Hello!

I am known as "Dedicated_Dad" for obvious reasons...

I'm a Systems Engineer by trade, with ~17 years of experience.  I have unfortunately been pretty much pigeon-holed into MS Exchange and AD lately, although I do a fair amount of systems and network security, database and other related work as well.

I'm quite comfortable in a *nix shell, use Cygwin religiously.  I stumbled across this site this evening after experiencing yet another lockup from my Linksys wrt54gs v2 and my wrt54g v4.  I'd once seen a /. article about open-source FW for the Linksys devices, and tonight's rage set me to looking.

That said, "Hello All!"

I'm stunned by the power inherent in the products you developer-types have put together -- having spent a fair amount of time reading over docs and forum posts, I must also say "You people ROCK!" 

I'm honestly a bit overwhelmed -- I don't have any exceptional needs that the latest Linksys FW wouldn't solve, if it didn't lock up at random, sometimes going months with no issues and then locking up (as it did tonight) several times in a single evening.  I live in a house full of females, all of whom are overwhelmed by anything more complex than a doorknob, and they simply can't handle the reset when I am not home.  I live in a rural area, so even my security needs don't require anything beyond WEP.

In sum, all I really need is a basic WAP/router, with MAC filtering and 128-bit WEP, that's stable and not prone to lock up at random...

Before I go on, please know that I've spent several hours browsing this site, and couldn't find anyone like me asking a question like mine.  IF I have overlooked something, please go easy on me -- it wasn't for lack of trying! 

Here's the Noob question I promised:  Which version would be best for me based on the criteria I provided above?

Thanks in advance for your time, and for all the (very impressive) work!  I will certainly be passing this site along to coworkers who would simply LOVE to hack away at their stuff...  I'm sure you'll hear from them!

Sincerely,

DD

If you're familiar with the *nix shell, then the stock versions of OpenWRT should do fine. There is WhiteRussian, which is labeled 'stable', but works with its settings in NVRAM, and there is the development version named 'Kamikaze', which is more rough around the edges, but stores its settings in real config files. I find the latter to be easier - a lot.

If you prefer GUI-based setup, you can get x-wrt images of both versions (WhiteRussian + Kamikaze) from the X-wrt homepage.

After trying out both (and fiddling and messing up a bit), I went with Kamikaze, and installed X-wrt on top of it (I do most, if not all, of the configuration through SSH, but X-wrt is still nice to display stuff, and it works to some extent on Kamikaze, albeit not as good as on WhiteRussian).

Both OpenWRT versions provide the stuff you are looking for, so it's up to you to decide. WhiteRussian is better documented than Kamikaze, though, keep that in mind .

Hi All,

My recommendation would be White Russian RC6. As the Borromini said it is documented nicely. I started to use it almost with none Linux knowledge and it helped to learn a lot. Right now im able to use: torrent, storage, swap, WPA2+AES and I had separated LAN from WLAN.

But most of the time I use command line for configuring. I only use web interface for listing avaliable packages.

Greetings,

Bart

Do not use RC6, use whiterussian 0.9 or kamikaze 7.07, rc6 was buggy

Why recommend RC6?

Hi all, again.

Thanks much for the replies -- I choose to think that Khazar was trying to help, not help me screw myself...

To reiterate -- as my post was way too wordy:

(1) In sum, all I really need is a basic WAP/router, with MAC filtering and 128-bit WEP, that's stable and not prone to lock up at random...
(2) Although I can handle a *nix prompt, I'd prefer a browser-based config, ala original Linksys crap

That said: Which version would be best for me based on the criteria I provided above?

Thanks!

DD

You can install Whiterussian 0.9 and it has a interface (built in) that will allow you to configure all of those options quite simply. It's very stable and reliable. You won't have to use a unix prompt or handle and interface any harder than the stock Linksys kind. Also if you want you would be able to install XWRT which is a secondary interface which is a little better than default, but that's only optional considering the limited functions you're looking for.

A note: You may want to use WPA encryption instead of WEP.

I firmly recommend using WPA(2) too, if some of your devices does not support it, consider upgrading (unless it is a Wii or something, I don't know why the heck Nintendo decided to make it do WEP only).

As I said, I would recommend RC 6 since it has lot of docs. For a newbie Linux guy (like I was) it was very helpful at the beggining.

Maybe RC6 is buggy therefore You have to be really careful while configuring (specially NVRAM viariables).

For me works fine (my goal was to have Storage,swap and torrent which I have managed to achieve).

I respect all the other opinions.

Greetings to all OpenWRT community.
__________________________________________

OpenWRT RC6 on Asus WL-500g Premium

Khazar,

Not that RC6 is bad, but the vast majority of the documentation for WR RC6 also applies to WR 0.9.  Also, I'm not sure if RC6 is still officially "supported."

Thanks to all for the help!

I know how easy it is to crack WEP, in fact I demo this to clients a couple times per month as a prelude to selling them our security services...

I live in a VERY rural area, and only have one neighbors within possible range of my signal -- and they have their own stuff. 

I can't see fooling with the increased nuisance factor when the combo of location, WEP, no SSID broadcast and MAC filtering are really all I need. 

Thanks again, though!

DD

If all your devices can use WPA, I think it is much easier to administer than WEP. As I understand WEP, the network key is an easily messed up string of numbers.  With WPA, I pick a network key that is easy for me to remember and maintain; I can use a text string or phrase like any secure password, only I can use more characters than most passwords.  Plus, since I can pick something readable rather than a bunch of numeric jibberish like in WEP, it is easier for me to see if I have made a mistake when entering it.