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Turn Your $60 Router into a Super-Router with Tomato

lifehacker.com — Since last year there's been a lot of development of open source firmwares, and today we're taking a look at my new favorite, a firmware called Tomato. It does almost everything you expect, from Wi-Fi signal boosting to Quality of Service bandwidth allocation, in addition to offering a simplified interface chock full of fancy charts and graphs

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  • lancefisher, on 01/15/2008, -47/+8Correction, $40 router: http://bensbargains.net/deal/54007/
    • Dhalgren, on 01/15/2008, -4/+27You forgot the L (WRT54GL)
    • neofactor, on 01/15/2008, -2/+22The L is for linux and it is CRITICAL! The cheaper versions are just that.... less memory and less ability to over-write the firmware. You WANT the linux version, the ones with the L.. or get the 1st year REV which is basically the same thing.
      • cardyology, on 01/15/2008, -2/+2You just need one which is version 1.0 or 1.1
        I successfully flashed a v1.0 WRT54G (no L) with tomato.
        • raitchison, on 01/16/2008, -0/+4True but you can't find those in stores anymore, unless you already have an older WRT54G (V4 or less) you need to buy the L model instead.
      • Hurricane, on 01/16/2008, -0/+2Using a WRT54GL v1.1 right now, running DD-WRT v23 STD, linked to my neighbors WiFi as a client running out thru ethernet to an old Actiontec Wireless DSL gateway and then wireless to my laptop.

        Not even a hiccup since v23.
    • MWeather, on 01/15/2008, -0/+7WRT54G Version 4 and below use Linux.
      • yugiohdan6, on 01/16/2008, -0/+2You can also install the micro versions of dd-wrt on the newer WRT54Gs
    • bigmac375, on 01/16/2008, -0/+2with dd-wrt, you can use any wrt54g router.
      • djh816, on 01/16/2008, -0/+1as you can with tomato up till version 4 and later.
  • TH3W1R3D, on 01/15/2008, -4/+92Totally worth it just for the wifi boosting. Careful not too boost too much though and toast your router.
    • nirav72, on 01/15/2008, -16/+4or get it really hot. I did that with a hacked firmware on my WRT54G with the power jacked up to full. It got so hot, I though the plastic would melt.
    • babar77, on 01/15/2008, -16/+7You're only boosting in one direction. If you don't boost in both directions, you don't get any significant improvements in range and all your doing in burning you box.
      • Himself, on 01/16/2008, -1/+7keep your inconvenient factoids to yourself ;p
      • ayeroxor, on 01/16/2008, -1/+2"all your doing in burning you box."

        If all I want to doing in burning me box, so be it.
    • Tenoq, on 01/16/2008, -2/+16Unless you have a good understanding of how the wireless & antennae actually work, boosting your Wi-Fi signal should be the last thing you do. Often it doesn't help, makes it worse and/or pisses off your neighbour. Oh, and you might also be breaking the law, depending on local authorities.
    • computergod, on 01/16/2008, -1/+13Just be aware that the although it increases the power output, the signal is much nosier, with lots of fuzz on adjacent frequencies. It you want an awesome router then look into running LEAF on an old laptop. You can get high-powered (300mw) PCMCIA cards that give you much, much more range then hacked wireless routers. You can also put much more applications on it and use it as a web/db/file server.

      http://leaf.sourceforge.net/
      • vsaint, on 01/16/2008, -2/+10This man speaks the truth. I boosted the signal and later found it going through my mail.
    • tracker198x, on 01/16/2008, -13/+1youre all losers
  • plizard, on 01/15/2008, -28/+234wtf dd-wrt is where it's at
    • Dhalgren, on 01/15/2008, -8/+20FTA: "Tomato does almost everything DD-WRT does"
      That's where I stop... WTF do I need graphs and charts for on my router? Does Tomato support openvpn?
    • snotrokit, on 01/15/2008, -7/+69been running dd-wrt for years. I see no reason to switch
    • dext3r, on 01/15/2008, -3/+8yeah, im running dd-wrt on my buffalo. its pretty damn sweet as a wifi repeater. i just wish i could have access to the GPIO ports as i have an LCD i'd like to add to it. it seems hard (read: impossible) to write a driver or plugin for dd-wrt without recompiling the whole thing from source, which is a couple gigs i think.
    • orangefly, on 01/15/2008, -3/+11yeah....if it ain't broke don't fix it....
      i have had no problems with dd-wrt yet and it works well with my 300n....
    • skipdog172, on 01/15/2008, -3/+11Big fan of dd-wrt here.
      • gstep, on 01/16/2008, -0/+4I'm a big fan too but I've definitely had problems with it. I'll consider testing Tomato before completely ruling it out.
    • ExSlashdotter, on 01/15/2008, -2/+5Yeah, but i like to see the throughput graphing. I use dd-wrt with RFlow for it now, but it leave alot to be desired.

      Why do i need it? because i allow a few of my neighbors to get on. I like to just see the amount of traffic going through (bittorrent, etc).
      • MWeather, on 01/15/2008, -2/+34 letters: SNMP
      • nogami, on 01/16/2008, -0/+5The newer releases of DD-WRT (v24 RC4 and up) have bandwidth graphing included. Just click to bandwidth under the status tab.

        It's not as fancy as the Tomato graph, but shows your overall usage in/out/wlan, etc.
        • raitchison, on 01/16/2008, -0/+1But it's been in the RC state for several months, I'm not convinced at this point that v24 will ever be "stable".
          • stupidbrowner, on 01/16/2008, -0/+1v24 is stable, it's just not feature complete.
          • raitchison, on 01/18/2008, -0/+1"v24 is stable, it's just not feature complete."

            That makes no sense whatsoever, common sense says that a product is generally feature locked well before the release candidate stage, and that an RC build is an intermediate step between beta and release, the last of the bugs/kinks are identified in the RC process.
    • theantidote, on 01/15/2008, -3/+4I switched because I switched to FiOS and I didn't feel like I was getting the most out of the router with all the extra stuff that I didn't need. For me, Tomato is fine and it seems faster but that's probably just in my head. Either way, if you need a VPN server and cool things like that built in then DD-WRT is perfect. I don't need that much so Tomato works fine for me.
      • rkuchiki, on 01/16/2008, -3/+5I'll get dugg down for this, but from experience, Tomato is faster on a WRT54GS. DD-WRT is too bloated. Maybe it isn't as bad on a Buffalo router..
        • raitchison, on 01/16/2008, -0/+4Could be, there's a lot of stuff in DD-WRT, of course there are different versions with less features and your can disable features you don't use.
    • vertigoacid, on 01/16/2008, -3/+13Tomato is a DD-WRT fork.
      Personally, I've had much better stability since I switched. YMMV
      • jmreid, on 01/16/2008, -0/+1same here, Tomato is rock solid. And I've found that the QoS works better.
    • stoanhart, on 01/16/2008, -1/+11DD-WRT required me to unplug the router every 20 minutes. Yes, I made sure I had the right version. It would work fine for a little while, and then suddenly no WAN. Power cycle and all was well. Also, it never forwarded the ports I told it to.

      Tomato's been working smoothly since I installed it.
    • nick0909, on 01/16/2008, -0/+7I agree with those that say Tomato is much more stable than DD-WRT. I have three of these routers in my house, Tomato is my gateway because it seems to require way less rebooting. I also have a tomato as a wifi bridge, and finally I have a DD-WRT as an openvpn endpoint because it was easier to set up with DD-WRTs VPN version.
      • chrispr, on 01/16/2008, -0/+2My routers use to suffer the reboot issue constantly, until I switched to DD-WRT. Now the only time my uptime changes is during a power outage. Solid as a rock.
      • plizard, on 01/16/2008, -1/+1less rebooting? the uptime on my router with dd-wrt is like 100+ days and i got insane traffic 24x7 on my connection
    • a1b1c1, on 01/16/2008, -3/+3If you want DD-WRT and bandwith monitoring at the same time try WRT BWlog. This thing is ***** baller! http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/BWlog

      This is some of the stuff that it adds:
      http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/4/4e/WRTB ...
      • sgglynn, on 01/16/2008, -1/+7Hesitating to check them out solely because of the use of "baller!" in your description.
    • 89vision, on 01/16/2008, -0/+23dd-wrt turned my wireless router into a hobby.

      ***** I need a life.
    • EruLabs, on 01/16/2008, -0/+2DD-WRT is almost perfect, except the newest revision doesn't support SNMP. This is exceptionally critical for me.

      Does Tomato support SNMP?
    • hayzeus, on 01/16/2008, -0/+2I have both running here. Ultimately, I prefer tomato. It's smaller (by a LOT) seems much more stable, and has great qos and bandwith monitoring. Major thing missing is openVPN, but for my purposes, tunneling in via ssh (rdc and samba mounts) works fine. There is supposed to be a version of tomato out there with openVPN , though.

      If you REALLY want to roll your own, OpenWRT is quite nice. I've repurposed a linksys WRTSL54GS into a robot controller using OpenWRT as a base.
    • badjokes, on 01/16/2008, -0/+1DD-WRT is the way to go. my routers at more than 3 times the power output and has been working 24/7 for the last 8 monthes no problems.
    • procopio, on 01/16/2008, -0/+1How old is this hack now? A few years right?
  • tonaros, on 01/15/2008, -9/+306"Turn your $60 router into a brick if you don't RTFM, noob"
    • BOFH2, on 01/15/2008, -3/+19bricked one. Considered it a expensive learning experience. On DDwrt's newest firmware flashing for v8 wait 3 minutes insted of 1.
      • SanTe, on 01/15/2008, -1/+38If you have a Linksys WRT54G, like lots of people do, don't throw it out just yet:

        The WRT54G Revival Guide
        http://tinyurl.com/38wuyp (linksysinfo.org)

        I bricked my WRT54G on a firmware update once and was able to recover it using this guide.
    • badjokes, on 01/16/2008, -6/+1lol.
      newfags beware.
    • sqwidget, on 01/16/2008, -1/+8I bricked one of those trying to do this. Returned it to Future Shop and claimed it didn't work and got my money back. Dishonest, yes, but FS has screwed me over enough times I don't feel too bad about it.
  • Rowen7, on 01/15/2008, -11/+5Next Year's Version: How to make your $60 sentient.
  • bacchus101, on 01/15/2008, -11/+169You say Tomato, I say OpenWRT.
    • natastna2, on 01/15/2008, -9/+6I thought that was worth at least one digg.
    • sinembarg0, on 01/16/2008, -0/+6To which I would reply "user friendly QoS."
      • felderado, on 01/16/2008, -0/+1the default QoS scripts are great, and X-WRT makes managing QoS easier than DDWRT.

        Tomato still tops it for the web GUI, but OpenWRT has a million more features.
    • nick0909, on 01/16/2008, -1/+5I was all about DD-WRT, but got tired of the updates actually breaking stuff and features that you would turn on but they really didn't change anything. DD-WRT is great in some ways, but it just seems to be almost too much in one package and it rarely works completely. Tomato just works, and as my gateway device that is what I want.
    • jnadke, on 01/16/2008, -0/+14Use X-WRT!

      OpenWRT with a GUI. You get the best of both.

      OpenWRT >> DD-WRT. DD-WRT makers violate the GPL.

      OpenWRT has addable packages, giving many, many more features than DD-WRT. You can even run a NAS, FTP or Web server!
    • Tenoq, on 01/16/2008, -3/+3Prefer HyperWRT myself - Thibor variant. Very fast - only about 5 seconds to boot and connect. Also works very well with torrent apps. Will try Tomato again, when I've got some spare time.
      • brasso, on 01/16/2008, -0/+1Thibors HyperWRT is based on HyperWRT +Tofu. Actually it is Tofu but with GS support and a few bug fixes since Tofu isn’t in development anymore. But it isn’t really dead either since it is now called Tomato and is faster and better than ever. Yeah, same guy, in the bottom it’s the same code as well. Give it a try, I did and I have not looked back.
    • GliTCH82, on 01/17/2008, -1/+1And then it dawns on you: If the Linux community were to focus their efforts on fewer projects instead of forking around and starting 100 different projects like the ADHD bastards they are, you'd have 20 solid, free and robust solutions instead of 2 decent solutions and 98 crappy ones.
  • kz26, on 01/15/2008, -32/+20dd-wrt is bloated. been using lean clean tomato for 2 months now after switching from it.
    • Dhalgren, on 01/15/2008, -20/+12I think you're confused. Your mom is bloated, dd-wrt is nice and slim, it fits on a fracking router for *****'s sake...
      • brasso, on 01/15/2008, -18/+10And Windows Vista fits on a PC, so what’s your point?
    • sorrow, on 01/15/2008, -3/+18Yeah, i hate having the firmware on my router take up all the storage space.... wtf?
    • javaroast, on 01/16/2008, -2/+6Bloated? Yours might be the strangest comment I've ever seen. I've heard nice things about tomato, but dd-wrt is hardly bloated. There isn't enough room on router for it to be bloated.
      • raitchison, on 01/16/2008, -0/+2I think he's talking about a lot of features that many people don't use such as QoS or hotspot, personally I'm not even using the wireless function, using it strictly as a router with QoS to make sure I don't get lag with online gaming.
  • yacks, on 01/15/2008, -14/+3:) i'm running dd-wrt on my linux and using it as a wifi adapter to connect my linux box to the net.. :)
  • joshHighland, on 01/15/2008, -37/+6i blogged about this 10 months ago. I love tomato, haven't had any problems with it yet http://notpopular.com/blogs/josh/2007/05/19/my-rou ...
  • scoottie, on 01/15/2008, -12/+7is this only for wireless? if so is there anything like this for wired?
    • colto, on 01/15/2008, -1/+8It is for the whole router. Most of it applies to both wireless and wired.
    • BOFH2, on 01/15/2008, -2/+3you can use the wired ports on the router still.
    • raitchison, on 01/16/2008, -0/+2I'm not even using the wireless function of my WRT54GL with DD-WRT, using it as a router for the QoS function.
    • phibit, on 01/16/2008, -0/+2I don't know why you're being dugg down for asking what seems to be a valid question...
  • davidrools, on 01/15/2008, -17/+11gigabit wired ethernet is the only way to go
    • buckrogers1965, on 01/16/2008, -0/+2The wireless network media players I have scattered around my house mock you.
      • GliTCH82, on 01/17/2008, -0/+1My box that pulls whole hard disk sized snapshots of any computer at home and can push a 50 GB image to any PXE bootable machine in under 30 minutes mocks you.
    • raitchison, on 01/16/2008, -0/+2I agree with the wired part but not necessarily with the gigabit, in a home environment it's rare that 100Mb is a bottleneck, we have a bigger than average home network, with no less than 4 regularly used computers, plus two less frequently used notebooks, plus two TiVos and an Xbox 360 and 100Mb it more than adequate.

      We do have wireless for things like the Wii, DS or for a quick task on a notebook from a couch, but even if you are
      • GliTCH82, on 01/17/2008, -0/+1Even if I am what? The suspense is killing me!
    • imontoya, on 01/16/2008, -0/+1The OP is too narrow minded for saying wired is the only way. Each technology has it's use. Wireless 54g is fine for most streaming media and browsing from your couch; video works pretty good too at 54g speeds, and even better in a homogeneous environment with all wireless cards from the same vendor, where you can take advantage of the vendors "super" or "extreme" modes of up to 108Mb/s. Wireless 802.11n will improve this considerably and allow all the vendors to play together nicely.

      I upgraded my home wired network to gigabit Ethernet simply because I did find that 100Mb Ethernet was truly a file serving bottleneck for me. My home network has relatively small disks on the desktops, and a RAID file server in the closet which is backed-up automatically. User data, source code repositories, build directories, document repositories, MP3, video all served off the same server, and at 100Mb/s I was only getting about 7-8MByte/s transfers across the net. Now, with the 1Gbit network, I can easily get 40-50MB/s across the wire, and this is near the speeds of a locally attached disk from about a few years back (i.e. firewire, USB2.0, IDE133, etc). It doesn't approach the current SATA speeds of an attached disk, but it's pretty close, the benefit of having a server outweighs the small speed discount, and it's far better than 100Mbit/s Ethernet, which was truly unbearable. When 10Gb Ethernet becomes affordable I'll upgrade, because my home network is highly dependent on having a fast Ethernet.
      I'm clearly not a typical home user.
  • mrdeathgod, on 01/15/2008, -14/+7I really wanted to like the WRT54GL and DD-WRT, but from my experience, the wireless was beyond unreliable.
    • dext3r, on 01/15/2008, -9/+4linksys kinda blows. i had dd-wrt on a 54g v1.1 and it sucked balls.
      • babar77, on 01/15/2008, -2/+3I have the exact same setup, it rocks.
        • flip360, on 01/16/2008, -0/+1As do I. Works great! WRT54G v1.1 running DD-WRT v23 SP2. Never had any problems. Tried tomato once and it was not stable on my WRT54G. So I flashed it back to DD-WRT.
      • javaroast, on 01/16/2008, -1/+1A ball sucking router would be dream for most geeks.
        • GliTCH82, on 01/17/2008, -0/+1Seriously, my balls are feeling a little dry right now. I've got dry balls.
      • raitchison, on 01/16/2008, -0/+1What version of DD-WRT were you using?
    • graemee, on 01/15/2008, -2/+6I have a 54GL, and I ditched linksys's OS due to the 1 week open connection time out. It worked better than my pervious 604 Dlink, but Hyperwrt 2.1b1 + Thibor15c on the 54GL is magic. Months with no resets.
      • Tenoq, on 01/16/2008, -0/+1HyperWRT IS magic. My best was a 167 day uptime. I think I eventually reset it because too many wireless clients eventually got it confused. LAN connections were still great though.
    • colinnwn, on 01/15/2008, -2/+2What was unreliable about the 54g/dd-wrt? I put dd-wrt mini on a 54g v5 and it is more stable (read fewer resets and dropped connections) than the linksys firmware, and MUCH more stable than my DI-624 v5 with the most current d-link firmware. I am sold on dd-wrt, and am close to giving the d-link away and getting another 54g. Certain combinations of XP and hardware have a terrible time about being able to come out of standby and resume a wireless connection without a logout/in. Perhaps that was your problem?
    • rufo, on 01/15/2008, -1/+7I had the same problems - sometimes I'd get kicked off my router once every 60 seconds. Switched to Tomato and everything cleared itself up; it's been incredibly reliable. The QOS in Tomato is awesome, too.
    • ninjasquirrel, on 01/15/2008, -1/+3Same... I tried out DD-WRT on my WRT-54GL and found it seemed to lock up and require a hard reset now and then. I also didn't really like the admin interface. Since I switched to Tomato I've been running for over 6 months without a single dropped connection, and the interface is incredibly slick.
    • skipdog172, on 01/15/2008, -1/+2Weird, we've had no issues. We are running dd-wrt on 5 different wrt54gs and haven't heard one complaint.
  • Binto, on 01/15/2008, -6/+37im pretty much sold on dd-wrt.
    *shrug*
    I'll give this one a whirl, just to see if it may benefit me in a way that dd-wrt doesn't.
    • cawpin, on 01/15/2008, -1/+5It won't. I've tried it before and it has nothing DD-WRT doesn't and is missing a few things that DD-WRT has.
      • raitchison, on 01/16/2008, -0/+1I haven't tried it before but even if that's true some people may simply prefer the interface.
  • CLShortFuse, on 01/15/2008, -11/+46"So Which Is Better, Tomato or DD-WRT?"
    "DD-WRT has a slightly more robust feature set and a bit more polish in the layout of the admin, but most features that you'll find in DD-WRT that are not in Tomato are features most home users will never use. Both do Quality of Service (in fact, we've already gone step-by-step through how to set up QoS in DD-WRT), though Tomato seems to do it a bit better; both can boost your Wi-Fi signal; and both will transform your router into something much better than it was before you started. At the moment I prefer Tomato for the simplicity of its layout, the excellent bandwidth monitoring tools, and of course, it's attractive charts."

    Guess I'm sticking with DD-WRT
    • earlycj5, on 01/15/2008, -8/+3Good for you.
    • tybris, on 01/16/2008, -6/+1Who in the world cares about QoS?
      • superunlikely, on 01/16/2008, -0/+8Everyone that knows how to use it.
      • raitchison, on 01/16/2008, -0/+5QoS is essential for me, we have a lot of devices on our network with my PC running bittorrent almost 24x7, without QoS we get a lot of lag when we game online, with QoS we have none.
    • aldenhg, on 01/16/2008, -0/+3DD-WRT + and early WRT54G = freakin' awesome. I really didn't realize how much my cheapo router was holding me back until I was getting 1 MB (that's megabyte) download speeds on a 5Mb (megabit) line. I know it doesn't make sense (5Mb = 625KB theoretical max, usually much lower), but I'm sure as ***** not going to question it.
      • vbrtrmn, on 01/16/2008, -0/+1DD-WRT works with newer WRT54G models too, up to version 8. Not as fully functional as the WRT54GL, but still quite a decent number of features. I use a WRT54GL (Full DD-WRT) as my main wireless router and a WRT54G v5 (DD-WRT Micro) as a wireless bridge for my XBox360. The Linksys WET54G bridge costs $90 retail, where as you can pick-up a $20-$30 on eBay.
      • vpshockwave, on 01/16/2008, -1/+2Umm. Router firmware does not magically double your download speed. You're right when you say it doesn't make sense.
    • ggacid, on 01/16/2008, -0/+1But Tomato has attractive charts!!!!!!!
  • Haecceity, on 01/15/2008, -23/+5Works on about 12 models of router, which probably means about 2% of the population could actually use this software.
    • tybris, on 01/16/2008, -0/+6No, the WRT54G is the most successful home router in the world.
    • Brettus, on 01/16/2008, -3/+0That's like saying since something only works on an IPod that it only works on about 2% of the population's digital media players.... (LOUD BUZZ) WRONG! (fart).
  • sirloin, on 01/15/2008, -16/+11big think we can thank is linksys getting caught using open source and being forced to open the firmware..
    i use tomatoe and have tried just about all of them..dd-wrt and openwrt are ok.. tomatoe is more stable and prettier.. i wouldnt boost your power too much you will ruint he signal.. sorta like clipping in music.
    another firmware i lik eis coovaap.. for easy hotspot setup.. you can make a paid or a free and seperate from your netowrk.. and yeah you can do it with openwrt or dd-wrt but not as easily.
    • daliminator, on 01/15/2008, -2/+8Is that you, Mr. Quayle? You use Digg?!
    • drewlew, on 01/16/2008, -0/+1Opening it up to firmware made this the most popular home router on the market. Behold the power of open source.
    • paulringo, on 01/16/2008, -0/+7Your use of the english language is appalling.
    • aldenhg, on 01/16/2008, -0/+1Shift key or spell check much?
  • digitallysick, on 01/15/2008, -6/+5dd wrt rocks but so far no support for my buffalo nfinity wireless n router. Does tomato support this model?
  • gldfshnpcklejar, on 01/15/2008, -8/+15DD-WRT always gave me hell, it had several features that were just plain broken, they were nice at trying to help on their forums but all the help was always wrong. I loaded tomato over it and haven't had a problem since. It works beautifully and it has a simple uncluttered interface.
    • cawpin, on 01/15/2008, -14/+1You have got to be an idiot.
      • BoneheadFarker, on 01/16/2008, -0/+4Perhaps if you explained why you believe he must be an idiot, you wouldn't get buried faster than heartwarming stories from the Middle-East...
    • stoanhart, on 01/16/2008, -1/+8Same experience here. Tomato FTW!
    • nick0909, on 01/16/2008, -1/+9That is exactly what I found, I can't get what all the hype is over DD-WRT when tomato just runs and rocks.
    • gstep, on 01/16/2008, -0/+2I use DD-WRT and overall it's much more stable and configurable than the default Linksys software. I too have found a lot of things in DD-WRT that just don't work though so I'll be willing to give it a shot.
  • Crath, on 01/15/2008, -12/+3Turn Your $60 Router into a Super-Router with _a_ Tomato
  • Discobiscuits, on 01/15/2008, -21/+5why the ***** would i put firmware called "tomato" onto my lovable router. dd-wrt ftw.
    • cowsgonemadd3, on 01/15/2008, -8/+2why would you use the f word?
      Cussing is for dummies
      • arbulus, on 01/16/2008, -0/+1There's a profanity filter. If you don't like profanity, then go to your profile and turn the filter on.
      • raitchison, on 01/16/2008, -0/+1Because he ***** wants to?
    • Zorkon, on 01/15/2008, -2/+0Because you might want to start using vowels?

  • augustz, on 01/15/2008, -4/+10Only thing missing is VPN support. It's a real shame, because this feature is advertised even on consumer grade routers these days.

    We can always hope!
    • Zorkon, on 01/15/2008, -1/+5It has outgoing VPN support, which is what is usually "advertised on consumer grade routers". It does not have a built-in VPN server, which I agree is a shame.
    • Canuck, on 01/15/2008, -1/+2Due to the memory restrictions DD-WRT created multiple versions each with different packages available. There is a version of DD-WRT that have VPN support included.
    • srouquette, on 01/15/2008, -1/+7There's a VPN version of Tomato.
      read here : http://www.linksysinfo.org/forums/forumdisplay.php ...
    • raitchison, on 01/16/2008, -0/+2None of the alternative firmwares (that I'm aware of) support IPSEC site to site VPN, they do support "VPN Tunnelling" which is a pretty basic feature. They also often support inbound VPN (connect to your network from outside) using PPTP or OpenVPN which is much more interesting but still not all that special.

      IPSEC site to site VPN would be huge, would allow people to set up virtual WANs between different networks even over DSL grade lines (it helps to have a static IP).
  • NeoMatrixJR, on 01/15/2008, -9/+0deeeee deeeeee /mandark
  • sroberson, on 01/15/2008, -3/+43dd-wrt is just different from tomato. dd-wrt has different flavors for vpn and voip, which is nice, but I wasn't using that stuff, so I didn't take full advantage of it. The two also have different approaches. dd-wrt lets you throttle your router's specific ports, allowing you to say, for example, that ports 1-3 are full speed while whatever is connect to port 4 will be slow. This is a nice feature, but I don't think it worked for me like I thought. My vonage was unusable when was I was downloading some new linux distro or something.

    Tomato, however, offers throttling according to rules. This is much nicer. DNS requests get top priority as does the ip of my vonage router. Everything else gets lower classes, and I do see that this works. When I'm downloading a linux distro torrent, I'm capped at exactly what I've told Tomato to be. I have not since had the Vonage drop out, like I did before. (I'm not claiming I had dd-wrt fully configured correctly. I can only say vonage dropped out when I was using dd-wrt and downloading.)

    So, take that for what it's worth.
    • strikes12, on 01/15/2008, -2/+2Very useful. Thanks
    • cawpin, on 01/15/2008, -3/+7DD-WRT does throttling based on ports, rules, IPs, and MAC addresses. What are you smoking?
      • nick0909, on 01/16/2008, -0/+7DD-WRT says it does, but many forum posts have pretty much proven that it actually doesn't do anything. Just because you check the box doesn't mean anything actually happens. Tomato actually does what you tell it to.
      • BassJunkie, on 01/16/2008, -0/+3I use a DD-WRT based WRT-54G with a Vonage box connected and actually found the Vonage performed better once I enabled the QOS. I have a box setup running torrents so quite a bit bandwith goes there but I basically set Torrent traffic as bulk and used the MAC of the Vonage box to set a Premium rule. Voice calls come through clear even when doing heavy downloading, either on torrents or normal HTTP or FTP stuff from another PC!
        • raitchison, on 01/16/2008, -0/+1I'm doing the same thing only instead of VoIP being premium it's for Xbox Live.
    • Bender1012, on 01/16/2008, -2/+5"new linux distro"

      good one
  • anarchytv, on 01/15/2008, -14/+3So don't need to do this, because I bought a DLINK Gaming Router, which is the schiznick does all this out of the box.

    • wush, on 01/15/2008, -3/+1it does have 'xtreme' in its name, after all!
    • ninjasquirrel, on 01/15/2008, -1/+3D-Link routers have been unstable garbage for years... even the default Linksys firmware is more stable.
    • aldenhg, on 01/16/2008, -0/+5You also overpaid. Do you want a cookie for your ignorance?
    • raitchison, on 01/16/2008, -0/+2The specialized gaming routers are really expensive, also they tend to be come "obsoleted" (no more firmware updates) after a shorter period of time so you have to buy a new one too often.

      Get a alternative firmware compatible router and use QoS and you get the same features for half the price or less, and much more lifespan because the alternative firmwares will still be made/updated for the router for years to come even after the manufacturer has relegated the device off to unsupported land.
  • Coffeedemon, on 01/15/2008, -14/+97Tomato?
    Good if you're transferring sauce code I guess.
  • SuckMyDigg, on 01/15/2008, -6/+4I bought a linksys wrt54g a few months back and was all excited to throw a new firmware on it. Then I found out they don't support V8 which is what wal-mart has been selling. Looks like neither really do yet, although somewhere on dd-wrt's page it said the RC4 did, but I can't confirm it and I'm not gonna risk it.
    • echelon309, on 01/15/2008, -0/+2RC5 works great on the wrt54g v8 for me.
    • Protoss, on 01/15/2008, -3/+2I am in the same situation bought a WRT54G with a gift card for my dorm, turned out to be a bitch to mod, so I just left it. You need to do a lot of stuff to get the firmware to install, and then its got just barebones stuff.
    • FLUX, on 01/15/2008, -1/+3you can thank cisco for that when they bought linksys they changed the chip set on the newer wrt54g i think any past ver 6 are either not compatible or the rom is so small you have ot use the mini version my advice is check ebay and look at the compatable list on thier web site I bought a buffalo for my nephew for christmas and loaded dd-wrt and it is running great
    • dezertrat, on 01/16/2008, -0/+7look for the wrt54GL
      • giid, on 01/16/2008, -0/+1I have a WRT54GL and it's very nice. Extra ram and flash for easier modding.
    • gstep, on 01/16/2008, -0/+1I own a V5 and it didn't support the 3rd party firmware upgrade out of the box but a few quick searches online will usually turn up some good tips and tricks that will upgrade firmware without taking your router apart.
  • NeoMatrixJR, on 01/15/2008, -6/+0Charts? dd-wrt v24 (release candidate/beta)...done
  • cgruber, on 01/15/2008, -5/+13Tomato is pretty nice, I've been running it for at least 6 months now.
  • fate3, on 01/15/2008, -5/+10i started with dd-wrt and i had issues, switched to tomato and haven't had a problem yet
    • PCXBOX360, on 03/22/2008, -0/+0dd-wrt was nice until it literally broke my router. I tried to switch back to the linksys firmware but it was too late, the damage had been done. I didn't try anything crazy, just set the router up like I did with linksys firmware. Lesson learned.
  • spunkmyer, on 01/15/2008, -3/+3I love and use dd-wrt but the debacle with RC6 for my Linksys Wrt350n (ver1) left me with a bricked router. Ok, I de-bricked it and flashed it with the updated RC6.1 but for a release candidate firmware this is not good and not for the average joe computer user.
    Hopefully Tomato is more end user friendly.
    • ta10n, on 01/15/2008, -0/+6hahah... Average joe.... flash.. haaha... firmware.... hahaha.
    • fotbr, on 01/16/2008, -0/+2If you were able to recover, you never "bricked" it.
  • wush, on 01/15/2008, -11/+10tomato is utorrent to dd-wrt's azureus
    • TRENT310, on 01/15/2008, -6/+1So, you're implying that Tomato is made in C++, is lightweight and runs on Windows, while DD-WRT is Java based and multi-platform?
      • rufo, on 01/15/2008, -3/+9No, he's implying that Tomato is fast, lightweight and razor-sharp, and DD-WRT is big, beefy and a bit slow.

        Personally, I'd compare Tomato to a ninja and DD-WRT to a sumo wrestler... neither is bad, just depends on what you're looking for.
      • wush, on 01/17/2008, -0/+2I'm implying that dd-wrt contains frogs
    • raitchison, on 01/16/2008, -1/+3So the writers of Tomato work for the MPAA? That's good to know. :D
  • TRENT310, on 01/15/2008, -10/+5But it still is a $60 router-in-a-box. Linksys routers have never been able to handle the network load (hardware wise - it gets hot and crashes) so my best and most reliable solution is to use a real computer with 2 network cards and some variant of BSD.
    • Casedot, on 01/15/2008, -1/+2agreed.

      Have you ever tried Endian??
      • TRENT310, on 01/15/2008, -0/+1I used to use Endian until I found its web interface to be a little buggy (some settings wouldn't actually get applied, leaving me to manually plug it into the config files)

        For a prepared solution, I recommend pfSense to others.
    • cawpin, on 01/15/2008, -1/+5I have 3 Linksys WRT54Gs running DD-WRT and they never crash and all three are running boosted signal strength.
      • TRENT310, on 01/15/2008, -1/+3Now I'm referring to the routing capabilities. I'm sure the WRT54G can handle wireless properly, although I hate wireless because of its lower throughput (compared to 1000BASE-T) -- but my opinion, based on my experience, is that a computer (even an old P4 1.5GHz with 512MB RAM) can do gateway (NAT, firewall, port forwarding, load balancing/failover) tasks better and faster than a 'router-in-a-box solution' (which also has its merits in other departments, such as size).
    • nick0909, on 01/16/2008, -1/+8I guess if you don't care at all about your power bill you could do that.
      • MrVictor, on 01/16/2008, -0/+1He doesn't care because his mom pays the power bill.
  • skyshock1, on 01/15/2008, -3/+3Does Tomato or DD-WRT support any version past version 4? What's linksys up to now, version 8? It's ***** impossible to find a router that old.
    • rufo, on 01/15/2008, -1/+5Get the Linksys WRT54GL for an extra $10. Well worth it.
      • skyshock1, on 01/16/2008, -0/+1Cool. Thanks! I'll have a look into it.
    • ninjasquirrel, on 01/15/2008, -1/+4Just buy the linksys WRT-54GL, which specifically supports open source firmware. It usually costs about $10 more, but it's totally worth it.

      Asus also makes a few models that work with Tomato and DD-WRT, and they usually have much more RAM and a faster CPU than the linksys models
    • Canuck, on 01/15/2008, -1/+4I believe that Linksys still sells the WRT54GL (L is for Linux) so that you can use the open source stuff on it.
      • raitchison, on 01/16/2008, -0/+2Yep they came out with the L version specifically for people who want to run alternative firmware, of course the cynic in me says that they did this because they didn't want people to realize that there are other manufacturers besides Linksys who make alternative firmware compatible routers.
    • Eisen4, on 01/17/2008, -0/+1i just put dd-wrt on a v8 router. you have to dump a different firmware on it then dump ddwrt on it. i figured it out after one night in ddwrt forums and searching...
      or you could just read this guy's step by step
      http://www.bauer-power.net/2007/11/when-life-gives ...
  • RoboDonut, on 01/15/2008, -7/+2Tomato?
    Is the name a reference to Cowboy Bebop?
  • kidd3ckz, on 01/15/2008, -16/+3@Discobiscuits
    ahhaha f u u noob for "not installing" something because of its name. some of the coolest tools have lame names.

    *internet cat meows to the kitty box*

    *hahaha im a noob cuz i didn't hit reply*

    *lol noob noob noob noob noob*
  • nanboya, on 01/15/2008, -2/+4Anyone using the WDS feature?
    • cawpin, on 01/15/2008, -1/+2I ran WDS for a while on DD-WRT but turned it off because of bandwidth issues. Each router you add on a WDS system reduces throughput.
    • cybox, on 01/16/2008, -0/+1Yeah... it's been running perfectly for me. Just using it between two routers, keeping everything on the same subnet.

      I used to run DD-WRT, but using the WDS feature of it was unstable... had to reboot it every hour or so. Only Tomato downtime I've had over the past few months is when I update the firmware...
    • jasonumd, on 01/16/2008, -0/+3I use it. Works awesome. Saved me a lot of money too. Prevented me from having to purchase the wireless adapters for my Tivo and Xbox 360.
  • elitexero, on 01/15/2008, -4/+3PfSense and DD-WRT FTW
  • DirtyBrowncoat, on 01/15/2008, -8/+1@srobinson
    I had the exact same problem with Vonage and "downloading Linux distros" on DD-WRT also. And I thought I did have the QOS settings all configured correctly. Well, if Tomato worked for you, maybe I should give it a shot also. Although, for everything else, DD-WRT has been rock-solid. Before that, I was using that "other" firmware that some moron tried to charge $20 for for GPL'd code.

  • noisey, on 01/15/2008, -5/+4Does Tomato support vlans with dot1q trunking?
    • manstein01, on 01/16/2008, -0/+3I really doubt it. Why would a home user need to do that?
  • Typhoon2009, on 01/15/2008, -8/+2I hate my god damn router, it's got terrible broadcasting power and it just sucks. I can't even put custom firmware on it.
    • TRENT310, on 01/15/2008, -1/+1With all wireless devices, transmitter forward power isn't the only factor that determines its range and signal quality. With devices which are low power, such as Wi-Fi access points (and basically everything else that is unlicensed), things like antenna placement (sort of like HAAT), antenna type (directional, omni, etc.) and antenna gain (semi-related to the type) become more important than the power you're running into the antenna. Also, since Wi-Fi is bidirectional, you need to make sure the client side also satisfies these issues.
    • chrispr, on 01/16/2008, -0/+1Pro Tip: Buy a new one, they're 30-40$
  • srouquette, on 01/15/2008, -4/+4My wifi speed was greater with Tomato than dd-wrt (3Mo/s with a macbook instead of 2Mo/s)
    so... yay to Tomato !
  • tst1212, on 01/15/2008, -3/+4The power level of 70 is the recommended max for the standard oem antennas. I have 2 units, both with after market directional antennas, connected by 10 ft of cable, running at 150 for the past 8 months, and the units run cool, have even considered cranking up the power. Just make sure you set it the Trans/Rec from the after market antenna and not both, turn off the oem antenna, otherwise you probably would fry the router.
    • TRENT310, on 01/15/2008, -0/+1I think it would be useful if routers had a built in SWR meter. :P
      Of course, most of them can't even give you signal strength in dBm, only RSSI integers.
  • zhatka, on 01/15/2008, -5/+7I love Tomato. I tried DD-WRT, Talisman, and OpenWRT, but came back to tomato. DD-WRT had some issues with my router, but DD-WRT definitely has more features.

    Also, tomato is a bit on the sexier side.
  • flessa, on 01/15/2008, -0/+13Tomato cannot be used if your wrt54g is v5 or newer. So pretty much your wrt54g has to be from a few years ago in order for it to work. dd-wrt works on all the newest hardware.

    dd-wrt is my pick.
    • MoralCuntPiss, on 01/16/2008, -1/+0That's why you get the L version. DD-WRT blows.
  • AdamSee, on 01/15/2008, -2/+2What routers offer that sort of functionality out of the box? Cisco stuff?
    • nintom, on 01/15/2008, -0/+4Linksys is a subsidiary of Cisco, I believe...
      • TRENT310, on 01/15/2008, -0/+2Except providing cheaper, consumer grade (and 'budget' business grade) equipment.
    • doshindude, on 01/16/2008, -0/+2Linksys was once open source and Linux based, but Cisco bought them.
      • raitchison, on 01/16/2008, -0/+3It's not quite that simple, Linksys originally went with Linux based because it was cheaper than licensing some specialized microcode, the downside is that Linux required more RAM than the microcode did. Eventually they decided it would be cheaper to go with the microcode and cut the RAM by 75%. Eventually they released the WRT54GL which has the same amount of RAM as the original and can run Linux a lot better.
  • nintom, on 01/15/2008, -2/+5I suggest: HyperWRT + Thibor instead.

    http://www.thibor.co.uk/
  • iamchris, on 01/15/2008, -2/+3DD-WRT + WRT-54GL is awesome, I will try Tomato. I always say don't knock it before you try it.
    • giid, on 01/16/2008, -0/+2I have a WRT54GL and used to run DDWRT, I installed tomato recently because of the pretty graphs (which allowed me stop running the SNMP service, saving some ram) and the nicer admin, and it allowed me to use a higher value for timing out established tcp connections. DD-WRT v23 had a max of 1 hour, not nearly high enough for my needs. Plus the admin is sexier and is a bit easier to navigate.
    • aldenhg, on 01/16/2008, -0/+1I always say if it aint' broke don't fix it. I just had to beat my brain into submission for trying to get me to put a heatsink into my WRT54G running DD-WRT so I could overclock it. It runs fine, brain! Shut up!
  • BarryMcCawqiner, on 01/15/2008, -12/+2Wow it works on a total of 8 routers. Who cares. Buried.
    • raitchison, on 01/16/2008, -1/+1Of course the fact that the Linksys WRT54G is arguably the best selling wireless router in history largely invalidates that argument.
  • Protoss, on 01/15/2008, -2/+2I wish Tomato ran on the WRT54G v7, only versions I could find in BestBuy (I had a gift card). =/
    • fak3r, on 01/16/2008, -0/+1It's not that they don't run, but there isn't enough memory on them to hold it; cisco (owns linksys) stopped using Linux and went with another embedded OS, and dropped the specs on the router at that time. Search for a pre v5 version *think that's it* or buy the new on with the -L that they STILL make, that STILL runs linux and houses the orig memory. that's what I bought, and tomato has been tremendous - never have problems.
  • Hurricane, on 01/16/2008, -12/+4DD-WRT wannabe
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