JimB: Ever played with dd-wrt? I'm planning to get my feet wet soon.
I haven't, but always intend to. Seems really cool. Keep me posted.
I bought a WNR3500L. $80 router from Netgear. It has extra RAM and flash to support the biggest builds of dd-wrt. I'm reading the instructions for flashing the dd-wrt code into the unit about five times, so I don't brick the thing. This is made harder because the instructions are written by multiple authors and are scattered across a forum, a wiki, etc.
But just playing with the stock software of the 3500L ... ho lee shyte! Home routers have come a very long way in the past five years. The functionality and flexibility are off the chart. I'm buying another to use in stock mode to run the wifi in my house. I may get one more so I can have 300 Mbps wireless access to a server I'm moving to a shed. (It's a very nice shed.) And I'll probably set up a public guest wifi just for grins. SSID: Phishing Hole.
Example: storage device attached to USB port on the router can be accessed via LAN and/or WAN via ftp and/or http. WTFBBQ? Server SW on an eighty dollar router? I guess once you're serving a GUI via http, why not go crazy?
I can't wait to muck around in the dd-wrt managment SW.
The netgear SW either wants the 3500L to be a managed firewall or an unmanaged switch. An managed router doesn't appear to be an option. The dd-wrt should fix that.
For no reason in particular, other than playing around, I created two subnets 192.168.100.x and 200.x. That worked, but I haven't had much luck getting them to talk to each other.
With the standard software, if you want everything to talk, the easiest thing is to put everything on the same subnet. This is done most easily by using the router as a switch -- use a LAN port for uplink rather than the WAN port. At this point the router disappears. It has no IP address.
On another front I've been playing with wifi. Since I'm rural I can go ahead and hog the spectrum. I want to make different segments run on different channels. (Netgear seems to default on re-use.) That way I can be doing massive transfers on one wifi segment, and have lots of bandwidth available on other segment(s).
Diane was in the middle of on-line shopping while I was doing all this, and I managed to freeze up the WAP she was using. "Uh, here, let me see your computer for a second."
I'm coming to the conclusion that the netgear SW is pretty unpredictable. Reflashing Monday so I can start playing with ddwrt.
Flashing went well. Bought more routers so I can play with subnetting, clans etc. Cool feature is a wifi scanner that can show what's in the air including "hidden " networks.
*VLANs
Another cool thing: let router route. Ask router to display the route table. It spells out the whole damn thing. (Route table answers, among others, the question, "Where the hell is that damn internet?" "Well, first you head to 192.168.1.1. He knows where everything is.") Change network configuration in a manner that will shake up the route tables. Repeat.
Step 1: let a machine teach you how to write a routing table
Step 2: ????
Step 3: Profit!
dd-wrt opens up three more channels (used in Europe and or Japan) that are blocked with US specific firmware. Extra stealthy networking, at least for the casual wifi-er. Mmmmm .... Japanese channel 14.
Networking can be tedious. Got one box flashed and working. It's on my ATT DSL, which I'll keep through the winter for backup and for playing around with routing. E.g. can I ping the phone booth from the TV stand via the internet?
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- mark 12-15-2010 10:15 pm
I haven't, but always intend to. Seems really cool. Keep me posted.
- jim 12-16-2010 2:44 am [add a comment]
I bought a WNR3500L. $80 router from Netgear. It has extra RAM and flash to support the biggest builds of dd-wrt. I'm reading the instructions for flashing the dd-wrt code into the unit about five times, so I don't brick the thing. This is made harder because the instructions are written by multiple authors and are scattered across a forum, a wiki, etc.
But just playing with the stock software of the 3500L ... ho lee shyte! Home routers have come a very long way in the past five years. The functionality and flexibility are off the chart. I'm buying another to use in stock mode to run the wifi in my house. I may get one more so I can have 300 Mbps wireless access to a server I'm moving to a shed. (It's a very nice shed.) And I'll probably set up a public guest wifi just for grins. SSID: Phishing Hole.
Example: storage device attached to USB port on the router can be accessed via LAN and/or WAN via ftp and/or http. WTFBBQ? Server SW on an eighty dollar router? I guess once you're serving a GUI via http, why not go crazy?
I can't wait to muck around in the dd-wrt managment SW.
- mark 12-18-2010 8:06 am [add a comment]
The netgear SW either wants the 3500L to be a managed firewall or an unmanaged switch. An managed router doesn't appear to be an option. The dd-wrt should fix that.
For no reason in particular, other than playing around, I created two subnets 192.168.100.x and 200.x. That worked, but I haven't had much luck getting them to talk to each other.
With the standard software, if you want everything to talk, the easiest thing is to put everything on the same subnet. This is done most easily by using the router as a switch -- use a LAN port for uplink rather than the WAN port. At this point the router disappears. It has no IP address.
On another front I've been playing with wifi. Since I'm rural I can go ahead and hog the spectrum. I want to make different segments run on different channels. (Netgear seems to default on re-use.) That way I can be doing massive transfers on one wifi segment, and have lots of bandwidth available on other segment(s).
Diane was in the middle of on-line shopping while I was doing all this, and I managed to freeze up the WAP she was using. "Uh, here, let me see your computer for a second."
- mark 12-19-2010 10:43 pm [add a comment]
I'm coming to the conclusion that the netgear SW is pretty unpredictable. Reflashing Monday so I can start playing with ddwrt.
- mark 12-20-2010 5:55 am [add a comment]
Flashing went well. Bought more routers so I can play with subnetting, clans etc. Cool feature is a wifi scanner that can show what's in the air including "hidden " networks.
- mark 12-21-2010 4:54 am [add a comment]
*VLANs
- mark 12-21-2010 4:55 am [add a comment]
Another cool thing: let router route. Ask router to display the route table. It spells out the whole damn thing. (Route table answers, among others, the question, "Where the hell is that damn internet?" "Well, first you head to 192.168.1.1. He knows where everything is.") Change network configuration in a manner that will shake up the route tables. Repeat.
Step 1: let a machine teach you how to write a routing table
Step 2: ????
Step 3: Profit!
- mark 12-21-2010 9:15 am [add a comment]
dd-wrt opens up three more channels (used in Europe and or Japan) that are blocked with US specific firmware. Extra stealthy networking, at least for the casual wifi-er. Mmmmm .... Japanese channel 14.
- mark 12-21-2010 10:23 am [add a comment]
Networking can be tedious. Got one box flashed and working. It's on my ATT DSL, which I'll keep through the winter for backup and for playing around with routing. E.g. can I ping the phone booth from the TV stand via the internet?
- mark 12-21-2010 10:44 am [add a comment]