Because Everyone (Still) Needs a Router
codinghorror.com
Because Everyone (Still) Needs a Router
1–10 of 137 posts
Re: Because Everyone (Still) Needs a Router
#2I don't know. I am going to keep on hoping that I will be able get by with the router built into my DSL modem when I switch from cable to DSL. Or that I can use ethernet to get my Mac mini on the net while using the mini's Wifi to create an ad-hoc wireless network to get the iPad I plan to buy on the net. Or that I will build a Linux box and the motherboard will have wifi onboard. Or that I will build a Linux box and there is a cheap PCI card I can add to it to get all the ethernet ports I will ever need.
Point is that I want to avoid adding yet another box to my home -- especially if the box is plastic rather than metal and requires its own external AC adapter like the first of the OP's buying recommendations does.
Re: Because Everyone (Still) Needs a Router
#3I think that some of the best hardware+OS right now is actually a Netgear WNDR3800 running OpenWRT.
It has some of the best hardware around (gigabit,wifi N, multiple radios,128MB of RAM) and it is using 100% open source software. Anything Broadcom is using binary blobs for the wireless drivers which end up being very buggy and unreliable. It also holds back the kernel version too which makes some software uninstallable. So we've seen a lot of support and updates for Atheros based hardware.
You also can't install as many packages on Tomato as you can on OpenWRT. Though that need may only arise in time when realize you need said features. There is much more of a learning curve with OpenWRT though.
Re: Because Everyone (Still) Needs a Router
#4I'd pick a Buffalo WZR-HP-G300NH, or -AG300N rather than either ASUS he picked. Both ship with DD-WRT preinstalled, and full source of the firmware is available.
The older ASUS routers are stuck on Linux 2.4.x permanently in OpenWRT (which DD-WRT and Tomato are derived from) because of proprietary Wifi or Ethernet drivers or firmware blobs and poor CPU support.
Re: Because Everyone (Still) Needs a Router
#5As I commented here:
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4082351
The part of Tomato I like best is its simple DNS interface that lets you have one hosts file that is shared across all the machines connected to it. This is where I define my local dev domains so that I can test across devices that don't allow local host file changes (namely non-jailbroken iOS devices).
Re: Because Everyone (Still) Needs a Router
#6Maybe this is a reasonable place to ask for some advice: I have 2 broadband connections, one via my phone line (ADSL) (76/17) and one cable (50/4) does anyone have any experience with using 1 piece of hardware to manage them both, possibly load balancing (not important, but would be cool)? I currently have 1 modem and 2 routers... it's not a very power efficient set up, it's also a bad experience because they're all ISP provided and don't allow me to control DNS.
Re: Because Everyone (Still) Needs a Router
#7No mention of Mikrotik? I picked up a RB750GL last week, and so far, it's everything DD-WRT/Tomato/etc wish they could be. It works as a basic plug-and-play router, but it's incredibly flexible beyond that.
Check out http://wiki.mikrotik.com/wiki/Manual:RouterOS_features if you're interested. You can download the OS and run it in a VM if you want to give it a try before purchasing.
Re: Because Everyone (Still) Needs a Router
#8Maybe this is a reasonable place to ask for some advice: I have 2 broadband connections, one via my phone line (ADSL) (76/17) and one cable (50/4) does anyone have any experience with using 1 piece of hardware to manage them both, possibly load balancing (not important, but would be cool)? I currently have 1 modem and 2 routers... it's not a very power efficient set up, it's also a bad experience because they're all…
I do exactly this using a Soekris box running pfSense. It's a godsend. Seriously.
Perhaps I should blog about the setup as some point.
Re: Because Everyone (Still) Needs a Router
#9Maybe this is a reasonable place to ask for some advice: I have 2 broadband connections, one via my phone line (ADSL) (76/17) and one cable (50/4) does anyone have any experience with using 1 piece of hardware to manage them both, possibly load balancing (not important, but would be cool)? I currently have 1 modem and 2 routers... it's not a very power efficient set up, it's also a bad experience because they're all…
Realistically, you'd be looking at a soho (small office/home office) load balancing router, specifically a dual-wan router. Cisco offers some [1] as well as Peplink [2]. I don't have a lot of experience with them (did some research on it a few years ago but never pulled the trigger), so YMMV when it comes to custom firmware etc. Doing a google search on "dual wan router" would give you a good feel for the environment. It's possible to find them under $200USD. $350 isn't entirely out of the question depending on the features you're looking for.
If you're outside of the US (I'm guessing, based on the speed of your link), some products are export-restricted. You'd have to check on support for your locale. Another option if you're in a DIY mood is making a custom Linux box using split access features of iptables [3].
[1] http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833124...
Re: Because Everyone (Still) Needs a Router
#10I'd pick a Buffalo WZR-HP-G300NH, or -AG300N rather than either ASUS he picked. Both ship with DD-WRT preinstalled, and full source of the firmware is available. The older ASUS routers are stuck on Linux 2.4.x permanently in OpenWRT (which DD-WRT and Tomato are derived from) because of proprietary Wifi or Ethernet drivers or firmware blobs and poor CPU support.
The newer ASUS (RT-N12/16+) use a 2.6.x kernel (and actually don't work with the old 2.4.x kernel) on tomato, and given now, I'd get the RT-N16 running tomato. My RT-N12 (I couldn't afford the more expensive RT-N16 at the time) is fine but only has 4MB of flash, so I can't put the "full" tomato on it, instead I compile it from source for a thinned out build that gets rid of a number of things yet keeps both IPv6 & OpenVPN.
I haven't tried either of the Buffalo routers, but my budget ASUS has been rocksolid and works very well.
A word of advice about tomato though, the development has stalled somewhat and led to the continuing development of a number of "modifications"(1) developed by different people, where each goes its own ways (e.g. Shibby, Toastman etc.). They can be found via the sub-forum and continuously add new features, improve existing ones and also fix some bugs etc.
(I am using Toastman's tomato no-usb mod)