Re: Why flash Buffalo to dd-wrt?

On Fri, 01 Dec 2006 18:33:43 -0600, Peabody
<waybackNO784SPAM44@yahoo.com> wrote:

>I'm new at this, and looking to buy my first router. I've found
>lots of information about how to flash a Buffalo router to dd-wrt,
>and about what features dd-wrt has, but can't find a discussion of
>exactly what's wrong with the native firmware of the Buffalos. Can
>anyone point me to that?

Nope. There's nothing wrong with the stock Buffalo or Linksys
firmware for what is included. It's the features that are missing and
the general lack of fine tuned settings in the stock firmware that
justifies installing DD-WRT or OpenWRT. I couldn't find anything
comparing the features of the stock firmware with the others. However,
this might help:
http://www.linksysinfo.org/forums/sh...ad.php?t=47282
It compares features among a few of the alternative firmware releases.
If you go down the list, my guess is that the stock firmware has less
than half the features listed.

>If it matters, I would want the router to deal with bittorrent well,
>since that's probably the biggest challenge I would present to a
>router.

That's somewhat configurable in DD-WRT. You want to tinker with the
number of connections setting (default=128) and the QoS settings (to
insure that your upstream bandwidth isn't monopolized by downloaders).
You'll see something like this:
<http://www.linksysinfo.org/portal/forums/archive/index.php/t-33335.html>
in the log files. However, the best solution is to use a Bitorrent
client that controls the number of streams and does not allow the
router to overload.

>Well, maybe also some form of VPN, but I don't really know
>enough about that to say for sure.

DD-WRT comes in several forms, one of which is specifically designed
to handle hardware to hardware VPN connections. The standard version
includes a PPTP client and server. It's not as secure as IPSec, but
good enough for me. I use it to create a VPN between my office and
home routers so that it looks like one network. Also for wireless
roaming when I wanna grab something from the office and don't wanna
deal with hackers with password sniffers.


--
# Jeff Liebermann 150 Felker St #D Santa Cruz CA 95060
# 831-336-2558 jeffl@comix.santa-cruz.ca.us
# http://802.11junk.com jeffl@cruzio.com
# http://www.LearnByDestroying.com AE6KS

Peabody <waybackNO784SPAM44@yahoo.com> hath wroth:

>http://www.utorrent.com/faq.php#Spec..._GL_GS_routers
>
>I frankly don't understand what was being kept for five
>days.

Neither do I. I have no clue what they're talking about.
There's nothing that is saved for 5 days. Not DNS cache, ARP cache,
MAC address cache, or assorted buffers. I have a guess what they're
talking about, but I think it would be better if you ask, rather than
deal with my guesswork.

>Why would the router need to track old
>connections?

Good question. Sorry, no answer.

>But it apparently was a severe problem for
>bittorrent, whatever it was.

Not quite. It seems to be a problem with uTorrent. I couldn't find
anything similar for other clients with Google.

>By the way, from what I've read, there appears to be no
>reason to pick a Linksys v5 or later (except the Linux
>version which is actually a v4 with a new name) over a
>Buffalo. The later Linksys appear to be universally
>condemned.

Correct. The Linksys WRT54G v5 and v6 suck.
<http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/lansrouters/lanrouter-reviews/linksys_wrt54g_v5_really_is_a_lousy_router>
(6 pages). My assorted attempts to make these work reliably with both
the stock firmware and DD-WRT at several clients have resulted in them
being returned to the vendor and exchanged for other makers and
models. My current guess(tm) is that instabilities and lack of
adequate number of simultaneous connection is a hardware issue and
cannot be fixed in software. However, this is a guess(tm) and might
be wrong.

>It's not a function that I really need at this point, but
>I've been listening to Steve Gibson's "Security Now" programs
>on VPN, and trying to understand them. Not there yet.

I have a bad attitude about Steve Gibson. Anyone that claims to be a
security expert, yet does not participate in any of the security
related mailing lists, does not attend security conferences, (does not
attend hacker conferences), is not a security expert.
http://www.grcsucks.com
While his advice does have some merit, in most cases, the problems,
exploits, and effects are exaggerated far beyond reality and
borderning on alarmist. To his credit, he does make some nifty
podcasts and web pages, which is something the real security experts
have problems doing.


--
Jeff Liebermann jeffl@comix.santa-cruz.ca.us
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558