Hacking the Linksys WRT54G

[Peter Bowen]

I don't generally say - Me too... but I'll make an exception in this 
case.  I'm running an older WiFiBox.  I used the openWRT and was one of 
the early beta testers.  The coolest thing is that you can set the 
router to tftp a new image on boot so that if you mess up you haven't 
created a brick - I mention this beacuse I 'bricked' one.  Another note 
is that you can NFS mount a filesystem and SLOWLY build anything you 
need. :)

-Peter

JStay at mediageneral.com wrote:

>I currently run a hacked WRT54G at home.  I have tried various distros,
>from WifiBox to Sveasoft, to generic Linksys, but I have ended up on
>openwrt (http://www.openwrt.org).  This firmware is very stable, and
>also starts out very basic.  You can then add components as needed down
>the road via it's own packaging system called ipkg.  Because of this it
>is very customizable.  I plan on using one of the hotspot packages down
>the road to turn it into a hotspot.
>
>The only problem with this distro (if you call it a problem) is it is
>pure-command line Linux.  All is done via telnet, and if you install an
>ssh daemon, you can get rid of telnet and do it all via ssh.  Any
>modifications to the firewall have to be done via iptables, so a good
>knowledge of iptables is necessary.  It's a good way to force yourself
>to learn though.  Because of this there is a bit of risk in that if you
>put the wrong iptables line in your firewall script, it can disable
>access to the router.
>
>That being said, if it ever does happen, there are numerous ways to get
>yourself out of a hairy situation, all can be found at openwrt.org.
>Every time I've locked myself or thought I had broke it, I've been able
>to recover - I would say this brings down the risk level significantly.
>However, if you want something safer, but just as powerful, go with
>Sveasoft - keep in mind though if you ever want decent support you have
>to pay about $20/yr for it.  Despite Sveasoft being GPL, the maintainers
>make it awfully hard to bring in community support.
>
>Jesse 
>
>  
>
>>-----Original Message-----
>>From: plug-bounces at plug.org [mailto:plug-bounces at plug.org] On 
>>Behalf Of Gabriel Gunderson
>>Sent: Saturday, March 12, 2005 2:50 PM
>>To: plug at plug.org
>>Subject: Hacking the Linksys WRT54G
>>
>>Anyone messed around with putting a different Linux on one of 
>>these wireless routers?  What works best?  What has the least 
>>risk?  What are you doing with it now that it's opened up?
>>
>>Gabe
>>
>>
>>.===================================.
>>| This has been a P.L.U.G. mailing. |
>>|      Don't Fear the Penguin.      |
>>|  IRC: #utah at irc.freenode.net   |
>>`==================================='
>>
>>    
>>
>.| This has been a P.L.U.G. mailing. |
>|      Don't Fear the Penguin.      |
>|  IRC: #utah at irc.freenode.net   |
>`
>  
>