DD-WRT

By seta-san
in Smart Home, Network & Security

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Grand Master

HawkMan

Posted
Posted

"big ugly computer box on the floor"

What?? Who says your router has to be "next" to the modem? And who says it has to be big? Here is a case for 3 nic alix board, its 6.5x6x1 inches -- thats smaller than you 610 ;) (2.6 x 12 x 10 inches)

post-14624-0-40599300-1357054629.png

You clearly have some sort of box "I have my HTPC/Server" That box could be a VM host and pfsense could run in a VM - which just a wire from your modem.. Why you would have your modem in the kitchen is beyond me in the first place.

Your "routers" could be where ever you want them to be - to say they have to be in the kitchen is crazy talk, or that they have to big big boxes?? I run multiple machines, my NAS and my router (pfsense) and its all on a N40L that is only 10.5" x 8.3" x 10.2" -- which is also smaller than your router ;) Just a bit thicker ;) It has 4 drives in it currently and only uses like 55 watts. Have it plugged into my killawatt so lets see has used in the last 6392 hours, 358Kwh -- what is that 266 days, and I pay about 12.5 cents per kwh so your talking 17 cents a day roughly to run my NAS, my router and all my play VMs - ubuntu, centos, freebsd, w7, 2k8, w8, etc. etc..

Your router might be able to do everything you want it to do - but sorry its not up to what I like to do on my network. The gateway/firewall between your network and the public internet has little to do with a wireless network. That you want to combine them into one simple little box with few actual networking features -- happy for you.

But sorry it does not have to be a big box, nor does it have to be a power hungry box, nor does it have to sit next to where your modem is -- in your case the kitchen.

BTW - this thread is from jul/aug 2012 ;)

I have my modem router in the kitchen because where it's place is a nice anonymous place, it's the input point for the house, AND it's the centerpoint of the first floor, meaning form there I get full coverage of the whole house. While I could have it in the HTPC. I'd rather have my internet up and going all the time, even when that one is down for maintenance and updates/upgrades, especially since it's sort of not feeling all to well in general.

And even if a mITX box could be smaller, it wouldn't be as anonymous, it would cost significantly more since I already have this 610 that performs as well as the other box would, the other box still would require the antennas and no MIMO.

I can do everything I need on my home network, it doesn't need to be managed like a corporate network. As it is I could run the 610 as a fileserver, NAS and even a torrent downloader as well, but that stuff is handled by my media center anyway.

and the date of the OP is kinda irrelevant, I don't check the dates of the OP, I reply to posts that pop up in the new content. btw with your box, I would still need an extra switch.

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Grand Master

+BudMan MVC

Posted
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Posted

"I would still need an extra switch."

Says who?? For starters I would move your modem out of your kitchen - you don't have a switch where your other wired devices are located? So no extra from what I can tell.

Glad your happy with your setup - I have no desire to get you to move away from what your happy with. My point of commenting in this thread was your nonsense that pfsense or any other gateway/router distro has to be some big box thing. Which is just not true at all.

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Grand Master

HawkMan

Posted
Posted

Why would I move my modem out of my kitchen, that's where my main and only phone line hookup is, and as I said, the point where it's mounted is in an anonymous and little visible corner of the kitchen, which also happens to be the center point of the house. moving it would be, inefficient.

Well to compare with my 610, it would have to be a bigger box. Unless you can find me a box that's as small as my 610, with 6 NIC's and 2 wireless transceivers with powerful MIMO antennas.

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Grand Master

Detection

Posted
Posted

DD-WRT has nightly builds right?

I wish the DD-WRT team would just release a "stable" release of SP2. Its about time they do it

No nightlys that I know of, I think you can compile them yourself (maybe / unsure)

Usually about 1 a month lately, sometimes more

There are a load of stable builds, just have to try a few until you find one that your router likes

18777 was very stable for me, as is 20119 I have running atm, haven't flashed this latest build yet

FTP has all the builds, ignore their router database, its out of date

ftp://ftp.dd-wrt.com/others/eko/BrainSlayer-V24-preSP2/

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Grand Master

+BudMan MVC

Posted
  • MVC
Posted

"with 6 NIC's"

Well for starters it doesn't have 6 nics, it has a 4 port switch and wan nic.

And we already went over wireless - I would never combine my wireless and gateway/firewall into 1 box. I run AP off my wired for wireless - this is more robust setup... You already stated your running one as just an AP. That is my point.

As to why I wouldn't have my modem in the kitchen -- because its a KITCHEN! that is why ;) Having network gear in your kitchen makes no sense to me. So what if your phone line comes in there. Those are easy enough to move..

As to size the box I already posted is smaller than your router already. And it has 3 nics - internet, lan and other could be use for say your wireless network to isolate it on a vlan vs your normal lan, or dmz segment, whatever. But sure if you want more ports in the same box

Here is one

http://linitx.com/product/12508

6 ports, and still smaller than your current router ;)

Dimensions: 256mm x 158mm x 44mm (10x6.25x1.75) while your router is 2.6 x 12 x 10 inches

**** you can put a full 2.5HDD in there or SSD if you want. My point is your statement that to run a full blown router distro with FULL firewall features and the cpu and ram to actual do stuff does not have to be in some big box these days.

I don't want to argue with you, or have any desire to have you change your setup.. I could give 2 cents what you run, its just your statement that you have to use a lot of power or have some big box, etc.. Just not founded in reality these days.

If you are happy, then I am happy for you. Your network does what you need/want it to do, I have not run a 1 box switch/gateway/firewall/wireless box in years and years and years. You can do some amazing thing with the tiny boxes for sure - with the right firmware of them.. They can be amazing to be sure - but just not up to what I need in my setup.

To be honest I don't see every going back to hardware based router - running it a VM is the cats meow if you ask me. I can bring up other distros in seconds to act as my gateway/firewall - just use the same mac for wan interface connected to my cable modem. And shazam I have a different router as my gateway to the internet. I play with development code of pfsense, if something goes wrong - click I just reboot from a snapshot I took before I made any changes or updated the OS and router is back on line in seconds, etc.

Be we are way off topic here as well - this thread was about ? if dd-wrt project was dead because of OP lack of being able to navigate a website and find the current versions, or the forums of said project that talks about all the stuff in works, etc. As stated already there are very current builds you can use, etc.

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Grand Master

HawkMan

Posted
Posted

And we already went over wireless - I would never combine my wireless and gateway/firewall into 1 box. I run AP off my wired for wireless - this is more robust setup... You already stated your running one as just an AP. That is my point.

.

Actually that's not your point, since that one is running merely because I got it for free, otherwise I wouldn't be running it at all, it's only real purpose is as a switch and to give me 5 bar coverage in the upstairs bedroom instead of 3 bars :p

As fro DD-Wrt itself, I do run it on the upstairs router because it's a v1 while the downstairs one is V2 and runs tomato. personally I despise DD-WRT, it's slow compared to Tomato doesn't have the awesome Tomato QoS and I just don't like their interface, luckily I don't need to deal with the upstairs one at all after setting it up since it doesn't really do anything, I don't know what version it runs but I'm not going to bother updating it, it does what it does and is rock solid doing it.

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Proficient

Saint Shiv

Posted
Posted

I was using a DDWRT modified kong build from 7/12 on my Linksys E3000 but i decided to hop to Shibby's newest tomato build 1.28.0000 MIPSR2-104 K26 USB Big-VPN

The newest experimental builds of DDWRT certainly have promise, they were in my experience alot faster than the year+ old builds but I couldn't get my wireless N radios to function properly. I swapped to Tomato about a month ago, and I'm staying put until a new version of DDWRT comes out.

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Grand Master

Detection

Posted
Posted

I was using a DDWRT modified kong build from 7/12 on my Linksys E3000 but i decided to hop to Shibby's newest tomato build 1.28.0000 MIPSR2-104 K26 USB Big-VPN

The newest experimental builds of DDWRT certainly have promise, they were in my experience alot faster than the year+ old builds but I couldn't get my wireless N radios to function properly. I swapped to Tomato about a month ago, and I'm staying put until a new version of DDWRT comes out.

A new version was released today

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Grand Master

Detection

Posted
Posted

I saw, what router do you have? Did you try it?

Running it now, I have the Linksys Cisco WRT160NL

The test build released before this one was solid for me too so was a bit dubious to update as everything was fine but so far so good but only 3 hours uptime atm

Seems like a few people are having issues with TL-WR1043ND routers though, losing their WAN port or something, more info here

http://www.dd-wrt.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=166624

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Grand Master

Detection

Posted
Posted

is that new version stable?

It has been for the last 3 hours, but couldn't say for a few days yet, most unstable builds will last fine for a few days then lock up or I lose WAN or Wireless

18777, 20119 were 100% stable for me - see how this one does in a week or so

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Grand Master

seta-san

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  • Author
Posted

It has been for the last 3 hours, but couldn't say for a few days yet, most unstable builds will last fine for a few days then lock up or I lose WAN or Wireless

18777, 20119 were 100% stable for me - see how this one does in a week or so

well, i'm running it on a Linksys WRT600N. I'll report in a couple of days to say how it's going. It at least hasn't bricked it.

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Grand Master

+BudMan MVC

Posted
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"it's only real purpose is as a switch"

Oh no -- your using an extra switch?? What is the world coming too? ;) You mean you have devices that are not all combined into 1 box in your kitchen!

"As fro DD-Wrt itself, I do run it on the upstairs router because it's a v1 while the downstairs one is V2 and runs tomato"

:blink: ??? Did you think of swapping them?? Why do you need to run 3rd party firmware if all it is a switch and couple extra bars..

So you use a firmware you say you despise - but clearly must be better than the native or why would you use it. But then you don't just swap out devices so you can use the firmware you like as your actual gateway/router?? :blink: :blink:

Your reasoning for running 3rdp party firmware vs native - is the same reasoning to why I run pfsense, or any other full blown distro. If the soho off the shelf devices were the get all to end all, then there would be no need to run 3rd party firmware on them, or for some of us to run other linux/bsd based distro's to act as our gateway/firewall etc..

You have you reason why you run 3rd party, and I have my reasons why that is not enough for me and need to run something more.. Your happy with what your doing, I am happy with what I am doing. Enough said.

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Grand Master

Shadrack

Posted
Posted

I got DD-WRT v24-sp2 setup on my Linksys WRT400N just the way I like it and don't really have any desire to mess with upgrading and returning all my settings.

Some of the other firmwares look appealing. One thing that I utilize a lot is I use OpenDNS for the kiddo devices. With DD-WRT and I can add iptable entries that lock the kiddo devices into always using OpenDNS for DNS lookups and it is a pretty decent setup. They can probably get around it if they learned something and tried but they don't. At the same time, I want all my other devices to use my ISP DNS. DD-WRT handles this requirement well with its feature set. I'm curious how well other custom firmwares would do with it.

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Grand Master

HawkMan

Posted
Posted

"it's only real purpose is as a switch"

Oh no -- your using an extra switch?? What is the world coming too? ;) You mean you have devices that are not all combined into 1 box in your kitchen!

"As fro DD-Wrt itself, I do run it on the upstairs router because it's a v1 while the downstairs one is V2 and runs tomato"

:blink: ??? Did you think of swapping them?? Why do you need to run 3rd party firmware if all it is a switch and couple extra bars..

So you use a firmware you say you despise - but clearly must be better than the native or why would you use it. But then you don't just swap out devices so you can use the firmware you like as your actual gateway/router?? :blink: :blink:

Your reasoning for running 3rdp party firmware vs native - is the same reasoning to why I run pfsense, or any other full blown distro. If the soho off the shelf devices were the get all to end all, then there would be no need to run 3rd party firmware on them, or for some of us to run other linux/bsd based distro's to act as our gateway/firewall etc..

You have you reason why you run 3rd party, and I have my reasons why that is not enough for me and need to run something more.. Your happy with what your doing, I am happy with what I am doing. Enough said.

Why would I swap them? Why would I run the gateway/router stairs when the mode is downstairs and more central in the house ? And actually I would run the original firmware on the upstairs one, had it allowed me to set up the network like I wanted to, but it doesn't, so.... Tough technically, that was before I laid down the cable and had to use the wireless to bridge the networks, so now I don't actually need to run dd-wrt anymore. But as I said, it's rock solid and stale so I'm to messing with it. But if I had had the cable there for the start,it would never have had dd-wrt.

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Grand Master

Crisp

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Posted

As to size the box I already posted is smaller than your router already. And it has 3 nics - internet, lan and other could be use for say your wireless network to isolate it on a vlan vs your normal lan, or dmz segment, whatever. But sure if you want more ports in the same box

My point exactly, after all as you've already stated you don't even need a dedicated box for it anyway using VM on equipment you already have on your network, but after correcting his nonsense statements he then turned to personally attack my grammar, rather than staying to the point. Which is a obvious sign when someone knows they're wrong, or usually the common thing today is to brand someone as a troll.

Either way you can use whatever you want, after all it's your home. My experience from using DD-WRT is a bad one. Their stable releases are years out of date and their newer ones they bring out twice a month are usually buggy as ****. Not to mention the wireless quality is pure crap and that's from using it on two previous Linksys routers and a D-Link. So I've had my fair share of running it.

When I moved to pfSense, man... what a difference. Stable, amazing firewall, unlimited setting to play with and best of all, free. (under statement as DD-WRT is free, but doesn't even compare)

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Grand Master

Detection

Posted
Posted

I got DD-WRT v24-sp2 setup on my Linksys WRT400N just the way I like it and don't really have any desire to mess with upgrading and returning all my settings.

Some of the other firmwares look appealing. One thing that I utilize a lot is I use OpenDNS for the kiddo devices. With DD-WRT and I can add iptable entries that lock the kiddo devices into always using OpenDNS for DNS lookups and it is a pretty decent setup. They can probably get around it if they learned something and tried but they don't. At the same time, I want all my other devices to use my ISP DNS. DD-WRT handles this requirement well with its feature set. I'm curious how well other custom firmwares would do with it.

Just goto administration > backup and save the settings to a file, thats how I upgrade > wipe > restore and all my settings are exactly the same as they were before I wiped

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Grand Master

HawkMan

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Posted

well firstly, I didn't attack your grammar, I corrected a word you seemed to have issues with since you wrote it wrong twice, in separate posts. and now you know the difference between a hole and the whole thing.

secondly, as was explained before, his solution wouldn't work in my circumstance in any case. neither would yours, but you have still neglected to reply to that post, so.

Also why does a release have to be brand new ? what's wrong a a release that's a few years old when it does the job it's supposed to and does it well.

Just goto administration > backup and save the settings to a file, thats how I upgrade > wipe > restore and all my settings are exactly the same as they were before I wiped

usually when upgrading from the same releases, DD-WRT->DD-WRT, Tomato->Tomato(here you might need to differentiate between builds) you generally don't need to wipe.

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Grand Master

+BudMan MVC

Posted
  • MVC
Posted

"Why would I swap them? Why would I run the gateway/router stairs when the mode is downstairs and more central in the hous"

You can not be that dense?? Really?? :blink:

Move the BOX that is v2 that can run your tomato firmware you so happy with to you NOC (kitchen).. And place the V1 that runs the dd-wrt that you despise :rolleyes: (but use anyway) where you currently have the AP.

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Here's what they got for the week: UK **** blockers are a looming privacy disaster, we must be able to see the source code This week in software news Image: Proton Catch up on some of the latest software news updates that arrived throughout the week: Dark clouds over PC makers: Building on our report from last month, Dell officially acknowledged that its own remediation software was causing BSOD issues and unexpected system restarts. HP is also facing equally frustrating issues involving recent Windows Secure Boot updates on Windows 11. Controversial icon: Spotify finally removed the disco ball icon from its app and replaced it with the familiar flat green logo after weeks of mixed reactions online. While some people don't like the new design, the retro, three-dimensional look has generated a following of its own. Even other brands are coming up with their versions of the disco logo. NVIDIA fixes stuff: A new hotfix driver 610.52 fixes various issues related to monitors and displays, noting that G-SYNC-related frame pacing troubles should now be resolved on Ada Lovelace GPUs. The feedback thread also points out that the hotfix patches a BSOD issue. FIFA World Cup tracker: Opera is redesigning its Android browser with a built-in football tracker for the upcoming World Cup in the US. The new homepage is now "more immersive" with easier access to common browser features. Command line for Proton: The Swiss technology company has launched a command line version of the Proton Drive, which you can use to manage your encrypted files directly from a terminal across all major platforms, including Windows, macOS, and Linux. This week in hardware news Image: Thermaltake Catch up on some of the latest software news updates that arrived throughout the week: Intel and AMD PCs in one case: Thermaltake's CAPO X dual-system chassis brings you the best of both worlds by supporting two microATX (mATX) motherboards and up to two 360 mm AIO liquid coolers. If you want ideas, maybe you can use one as your main PC and another as an AI agent. Google Tensor production: While TSMC will remain the lead producer, the search giant is reportedly in talks with Samsung to hand over part of the production of its next-generation Tensor AI chips. The upcoming TPUs are reportedly codenamed “Icefish” and will be produced using Samsung's 2-nanometer process technology. Lethal fake phone chargers: UK-based consumer rights organization Which? has warned that "potentially lethal knock-off chargers" are still being sold on online marketplaces, including Amazon and eBay, despite the dangers of such chargers having been exposed. This week in Google News Image: Google Catch up on some of the latest Google news updates that arrived throughout the week: Sliding into DMs: You might remember that YouTube had a direct messaging feature back in the day. It's now rolling out a revamped direct messaging inbox that lets you share Shorts, videos, and live streams and have conversations about them. New in NotebookLM: The AI-powered note-taking app got some new agentic capabilities and more advanced reasoning, thanks to support for Gemini 3.5 and Antigravity. NotebookLM can now generate outputs in more formats, making it easier to start new projects with less information. This week in Apple News Image: Apple Catch up on some of the latest Apple news updates that arrived throughout the week: WWDC 2026: This week was all about Apple's annual developer conference, where the iPhone-maker finally unveiled an upgraded Siri AI and a platter of new Apple Intelligence features. Siri AI now has a cross-platform app, which is supported on select models of iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch, and Vision Pro. What's different about WWDC: I wrote a detailed feature this week discussing how Apple changed the WWDC keynote this year, blurring the lines between its operating systems. Apple didn't have dedicated segments for its operating systems this year and didn't even publish the official press releases. Liquid Glass slider (finally): It's that time of the year when Apple previews fresh updates for iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch, AirPods, and other platforms. A new transparency slider for Liquid Glass is coming to iOS 27, iPadOS 27, and macOS 27 Golden Gate. Is your device supported?: If you're wondering whether your Apple device supports the new developer beta builds, you can check the respective compatibility lists for iOS 27, iPadOS 27, macOS 27, and watchOS 27. Siri AI not coming to Europe: Yes, that's true due to complications related to the Digital Markets Act (DMA). While Apple penned a blog post to tell its side of the story, a European Commission spokesperson told Neowin that the DMA does not prohibit Apple from launching its services in the EU; the company is simply required to comply with the law. New child safety features: Apple announced a trove of new safety features for kids, including a simpler setup experience for parents, Ask to Browse, Time Allowances, and a redesigned Screen Time UI. Parents can now visit a new website to find answers to common questions around child safety features. More cloud power: Apple's Private Cloud Compute cloud infrastructure will now run beyond its own data centers for the first time. It's working with Google and NVIDIA to run new Apple Intelligence workloads on Google Cloud systems powered by NVIDIA GPUs. This week in Meta news Catch up on the latest Meta news updates that arrived throughout the week: Data from outside: Meta is rolling out a new update globally to personalize your AI responses and primary feeds using data from outside businesses. It already targets ads based on shopping activity, but the latest development enables it to personalize other "parts of your experience." There is a toggle in the Settings to disable activity from other businesses; however, it won't prevent companies from sending your data to Meta. Level playing field: The European Commission has ordered the social media giant to restore access to WhatsApp for third-party AI chatbots, including ChatGPT and Copilot. Meta previously blocked rival AI chatbots from operating on WhatsApp, prompting the Commission to launch an antitrust investigation. Spying on users: On the flip side, WhatsApp accused the Israeli cyber-intelligence firm, NSO Group, of deploying a fresh wave of targeted "spear phishing" attacks against its users, which were thwarted by WhatsApp's security teams. Reorder profile grid: Adding some customization for the profile grid feature, Instagram now lets you rearrange posts in your profile without deleting and reuploading content. Go to your profile and long-press any thumbnail to find the "Reorder grid" option. This week in AI news Catch up on the latest artificial intelligence news updates that arrived throughout the week: Claude RAM hogger: Windows users are getting infuriated by Claude Desktop's hidden 1.8GB Hyper-V VM bug, which spins up if you use Claude Cowork or agent mode even once. It shows a Vmmem process in Task Manager, indicating 0% CPU usage but 1.8GB of RAM usage. Claude Fable 5: The new state-of-the-art AI model from Anthropic beats OpenAI's ChatGPT-5.5 in multiple AI benchmarks. Claude Fable 5 sits above the Opus models and outperforms most other generally available models across knowledge work, vision, scientific research, and more. However, the model was abruptly suspended after receiving an export control directive from the US government. Stack Overflow for AI agents: The popular Q&A platform has launched Stack Overflow for Agents in beta, which AI agents can use to share, find, and reuse coding knowledge. It explained that AI agents operate in isolation, creating an Ephemeral Intelligence Gap, and valuable tokens are wasted on something another agent has already solved. Upgrading Codex: OpenAI is buying a company called Ona, which makes secure cloud execution and orchestration technology for developers. The ChatGPT-maker aims to make Codex agents run for days without being tied to a local machine or an active session. It also announced a new developer mode in Chrome. This week in open-source news Catch up on some of the latest open-source and Linux updates that arrived throughout the week: Linux 7.1 rc7: Linux Torvalds dropped an optimized rc7 with crucial fixes for AMD and laptop hardware. He said that a stable version of Linux 7.1 could arrive next week, adding that the latest RC is not small, but smaller than recent releases. Alpine Linux 3.24: The latest Alpine Linux release added support for COSMIC Desktop, Linux 6.18, IPv6 installer support, automatic serial console configuration for headless setups, and major package updates and removals. This week in Microsoft News Microsoft had to shut down more than 70 GitHub repos after they were compromised by malware, Teams is getting a controversial tracking feature that users may hate, and the company explained why the new update makes PowerToys faster. You can check out Taras's freshly baked Microsoft Weekly roundup to catch up on all the interesting stories this week. This week in gaming The latest issue of Pulasthi's Weekend PC Game Deals curates several exciting games on sale this week. On the Epic Games Store, the new titles on display for grabs include Warhammer 40K Speed Freeks and The Ouroboros King. NVIDIA GeForce NOW's summer sale lowered the prices of both the Performance and Ultimate membership options for a limited time period. Meanwhile, the Xbox Free Play Days brought Undead Labs' post-apocalyptic title State of Decay 2, as well as two Team17-published titles. That said, here are some more stories from the gaming world: Dragon's Dogma 2: Dark Arisen expansion to bring snowy region, new updates also coming Playground drops 30 minutes of Fable gameplay, shows off life sim and morality system Playground Games confirms Forza Horizon 6 save wipe bug Doom: The Dark Ages Revelations expansion gives the Slayer a brutal Chain Spear State of Decay 3 is out in 2027, reveals Plague Nests with new co-op gameplay trailer From the review corner This week, Taras got his hands on the DuRoBo Krono portable e-ink reader, which comes with a $279 price tag. It's a smartphone-sized device with a rotating dial, sitting somewhere between premium and cheap in terms of build quality. Speaking of the pros, the physical controls are cool, the smart dial is useful, the battery life is good, and Android 15 has no-nonsense software. On the flip side, the device lacks software customization, the built-in AI needs improvement, the smart dial is a bit wobbly, and there is no ambient light sensor. EA Sports UFC 6 EA Sports UFC 6 does a better job at onboarding new players than most fighting games, according to Pulasthi's detailed review. The game comes with rewarding combat systems, top-notch animation, impressive impact physics, and visible damage on fighters. However, the menus lag a lot, grappling isn't very fun, and the flow state feels a little misplaced. More price drops! We got you covered with some hot tech deals all week. For some reason, if you missed out on a great discount, here is a summary of some recent deals that are still alive: GIGABYTE Radeon RX 9070 XT Gaming OC ICE 16G - $649.99 (13% off) 1TB Samsung T7 Portable SSD - $189.98 (31% off) AirPods Pro 3 - $179 ($50 off) Edifier R1280Ts Powered Bookshelf Speakers - $129.99 (24% off) To view all of our recent deals, click here. So, these were some of the biggest tech news and other updates from this week. There will be more issues of our 7 Days series in the coming weeks and months, so stay tuned. You can also support Neowin by registering for a free member account or subscribing to extra member benefits, along with an ad-free tier option. Have a great weekend!

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