics. The configuration forms are simplified and automated to an exemplary degree, illuminating and clarifying the underlying functionality rather than obscuring it. Excellent example is the QOS class definition form. Tomato is perfect for the user that is more interested in enabling advanced functionality rather than hacking for days and days and fighting unintelligent user interfaces. (No affiliation to the author, just an extremely satisified user.)