[IP] more on The Open Source WRT54G Story
Begin forwarded message:
From: Rodney Joffe <rjoffe@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: November 8, 2005 9:18:14 PM EST
To: Dave Farber <dave@xxxxxxxxxx>, dewayne@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: [IP] The Open Source WRT54G Story
For IP if you wish:
Dave, and Dewayne,
There is a missing element together with a really irritating
postscript to this story that could have its own thread along the
lines of:
"And how Cisco then managed to derail this really neat initiative".
Cisco, whose Access Points you mention, then acquired Linksys in
March of 2003 for $500m. So far so good. They never stood in the way
of the GNU GPL for all of 2003, and 2004, and most of 2005. The GPL
really did its thing. There have been a handful of hardware versions
over the life of the project, that have required updates to the code.
These have been quickly achieved, and some of the upgrades made by
Linksys/Cisco have enabled some additional features.
And then during this summer Cisco started shipping Version 5 of the
WRT54G.
Now, what you should know is that the only way to tell what version
of the WRT54G you have is by turning the physical router over, and
looking on the attached label. There is no easy hint by looking at
the outside box, or even by looking at the router itself. The model
number is consistent, the features in retail advertising are pretty
consistent. But Version 5 is an entirely different animal. Is now
uses a totally new OS (VxWorks) which according to the developers is
extremely difficult to modify/customize, and the RAM and flash memory
have been cut in half. Bottom line - there is no code available, nor
is there likely to be, for the WRT54G for the current production. And
while the developers have said they will try and get a stripped down
version running, it will not have many of the neat features we've
become accustomed to. So the hunt is on for "stale" inventory. The
WRT54G train has left the station.
On the bright side, the developers have been successfully porting the
mods to other manufacturers routers based on the same or similar chip-
sets.
On Nov 8, 2005, at 6:01 PM, David Farber wrote:
Begin forwarded message:
From: Dewayne Hendricks <dewayne@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: November 8, 2005 12:45:33 PM EST
To: Dewayne-Net Technology List <dewayne-net@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [Dewayne-Net] The Open Source WRT54G Story
Reply-To: dewayne@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
The Open Source WRT54G Story
November 8, 2005
<http://www.wi-fiplanet.com/tutorials/article.php/3562391>
The story of the Linksys Wireless-G Router (model WRT54G) and how
you can turn a $60 router into a $600 router is a little bit CSI
and a little bit Freaks & Geeks. It’s also the story of how the
open source movement can produce a win-win scenario for both
consumers and commercial vendors. What’s especially exciting is
that tricking out this router doesn’t require any eBay sleuthing or
other hunt for some off-the-wall piece of hardware. Instead, grab
it off-the-shelf. The WRT54G is stacked high in every Best Buy and
Circuit City across the country and, of course, most online
retailers — Amazon.com sells it for $55. It’s ubiquitous and, some
would say, a diamond in the rough. Or a wolf in sheep’s clothing.
While routers used to be the domain of networking specialists,
they’ve gone mainstream along with residential broadband. Commodity
routers can be had for as little as – well, "free after rebate” in
some cases, and often not much more. To keep them cheap, consumer-
grade vendors like Linksys repackage designs from OEM vendors
rather than design the hardware and software in-house.
The tradeoff for these sub-$100 routers can be reliability,
particularly in the coding of the firmware – the software “brain”
that controls the router’s functions. Consumer-grade firmware may
be buggy, and may be limited in functionality compared to
commercial-grade routers designed for business such as those made
by Cisco and SonicWall.
The WRT54G was released in 2003 in anticipation of the 802.11g
standard, with its theoretical maximum bandwidth of 54Mbps compared
to 802.11b’s 11Mbps. In many respects the WRT54G is a typical
wireless router – it accepts an incoming broadband link such as
cable or DSL and shares it between its built-in four-port Ethernet
switch and antennae for broadcasting the signal to wireless clients.
In June 2003 some folks on the Linux Kernel Mailing List sniffed
around the WRT54G and found that its firmware was based on Linux
components. Because Linux is released under the GNU General Public
License, or GPL, the terms of the license obliged Linksys to make
available the source code to the WRT54G firmware. As most router
firmware is proprietary code, vendors have no such obligation. It
remains unclear whether Linksys was aware of the WRT54G’s Linux
lineage, and its associated source requirements, at the time they
released the router. But ultimately, under outside pressure to
deliver on their legal obligation under the GPL, Linksys open
sourced the WRT54G firmware in July 2003.
With the code in hand, developers learned exactly how to talk to
the hardware inside and how to code any features the hardware could
support. It has spawning a handful of open source firmware projects
for the WRT54G that extend its capabilities, and reliability, far
beyond what is expected from a cheap consumer-grade router.
Feature-Packed Firmwares
So the Linksys WRT54G can be loaded with replacement firmware with
exciting new features. Which raises the question – like what?
Of course, you can expect most replacement firmware to support the
same basic functions Linksys provides out of the box for this
wireless router. Often these features will be more stable, in cases
where Linksys’ bugs have been fixed by other developers. But that’s
not what makes open source firmware so exciting.
The real deal is what the WRT54G can do, with the right replacement
firmware, that you’d only expect to find on a commercial-grade
router costing several times as much.
You could use the WRT54G as a repeater or a bridge. Create a
wireless distribution system (WDS) or a mesh network. Run a VPN
server. Or a VoIP server. Or a managed hotspot with a RADIUS
server. Manage bandwidth use per protocol. Control traffic shaping.
Support IPv6. Boost antenna power. Remotely access router logs.
Operate the router as a miniature low-power PC, running a variety
of Linux applications.
That’s just the short list. Some firmware offerings support a wide
range of these features while others are more tailored to specific
router applications. Some sport friendlier configuration interfaces
while some are command-line driven. And because these firmware
files descend from Linksys’ open-source progenitor, they are freely
available.
The important caveat, of course, is that Linksys will not support
alternative firmware, only their own official version. Should you
run into a problem with replacement firmware, or wind up disabling
your router (which is rare but possible – stay tuned), you’ll be on
your own. If you already own a WRT54G and it performs just the way
you need it to, mucking around with replacement firmware might just
break something that didn’t need fixing.
On the other hand, if adding enterprise features to a $60 router
sounds worth the minimal risk, you don’t need any special hacker
skills to get there. If you’ve already setup an off-the-shelf
router before, replacing the WRT54G’s stock firmware with a feature-
laden substitute is well within reach.
Choose Your Firmware
Besides Linksys’ own official firmware, there are more than a dozen
varieties of firmware replacements available for the WRT54G. The
most popular are named Alchemy and Talisman, released by a company
called Sveasoft, and another named DD-WRT, by a guy named BrainSlayer.
[snip]
Weblog at: <http://weblog.warpspeed.com>
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Rodney Joffe
CenterGate Research Group, LLC.
http://www.centergate.com
"Technology so advanced, even we don't understand it!"(R)
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