48 hours later
Sunday, October 28 2007 at 21:30, by Norman
I can say it is robust and fast now.
Router fixed
Friday, October 26 2007 at 18:30, by Norman
My router has given me so much trouble since I moved to here. It is a Linksys WRT 54G wireless G router. Before that I used DLink DI 514 and Trendnet TEW-432. I was planning to setup my own server since I start my study in Temple University, but my router\'s NAT function is so unstable! Every time I set it up, it can only hold for a few hours or days. Then any port is not accessible. I have to reboot the router to make it work again.
Compare the three wireless routers I have used:
1. DLink DI 514: It is a 802.11b only router. It is my first router, and maybe the worst I ever used. Basically the NAT function never worked properly for an hours! If use p2p software like Bittorrent or emule for some time, the router will crash for sure. The good thing about it is that it is very cheap.
2. TrendNet TEW-432: It is a 802.11G 54Mbit router. I bought it with an USB wifi adapter together for about $20 only. It is cheap, but not as bad as I imagine(the reason I bought it is because of the wifi adapter and any way my old one sucks). Actually it suprised me somehow. The wireless signal isn\'t strong but good enough for me, the NAT is working fine but still I have to reboot it after using p2p for a few days.
3. Linksys WRT 54G: I start using it from October(hardware Version 3.1). First I thought Linksys will be the best. But the first 2 months it really dispointed me. Not too much features and stability is about the same as the trendnet. It seems handling mass connections is a big problem for home use routers. The first thing I did is upgrade the firmware, which not only didn\'t fix the problem, but also gave me bigger trouble! after I update the firmware to the latest one from Linksys website, if I turn of the power, I have to reset(NOT reboot) the router to make it get the proper DNS address! But before I got it I already heard Linksys released the source code so you can find enough third-party firmware from the internet. This afternoon, I finally decide to upgrade to some third-party firmware.
Firts, I did some google, there are so many versions. The popular one sames to be DD-WRT which will give the WRT 54G more features, HyperWRT +Tofu which is said to be "rock stable" and Tomato. what I need is more stable than more features, so I decide to HyperWRT + Tofu version 13c(fit for hardware version v1 to v4)
Then I downloaded the firmware and updated it. This step is very easy, just go to the router\'s web interface(default address: http://192.168.1.1 default password: admin, leave user name blank) then click Administration->Firmware Upgrade.
After this, the upgrade is done but, in order to make p2p work properly, go to Administration->Edit Startup Script and enter:
echo 1 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/icmp_echo_ignore_broadcasts
echo 1 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/icmp_ignore_bogus_error_responses
echo "600 1800 120 60 120 120 10 60 30 120" > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_conntrack_tcp_timeouts
Now, click reboot and pray.
For me, there is one more problem, the DNS I mentioned before. But after using the new firmware, it has an new option:
Now, I can really take beark and wait to see how long this firmware going to hold untile it crashes again.
