October 2010 - WLUG - wlug.mailman3.com

Re: [Wlug] Best 802.11abgn router?

by Frank Sweetser

On 10/13/2010 10:26 AM, John Stoffel wrote: > > Guys, > > I'm looking to replace my WAP54G (802.11bg) wireless access point. I > really need to get more speed to the wife's computer, and I don't want > to run wires. > > I'm thinking I'd like to get something that DD-WRT can run on, and > possibly something with dual radios and/or dual 2.4ghz and 5.0ghz > band, so I can have a secured network, and an open, slower network for > guests. > > My home network looks like this: > > cable modem <---> router <----> GigE Lan switch <-- clients > | > | > WAP54G Congratulations, you're me a month ago =) > Unfortunately, my router is only 100mb/s on each port, which is fine > for WAN access, and most wireless, but not any more. And I don't want > to replace it since it's a WRAP board from PC-engines running m0n0wall > and doing a *great* job for what I need. Silent, no moving parts, > easy to manage. > > Mostly, I want a fast, secure wireless WPA2 home wireless network. > Maybe I'd keep the WAP54G around for public access... or maybe it's > time to bite the bullet and replace my WRAP board with something > better? > > I'm looking at the following: > > Netgear WNDR3700 > Linksys E2000 > Linksys WRT610N > ASUS RT-N16 > BUFFALO WZR-HP-G300NH (native DD-WRT support from factory!) I got pointed at http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/ as a resource for comparing these devices. I ended up going with the Netgear WNDR3700, and have been very happy - ridiculous performance gains, including better internet performance. I do have to warn you that I tried dd-wrt on it, and it didn't work so great. It was a little flaky, and when I tried to upgrade it to a newer build, I semi-bricked it. (Luckily these boxes, when bricked, come up in a recovery mode where you can easily feed it a new image via TFTP, so bringing it back from the dead was trivial.) Instead I threw openwrt on it, with dnsmasq, dyndns, and openvpn configured, and it's been rock solid and blazingly fast. The only glitch there is that it's a little more strict about wireless security behaviour, so some non-compliant devices (droid1 phones running android 2.2, in my case) can't associate at WPA2/AES. I've heard very good things about the buffalo devices, especially since they ship with dd-wrt from the factory. They don't have the same performance (again, smallnetbuilder has excellent benchmarks for side by side comparisons), but are a lot cheaper. One drawback of that particular model at least is that it's single band, 2.4GHz only. Personally I strongly recommend going with a dual band device, as 2.4 these days tends to be a pea soup of interference, while the 5GHz bands that 11a uses has a lot more open channels available. Chuck and I had talked about putting together some slides on openwrt, guess this means I should get started now... -- Frank Sweetser fs at wpi.edu | For every problem, there is a solution that WPI Senior Network Engineer | is simple, elegant, and wrong. - HL Mencken GPG fingerprint = 6174 1257 129E 0D21 D8D4 E8A3 8E39 29E3 E2E8 8CEC

Oct. 13, 2010

Best 802.11abgn router?

by John Stoffel

Guys, I'm looking to replace my WAP54G (802.11bg) wireless access point. I really need to get more speed to the wife's computer, and I don't want to run wires. I'm thinking I'd like to get something that DD-WRT can run on, and possibly something with dual radios and/or dual 2.4ghz and 5.0ghz band, so I can have a secured network, and an open, slower network for guests. My home network looks like this: cable modem <---> router <----> GigE Lan switch <-- clients | | WAP54G Unfortunately, my router is only 100mb/s on each port, which is fine for WAN access, and most wireless, but not any more. And I don't want to replace it since it's a WRAP board from PC-engines running m0n0wall and doing a *great* job for what I need. Silent, no moving parts, easy to manage. Mostly, I want a fast, secure wireless WPA2 home wireless network. Maybe I'd keep the WAP54G around for public access... or maybe it's time to bite the bullet and replace my WRAP board with something better? I'm looking at the following: Netgear WNDR3700 Linksys E2000 Linksys WRT610N ASUS RT-N16 BUFFALO WZR-HP-G300NH (native DD-WRT support from factory!) Any hints or suggestions or feedback? Thanks, John

Oct. 13, 2010

Linux InstallFest

by Dignan, Patrick

Hi everyone, I've been a lurker on these lists for a while, but I wanted to let everyone know: WPI's ACM chapter is hosting a Linux Installfest on November 2 at 7:00PM. We expect to have a panel of Linux community members speaking prior to the installs. Last year we had an estimated turnout of 50-75 students. If any of you would like to join us for installation, to hear the community members speak, or just for moral support then please feel free! We will be meeting in Fuller Laboratories Room #320. Best, Patrick Dignan

Oct. 5, 2010