Linksys WRT54G & Tomato
Ever wanted a bad router without paying an arm and a leg? The Linksys WRT54G, originally released in 2002, is an oldie but a goody. This bad boy comes out of the box with a fairly plain looking, unintuitive firmware that was (thankfully) released under the GNU GPL obligations. What does this mean to you? Well, the WRT54G can be flashed with a whole host of different firmware that add a plethora of features, functionality and pure networking heaven! My favorite of aforementioned firmware is Tomato.
Tomato is an exquisite firmware upgrade chock full of all kinds of goodies. Among these are:
- CLI with access via TELNET or SSH
- DHCP server with dynamic and static DHCP leases
- DNS forwarder
- Wake-on-LAN
- Ability to add custom .sh scripts
- Advanced QoS
- Bandwidth graphing and statistics
- Dynamic DNS service through providers such as DDNS
- CIFS client
- Adjustment of transmit power of wireless LAN, antenna selection, and 14 wireless channels
- And much more!
Tomato makes it very easy for even the faint of heart to create tunnels, use static domains that forward to your computer or router, view bandwidth usage and even create automated tasks. For example, you can SSH into the router, run an automated task, such as WOL for a specific MAC address, and connect to your awakened box or send commands through Tomato.
I currently have my WRT54G set up to allow me to connect to it via a static web address through which I can send an SSH command to wake up my computer. After the box is awake, it’s very easy to connect to it via SSH, FTP, VNC or Windows Remot Desktop. The WRT54G is a budget-priced router, but coupled with Tomato, it is truly a priceless piece of hardware.
The biggest problems I have found with the WRT54G are price gouging and difficulty finding the router versions that are compatible with firmware flash (be warned: versions 5 and later are NOT compatible with Tomato). You can generally find the WRT54G priced between $14.99 and $49.99 used on eBay and its contemporaties.
Overall, the WRT54G router is a reliable router with plenty of features when coupled with the Tomato firmware. Check back for more posts on how to SSH into your router, set up DHCP, DDNS and other tutorials that will be posted in the future.
Review
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Dirt cheap, feature packed and reliable | Some versions not compatible with firmware flash upgrades, often sold used for at or just below the original retail price |
| Rating |
Great article. There’s a lot of good info here, though I did want to let you know something – I am running Mac OS X with the latest beta of Firefox, and the layout of your blog is kind of flaky for me. I can read the articles, but the navigation doesn’t function so well.
Which part of the navigation did you having problems with?