Some advanced home networking today...

[SineSwiper]

I've had my new Asus WL-500W sitting in the box for a while. I bought it to replace my old Linux WRT54G v5, which, while it worked, only had 8MB of memory and a 2MB flash. I loaded DD WRT on the Linksys a while ago (forced to use the micro version), and the connections for BT couldn't get past 1024.

Anyway, I installed the new Asus router and immediately upgraded it to DD-WRT. Like the Linksys, it only took a few firmware uploads and a few fancy powercycles. For those that haven't tried DD WRT, I would suggest an upgrade to it, if your router is decent enough (would probably recommend 16+MB, though).

The feature list is staggering. It's also easy to use: like a standard HTTP interface from other routers, but with much more tabs. I'll probably set up the QoS stuff tonight to prioritize gaming over P2P, etc. (Tessian, I was wrong; DD WRT does support the USB port for file sharing and networking printers.)

The other thing I bought yesterday, at CompUSA's "everything must go including the shelving" sale, was a Phoenix Wifi Radio. It was only $80 (60% off is pretty damn good). I basically got motivated to deal with the Asus router to install this thing.

Well, it's pretty sweet. You can add any Podcasts or internet radio station you want. (Has most of the country's radio stations on it.) It's portable, so if you want to get a USB flash and listen to MP3s, you can. It also hooks up to a stereo system. My main purpose, however, was to get the thing to my upstairs stereo system so that I could listen to my MP3 file share without a PC. (That Linksys Music Bridge is junk, since it needs a laptop to stream the music.)

This proved rather complicated, since it only supports UPnP A/V shares. I've never heard of this sharing standard, but quickly got engrossed in how it works today. I spend several hours trying to find a good Linux solution (since my file server was on a Linux box), and finally found MediaTomb. Fresh install of the app without any configuration changes worked great and was compatible with my new Wifi Radio. (Tried gmediaserver, but my radio would mysteriously reset over and over again.) Auto sorts by artist/album, too. (Well, I do that anyway from Perl scripts on my server, but most people don't. :)

Currently listening to Camel while MediaTomb runs through my music archive.

[Tessian]

I already ordered the same router from Buy.com; I've wanted to get a router with some decent configuration abilities for a while now.

Oh, and for making Seraphina late getting onto LOTRO and saving my ass-- you owe me 35 silver

[SineSwiper]

What kind of router do you have now?

[Tessian]

What kind of router do you have now?

Linksys WRT54GS v5.0

[SineSwiper]

Linksys WRT54GS v5.0

Yeah, exact same one I had. You'll need to install the micro version if you want to put DD-WRT on that one. Still, that's much better than the one that comes with it. (Just be sure to drop the max connections to 1024.)

Hell, if you have a big enough house, you can actually configure it to run on repeater mode, and repeat your wireless signal to the other side of the house. You don't even need to have anything hooked up to the router after you set it up. (Or you can hook it up to those wired only devices, like an Xbox, to make it wireless.) Not bad for a router that you were probably going to just give away, anyway.

[Tessian]

I'll probably just end up using it as a switch or a spare.

Which version of DD-WRT did you go with? I see the last stable version's from like November '06 but they have a lot of RC's on the new version.

[SineSwiper]

I'm on the bleeding edge beta and it's working fine for me. Got QoS turned on, so I can have a bunch of BT's running and it's not affecting web or gaming speed at all.

[Tessian]

My router shipped today/yesterday (Says 3/2 but got the email this morning and UPS only has billing info so far) so hopefully I'll get it mid week. Can't wait to fiddle with it... might have to wait until the weekend though or the roommate will get pissy at the network going up and down

[Imakeholesinu]

I use a Netgear WGR614 v9, and I use it stock. It's amazing. Had a linksys one and it kept just randomly disconnecting from the interwebs, took it back and got this bad boy. Has been now 1 year without an outage or an issue.

[Tessian]

I use a Netgear WGR614 v9, and I use it stock. It's amazing. Had a linksys one and it kept just randomly disconnecting from the interwebs, took it back and got this bad boy. Has been now 1 year without an outage or an issue.

So then when you going to try putting DD-WRT on it?

[SineSwiper]

His router only has 2MB of flash (I think; was that for v6), so he'd only be able to use the micro version. Even so, Barret, you should try it out, since the micro version still kicks more ass than any vendor version.

[Lox]

I put DD-WRT on a Linksys WRT54GL a few semesters ago for a TCP/IP course I took. It was pretty cool, until I bricked the router.

[Tessian]

I put DD-WRT on a Linksys WRT54GL a few semesters ago for a TCP/IP course I took. It was pretty cool, until I bricked the router.

Haha and THAT is why I figured it would be smarter to buy a new router instead of tempting fate on my current Linksys.

[SineSwiper]

Heh, I'm curious: how did you manage to brick the router? Hell, even if you "brick" the router, you can still get it up and going most of the time.

[Tessian]

I know when I was reading the DD-WRT guide on installing it no my current Linksys router they had points of no return-- where you were installing firmware ontop of firmware and there was no way to revert back to the original system. So if something happened during install, you were fucked.

[Imakeholesinu]

His router only has 2MB of flash (I think; was that for v6), so he'd only be able to use the micro version. Even so, Barret, you should try it out, since the micro version still kicks more ass than any vendor version.

If I had another router to try it on I would. I don't really want to mess around with it though because if I do bust something then I can't VPN into work if I get a call, and this weekend, I was on 3 outages (Fri, Sat, and Sunday) that lasted well into the next morning.

Plus, I don't see the benefits of using a 3rd party's firmware on my equipment. I live in a 950sq/f 2 BR apartment and I use my desktop and the PS3 (no laptop...yet).

Now if it would help with the choppiness I get when I try to stream media from my PC to the PS3, then I'd look into it more.

[Tessian]

Now if it would help with the choppiness I get when I try to stream media from my PC to the PS3, then I'd look into it more.

As I'm sure Sine will mention-- I believe that's at least partially due to your router's small memory size.

[Imakeholesinu]

Now if it would help with the choppiness I get when I try to stream media from my PC to the PS3, then I'd look into it more.

As I'm sure Sine will mention-- I believe that's at least partially due to your router's small memory size.

Would this be fixed if I used a wired connection over the wireless?

[Tessian]

It might help-- remember 802.11g is 56mbps where as Cat5 Ethernet is up to 100mbps

[SineSwiper]

Well, not to mention the reliability in a wired connection. And actually, I was wrong. The Netgear WGR614L has 16MB/4MB of RAM/flash. So, if you flashed it, and turned on QoS, putting a priority on streaming media, that might help. (Of course, if you don't have anything running through your connection at the time besides the stream, that's not really going to matter.)

Also, why would you ever want to go back to the original firmware? Just remember to follow all the steps for your version, and SAVE the firmware files and documentation to your desktop BEFORE you flash. But, if you have outages to deal with, I would at least make sure you have enough money and it's daylight outside, just in that small chance that you need to run out and buy another router.

[Imakeholesinu]

Well, not to mention the reliability in a wired connection. And actually, I was wrong. The Netgear WGR614L has 16MB/4MB of RAM/flash. So, if you flashed it, and turned on QoS, putting a priority on streaming media, that might help. (Of course, if you don't have anything running through your connection at the time besides the stream, that's not really going to matter.)

Damn, to bad I don't have the WGR614L. I just have the WGR614. I would think that the memory specs would be the same though.

I might see if there is a QoS setting I can set in the factory firmware first.

[SineSwiper]

Probably not. I've never seen a factory firmware with something like that on it.

[Tessian]

This fucking router is being a pain in the ass... I get it working perfectly with DD-WRT just connected to my laptop, but then I plug in the internet and it doesn't do shit. Half the time it doens't even boot back up properly and will just sit there and cycle again and again! Even when I do get it up properly it refuses to get a DHCP address from my modem!

WTF did you get me into sine???

[SineSwiper]

Doesn't your cable company tell you to "powercycle everything" when you have problems? Anyway, if you have a cable modem, and your MSO's network is anything like ours, you'll need to reboot the modem when the new router is plugged into the modem.

Cable modems have a "Max CPE" setting configured, and if it detects more than one CPE configured, it will toss the packets from that device. (In other words, the old router is still in the bridging table.)

Other MSOs require registration of new hosts, BTW.

Did you change a bunch of settings on DD-WRT before you got it plugged in? Otherwise, if you're having problems, go ahead and post on the forums, though read the FAQ first:

http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/In ... er_install

Has a bunch of hints on what might be wrong.

[Tessian]

I can't even get it to BOOT reliably right now! I plug it in, power and link light turn on... link light blinks... that's it. It doesn't go through it's boot cycle where the wired link lights blink about for a few minutes, then they go back to normal and the wireless turns on.

I've tried all amounts of unplugging it, holding in the reset button... nothing. Wtf?

[SineSwiper]

Can you ping it? You can try to re-flash the firmware on it, though I don't understand how you got it this bad anyway.

http://www.dd-wrt.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=24970

Had some instructions on re-flashing. I wouldn't recommend the link in there about mapping pins and shit. I doubt it's that bad.

Again, did you mess with the settings or just trying to get it online from standard settings?

[Tessian]

FINALLY got it working... I don't know what happened. Maybe not resetting the modem and plugging it in the first time distorted settings?

I had been trying to get into recovery mode for like half an hour... seems that the mode changes slightly in DD-WRT than it was in the normal firmware and you have to hold it in like 2 seconds longer than I was.

Re-flashed everything and now I'm on it. So odd...

[Tessian]

Now that I've got it all fixed up... I'm really liking the software. I can FINALLY get some decent stats on my network users AND do STATIC DHCP leases! woooo! I mean seriously, how else do they expect you to do port forwarding without it? Statically assigning an IP on the PC itself is what I was doing but that's a pain in the ass and then removed it from being detected in the router's DHCP map.

I messed a bit with QoS but not much... Sine you mentioned doing that what do you have set up already?

Also I can't seem to get my Laptop using the 802.11n wireless, but I think that's cause Vista doesn't recognize N and I don't have the Intel client installed.

[SineSwiper]

Oh, good. I thought you were going to write the whole thing off. I still blame PEBKAC, but whatever. At least it's working.

DNSmasq does a good job with static DHCP leases without actually assigning anything. So, just leave it on, and use that. If you want, you can use the UPnP for port forwarding. It's not the most secure thing in the world, but even the 360 will recognize it and use it.

As far as QoS, just read the instructions on it first. I put my XBox and Wifi radio on a MAC address priority (on Express), and used services for the rest. The 0 ~ 0 services are ones that deep-dive the packet for identification (Layer 7 IDs). Use these when you can, but you can also add your BitTorrent ranges for those (Azureus uses 60151 for example). Here's what I got for my services:

BT (L7ID), Azureus (L3ID) = Bulk
LotRO ranges (needed three L3ID ranges) = Express
DNS, DHCP (L7ID) = Exempt
HTTP, HTML (L7ID) = Express

I put in the last couple because it seemed like it wasn't picking up all of the BT connection traffic completely, so that traffic was at the same rate as DNS and HTTP. So, instead of trying to fight ranges, I just elevated HTTP and DNS. On occasion, it slows down surfing with all of these BT connections going, but for the most part, it's going pretty fast. (If this was a normal router, everything except the BTs would be slower than shit.)

[Tessian]

I didn't find any LOTRO ranges in that list... did you? I see everything from TF2 to WoW, but no LOTRO. Why do you elevate DHCP? Unless you're QoS'ing the LAN & WAN none of your devices should be DHCPing out to the internet.

I just ran into NEW problems with the router... woke up this morning and it lost its DHCP lease (the router). Tried rebooting all sorts of ways with the router and the modem... nothing. Plug the modem into my computer directly and it works right away. When I got home tried some more, still nothing... even statically assigning, lol. So I tried cloning the MAC address of my old router to this one and that's working for now... but that lease expires in 45 minutes so we'll see what happens then when it comes time to renew.

I do like that the UPnP actually works... although Azureus still doesn't seem to use it correctly but I see the Xbox doing it. I assigned a static IP to it and then just port forwarded what it needed anyway.

For QoS I have the following so far (services only) using HSFC and Optimize for Gaming (dunno if that does anything) is below. I don't even use BT very often so I don't know why I bother with half of this. Wish they had one for Netflix Instant Watching.

Bittorrent -- Bulk
Azureus (port I use) -- Bulk
LOTRO1 (9000-9010UDP) -- Express
LOTRO2 (2900-2910UDP) -- Express
HTTP -- Express
HTML-- Express
HTTPVIDEO -- Express
SSL -- Express
XboxLive -- Express
DNS -- Exempt

EDIT-- Router successfully got a new lease... but then it still kicked me offline (off of internet, not local LAN)? Had to reboot the router to get access back, wtf?

[SineSwiper]

Maybe your modem or ISP sucks?

[Tessian]

Maybe your modem or ISP sucks?

The modem is fine, I mean that's proven just by me plugging other things into it and it's instantly IPed. Comcast might be MAC restricting my internet? I know they do it to the mode, but maybe the router too? It just doesn't make sense why it worked for the first DHCP lease and then expired overnight (which wasn't 3 days... I've only had the router for 2 now) and just wouldn't get a new lease. Once I cloned the MAC of my old router, however, it's been fine. So yeah, I'm inclined to blame Comcast

[SineSwiper]

DHCP leases are renewed at the 50%, 75%, and 100% mark (if it doesn't get the first two). So, if it's a 3 day lease, it will renew it at the 1.5 day mark. Usually, you just get the same IP/lease, but maybe Comcast's system is just being a dick. I'm glad I don't work for them.

[Tessian]

Well that makes MORE sense... but doesn't explain then why the lease expired 1.5 days early. Oh well, I'll keep an eye on it.

Have you tried hooking a printer / external drive to the USB ports? I don't even know where in the DD-WRT you could even configure it unless that's what JFFS2 stands for.

[SineSwiper]

I would still check for a registration system within Comcast. We used to have CPE (ie: PC, routers) registration before we broke off from AT&T and became a real ISP. (In fact, a large portion of the cable industry was tied to AT&T's system right after the @Home split. AT&T was just at the right time with a system in place.)

Besides, I'm real anal about making sure that my router has the factory installed MAC addresses in use. I hate MAC cloning, because it has potential for problems when you give away your router or otherwise disconnect it. (Not to mention that MACs were never meant to be custom created.)

As far as printers, here's some help on that. Most of the articles for this and that are easily found on Google, btw.

[Tessian]

I don't have a printer, but did want to try the USB sharing and just curious how it worked... I expected a more user friendly setup than that.

Another new problem occured-- wireless died, for no reason. The radio light on the router was lit, but nothing could connect (blackberry and 2 laptops) and some couldn't even detect it. Took 2 reboots and a bunch of config resetting (turn radio off, turn radio on) to finally get it to work again. Dunno what caused it or what ended up fixing it. I'm really starting to question the stability of this router / software.

[SineSwiper]

It's probably the router. Did you buy it used or something?

[Tessian]

It's probably the router. Did you buy it used or something?

No, bought new from Buy.com

[Tessian]

I'm going to be messing around with pre-RC7 tomorrow... do you know for sure whether this router has a 4mb flash or 8mb flash?

[SineSwiper]

I'm going to be messing around with pre-RC7 tomorrow... do you know for sure whether this router has a 4mb flash or 8mb flash?

Reading up on it. I think it's 8MB. I tried enabling a JFFS2 system (journaling FS on flash), and it gave me 4MB off the bat (not including what's already being used to boot root). You can do the same to try to confirm by going to Admin -> JFFS2, and turning on both options. Hit Apply. (After it's done formatting, the total/free will be in the Status page.)

Even if you don't, you can enable your USB flash drive and use that space for whatever you want.

[Tessian]

Update btw-- these routers are at least 8mb flash, I've been running the MEGA bundle of the preRC-7 software for a while now. Lets me do a lot more now.

I think I finally nailed down my wireless problem to have something to do with the channels. Don't ask me why, but if I changed the channel the wireless started working again. I tried auto first but that only worked for a day... so I set it to channel 6 and it's been happy for about a week now. Doesn't make since as Channel 6 is the most used, default wireless network so I always tried to stay off it and opted for 3 or 11... oh well. It only happened sometimes in the evening too which makes me wonder if someone isn't fucking around nearby, but with what or doing what I have no idea.

Sine, you do anything new with your stuff? Now that I got my straightened out I finally turned QoS back on, which packet scheduler do you use?

[SineSwiper]

I just used the standard default packet scheduler and it works fine. Don't notice any lag anyway, even with BT running.

[Tessian]

I don't either-- the whole afternoon I was playing I had BT running and it was fine. I am still trying to tweak my total bandwidth up and down... seems to be too low in most cases, regardless of what bandwidth test I try.

I was just curious about QoS cause there are 2 to pick from. I'm starting to fear that QoS in general is slowing things down, even though I have HTTP and HTML at Express it seems that pages load slower anyway.

I did, however, use this time to enable MAC filtering so my ex who hasn't been paying the bills gets Bulk

[RentCavalier]

Neeeeerrrrrrrdsssssss

[Tessian]

Neeeeerrrrrrrdsssssss

jealous

[SineSwiper]

Neeeeerrrrrrrdsssssss :D

Shut up before I kick you with my energy legs!