News about the home routers

1. Netgear has new routers with more CPU and memory

Unfortunately the strongest router has at this time no ddwrt support.

Model	CPU	RAM	Flash	Interface	WLAN
WNR3500L	480 MHz BCM4718 MIPS® 74K	64 MB	8 MB	5 GigEthernet	802.11 b/g/n 2.4 GHz
WNR3500L v2	480 MHz MIPS® 74K	128 MB	128 MB	5 GigEthernet	802.11 b/g/n 2.4 GHz
WNDR3700 v1	680 MHz Atheros AR7161 (MIPS 24K)	64 MB	8 MB	5 GigEthernet	802.11 b/g/n 2.4 GHz, 802.11 a/n 5.0 GHz
WNDR3700 v2	680 MHz Atheros AR7161 (MIPS 24K)	64 MB	16 MB	5 GigEthernet	802.11 b/g/n 2.4 GHz, 802.11 a/n 5.0 GHz
WNDR3700 v3	480 MHz BCM4718A1 (MIPS 74K)	64 MB	8 MB	5 GigEthernet	5 GHz is 2×2.
WNDR3800	680 MHz Atheros AR7161 (MIPS 24K)	128 MB	16 MB	5 GigEthernet	802.11 b/g/n 2.4 GHz, 802.11 a/n 5.0 GHz
WNDR4500	600 MHz BCM4706 (MIPS32 74K)	128 MB	128 MB	5 GigEthernet	802.11 b/g/n 2.4 GHz, 802.11 a/n 5.0 GHz

For detailed information here are some links for the routers:

Model	Info pages
WNR3500L	http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netgear_WNR3500L
WNR3500L v2	http://www.netgear.com/home/products/wirelessrouters/work-and-play/WNR3500L.aspx
WNDR3700 v1	http://www.wikidevi.com/wiki/Netgear_WNDR3700
WNDR3700 v2	http://www.wikidevi.com/wiki/Netgear_WNDR3700v2
WNDR3700 v3	http://www.wikidevi.com/wiki/Netgear_WNDR3700v3; http://forums.smallnetbuilder.com/showthread.php?t=5711
WNDR3800	http://www.netgear.com/home/products/wirelessrouters/high-performance/WNDR3800.aspx; http://www.wikidevi.com/wiki/Netgear_WNDR3800; http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/wireless/wireless-reviews/31593-new-to-the-charts-netgear-wndr3800-n600-wireless-dual-band-gigabit-router-premium-edition
WNDR4500	http://www.wikidevi.com/wiki/Netgear_WNDR4500; http://www.netgear.com/home/products/wirelessrouters/ultimate-performance/WNDR4500.aspx; http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/wireless/wireless-reviews/31603-netgear-wndr4500-n900-wireless-dual-band-gigabit-router-reviewed

2. There is a new ddwrt version

There is a new version with a lot of good and “expected” features! Just an example of it is the SWAP support.
DD-WRT Kong Mod USB/FTP/SAMBA3/OpenVPN/Proxy Build 17600
Official link for this version:
http://www.myopenrouter.com/article/23842/DD-WRT-Kong-Mod-Info/
But I copy the new feature list here:

Compared to dd-wrt std_ftp_nas it removes following features:

– chillispot/hotspot
– a few themes
– sftpserver ( use scp instead )

Compared to dd-wrt std_ftp_nas build it currently includes the following features:

OpenVPN and MiniDLNA Build:

– network speed optimization (Benchmark)
– general speed optimizations (compiled using -O2)
– large file support samba, console utils
– inotify support
– kernel futex support
– kernel rt mutex
– lower default TX power for greater stability
– usb support enabled by default
– full featured uClibc for better optware compatibility
– sd-idle included (usb disk spindown, see tutorials how to enable it)
– advanced usb drive automount*, with swap support
– drive umount using SES / AOSS / EZ-SETUP / WPS Button

MiniDLNA Build:

– DLNA Media Server for DLNA/UPnP-AV Clients (XBox, TVs…)

OpenVPN:

– xl2tpd with kernel driver (better throughput)
– proxy with adblocking/filtering in transparent or nontransparent mode

*Automount:
– My builds include a completely redesigned automount.
– By default all disks are mounted to /tmp/mnt/disc_part.
– If a partition is labeled Optware it will be mounted to /opt, if it is labeled Jffs it is mounted to /jffs, if it is labeled Mnt it is mounted to /mnt.
You can override this behaviour by supplying the uuid of a partition in the webinterface this will override default and mount by label strategy.

Umount through SES/WPS Button works the following way:
– Enable Use SES Button to remove drives in section Services->USB of the web interface
Now when you press the button the power light will go off indicating the start of the umount process. Once the light blinks twice umount is complete and the power light will go on again. Now all of your partitions have been umounted, including swap.
After that you can safely remove your drives. If you have multiple drives (e.g. a,b,c) you have to disconnect all of them and attach the ones you need again (e.g. a,b). There is no option right now to selectively umount certain partitions/drives. But as most users probably use only one drive this should work for the majority.

My Version before upgrade:

DD-WRT v24-sp2 (07/20/11) vpnkong(SVN revision 17356M)

and the version after upgrade (29.10.2011):

DD-WRT v24-sp2 (09/17/11) vpnkong(SVN revision 17600:17602M)

And I am so slow that till the time I write this post there is a newer version of ddwrt:
SVN revision 17670
http://www.myopenrouter.com/download/22510/DD-WRT-Kong-Mod-USB-FTP-SAMBA3-OpenVPN-Proxy/

News:
– update busybox to v1.19.2 (include iostat, whois, ping6, hdparm)
– minidlna 1.0.22

Changed:
– optimize automounting, no remouting anymore

Fixes:
– clean umount for all partitions mounted through automount and manually mounted ones, on reboot
– mount ext3 as ext3 not ext2
– fix crond problems

Update 10/13/11:
– debug info from wireless driver removed
– fix non working access restrictions
– fix adding services under qos
– add option to mount partition to /mnt
– fix caracter display for some encodings through share access
Update 09/29/2011:
– Updated OPENVPN builds that fix redirection rule for transparent proxy mode

My Tests:

First I have tested the USB support and it works fine! Some changes i did in my configuration (I do not use the new automatic mounting feature):

Link I used:
http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/USB_storage#Option_3C.2_-_Alternative_Auto_mount_at_boot-time

Goto webUI -> Administration -> Commands:

mount /dev/scsi/host0/bus0/target0/lun0/part1 /jffs sleept 3 mount /dev/scsi/host0/bus0/target0/lun0/part2 /opt sleep 3 mount /dev/scsi/host0/bus0/target0/lun0/part3 /mnt sleep 4

The SWAP work as well. You can read my post about that here.
I have to test the proxy (or the squid that I can install through optware) and the openvpn, but that comes later.