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63 Comments
- schestowitz, on 10/12/2007, -3/+48There will always be those who complain about power consumption of old boxes. Even when operated without a monitor, these can consume about 10 times as much electricity as that of an embedded, lightweight equivalent.
- commandar!, on 10/12/2007, -6/+39@deadbaby2
The guy that wrote this article used a P150 with 14MB of RAM. Compare that to my Buffalo WHR-G54S running DD-WRT on a 200MHz MIPS processor and 16MB of RAM. He's both consuming more power *and* using a less powerful machine. Bad idea all around, if you ask me. - DerProfi, on 10/12/2007, -0/+13Running a PC as a router makes algore cry!
- unlimitedorb, on 10/12/2007, -3/+16Give the man a break. It says "Expert Author" next to his title. He probably knows what you are going to say before you even say it because everyone knows that experts have magical powers.
...and then some. - TheOther1, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10Did anyone notice this article is from 2003?
- robinator08, on 10/12/2007, -1/+10You save the $50-100 on a router, and you surely will enjoy the amount added onto the power bill for running a full machine instead of a router.
- Fhionnlaoch, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8And it's bad for the environment. :(
- deadbaby, on 10/12/2007, -8/+15True they do use more power but if you need these advanced features you shouldn't be comparing them to a $50 Linksys router because, even with DD-WRT/OpenWRT, the Linksys box won't be fast enough for some things. To fairly compare power consumption you'd have to look at a Cisco PIX or Sonicwall device. I switched from a WRT54G to a PF-Sense box (running on an old P3) and it's worth the extra $5/month or whatever it costs to run (it only uses 50-60w) It's not for everyone but if you have a need for the advanced features the extra power consumption is unavoidable.
- harmlessinc, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8"Article Date: 2003-08-06 "
....I wonder if there just might have been any updates to the topic in the last 3.5 years.....
Maybe something like a prepackaged, freely downloadable Linux distro that can do all of this 'auto-magically'...
m0n0wall
ipcop
clarkconnect
endian
pfsense
.... and at least another dozen I can't recall off the top of my head.
EDIT:
Even better the link at the bottom says it was first printed on another site that has the date at:
"Updated: 05. Nov 2003 / On since: 01. Jun 2003 "
... - damage84, on 10/12/2007, -2/+9http://www.smoothwall.org
Best Linux firewall solution I've used. - weekendwarrior, on 10/26/2007, -3/+10actually m0n0wall and pfsense are BSD based.
- sancho, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6Why is this guy being dugg down? He's 100% correct. pfsense and m0n0wall are based on BSD with the pf firewall rather than Linux with iptables. They are different beasts with different strengths and weaknesses.
- habbofresh, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6blog spam
http://koti.mbnet.fi/~keiky/misc/linux/router/lnx_router.html
and it's still dated, and lame.
note the author's name on both articles. "i'll repost again. i need attention." - rkuchiki, on 10/12/2007, -2/+7@arronlorenz
That is because DD-WRT is a bloated piece of *****. Sorry, but I have used it. Torrents do crash it, doesn't take much.
Here is the firmware I use, it is called "Tomato". The interface is AJAX, but it has barely any overhead and doesn't crash like DD-WRT would.
http://www.polarcloud.com/tomato
Uptime 17 days, 00:13:49
CPU Load (1 / 5 / 15 mins) 0.02 / 0.01 / 0.00
Total / Free Memory 30.00 MB / 18.68 MB (62.26%)
4 devices on network, two of them torrent. - coditza, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Not to mention the noise.
I'm running a router/firewall made out from an old p200mhz, 64megs + freebsd and definitely I'm looking forward to get a dedicated router/firewall, only because of the noise that crap does.
I'm not going to waste 1 second to try to make that computer silent, prolly the parts needed will cost more than the overall computer. - habbofresh, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4yes
- devo6273, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5@ deadbaby
Just out of curiousity, what would one be doing in a home environment that something like pfsense would outshine DD-WRT? I can obviously see the benefit of dropping regular firmware from linksys (which I've had way too many issues with in the past) for DD-WRT with more options but I'm not sure how pfsense is raising the bar.
Please, anyone feel free to enlighten me? - gamebittk, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4I set up one of these as a strong-security hardware firewall. I installed IPCop [a more stable, non-commercial] fork of SmoothWall, and plugged it into my router. BLAM! Super-protected web browsing. [BTW, you can intstall a special IPCop version of ClamAV that scans all incoming packets for viruses. It's really easy to set up (that is, if you know Linux).
- Urusai, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Another day, another lame "lookit Linux running a firewall on mah old PC".
You know, I hear you can do stuff with Linux that doesn't involve packet handling. - tendonut, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5Hell yes. 3 years running and counting
- livet0ski, on 08/17/2009, -1/+4smoothwall?
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I'm running an ipcop firewall on a PIII 766 using a CF card in place of a hard drive. It uses about 26 watts and I could probably even trim that down a little. It's the best router I've ever used and the power consumption isn't bad at all.
- staiger, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3There are also some low-cost low-power options such as:
WRAP from PC Engines: http://www.pcengines.ch/wrap1e203.htm
Routerboard from Routerboard.com: http://routerboard.com
Soekris: http://soekris.com
Some of these get down to 1W of power and can push up to 25Mbps and cost as low as $69. - ahmerhussain, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3It won't be so cheap when youg et your power bill.
Just use an Airport Extreme or something. Sure this is fun, but not practical. - arronlorenz, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4@devo6273
Have you ever tried to run a couple of computers with bit torrent on a WRT and still been able to surf the Internet?? I use a few Buffalo's running DD for long range wireless connections and the built in QOS.... still have to have it auto reboot because to much traffic and the QOS kills the router.
DD-WRT running for one or two home computers has no issues. Once you start adding services, and more then one computer running a torrent and the router just can't handle it. I use an p3 700 for my router. - mrsteveman1, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2^ PFsense can load balance 2 wan connections out of the box, its fairly automatic once its setup, which is easy.
Ive been using PFsense on a 2U rack mounted P2-466/256megs, with a multi port Intel PRO server Ethernet card (because of acceleration and offloading).
I've used Smoothwall and PFsense and they both beat the hell out of anything linksys makes (!!!), both in RAM, speed and state table size, not to mention VPN and IDS functions which are important on a real network with real traffic passing through the router. I would trust either one because both have been extensively tested for security holes, I cant say the same for any consumer router. Security shouldn't be ignored even on a home network, and I would never try to protect anything I own behind a Linksys router, its just stupid.
If you have a real need for a firewall like this, bitching about the power use and noise is irrelevant and unimportant, it would be sitting in a wiring closet anyway. If you don't need a real router you aren't doing anything important on a public network anyway, in which case none of this matters. - dt40, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2If other news, you can use SLEDGEHAMMERS FROM THE EARLY 1990s as a device to CRACK OPEN PEANUT SHELLS!
- nerd05, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I think that if you can get the MythTV backend installed and working harmoniously with the box, you should be fine, although you'd have to make sure the MythWeb interface ran on a different port than the router's web interface.
- Wintrmte, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3Not bad!! I'll +digg this. I have found that pfSense is a bit better though and is much more feature rich (and free).
www.pfsense.com - Akira, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3I found Freesco to be the best, been running for 4 years now at my parent's house.
- holydope, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1It depends on what kind of myth setup you want, and on what kind of hardware you use.
- Zera, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3Does anyone have a good variation with powerful and easy to set up Packet Shaping?
Packet Shaping in a nutshell lets you prioritize types of traffic, so that it _always_ has priority over traffic that you don't care about, e.g. FTP traffic, or Bit torrent traffic, etc. Also, a GUI with monitoring tools would be pretty sweet as well. - tester23, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1i love ipcop!
- jarinudom, on 03/31/2008, -0/+1http://www.suparad.com/index.php/2006/10/21/linux-wireless-router/
- Barleyman, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I just switched from dd-wrt to ipcop with the zerina openvpn add-on and I love it. Subjective point- "Everything seems to run faster"
Turned my linksys into an AP that forward DHCP requests to laptops. Have separate wireless network in Blue zone with limited access, and use vpn on laptops to reach internal network. Much more secure and robust than before, plus now I have a real vpn, and I don't rely on hamachi any more. - mauvehead, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I replaced my dual core Ultra 2 Sparc 300Mhz router runnign Solaris 8 + QOS + IPF with a Buffalo 54G running DD-QRT and I haven't looked back. My DD-WRT runs QOS, DNS, DHCP, NAT, Firewall, IPSec and more with NO problems what so ever. My friends and I have a 30 node VPN and 90% of it is DD-WRT now. We have started replacing all of our Linux routers with DD-WRTs and every one is VERY happy. I don't know what the rest of you DD-WRT users are complaining about. My network is solid.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1pics?
- mrsteveman1, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Yes, but they aren't shooting for perfectly silent to sit next to a home theater......thats the point.
In a real network you are more concerned with security than power, in any case most new rack servers are low power anyway, the point was those linksys crap machines aren't necessary. - hutectro, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1This project is NOT worth your time i did it and it you are better off buying a router
if you looking for router software i use BBIagent ---------it is easy to use and it is freeware.
it works on floppy and CD --------just google ( BBIAGENT ).
- MagicBobert, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1@Zera
pfSense is exactly what you're looking for. I recently set up a pfSense box on an old Pentium II 333 with 128 MB RAM and it works like a champ. The traffic shaper is pretty easy to use and it controls P2P traffic great.
I'm not anti-P2P, but when you live in a house with 5 college students all constantly torrenting, it can totally rape your net connection. Overall, pfSense does a great job of controlling the torrent traffic and letting web, email, and gaming traffic through with priority.
It also has a web-based GUI with traffic monitoring tools, traffic graphs, all sorts of great stuff. Plus there are a lot of plug-ins out there that make it really, really flexible and expandable. - bullox, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Bingo. Low power solid state devices blow old junk PCs out of the water.
- duckworth, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I had DD-WRT running on a Linksys WRT54G for a while but it just couldn't keep up. I have a 30/5 mbit cable connection and when you turn on QOS, syslog and snmp, etc to monitor my bandwidth it couldn't keep up with my connection. I threw IPCOP on an old Pentium4 i had lying around and I don't have any speed issues anymore.
- ApeInago, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1WHat about load balencing... if i had two internet connections, how would i make the computer act as a load balencer?
- cakefart, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I wholeheartedly agree with people's comments on noise, bulk, and power. I had been using an old P166 (Linux, then BSD) for several years that finally crapped out, I looked into building my own and running some sort of *nix on it.
After a few weeks of searching for components, I priced out the parts for a low power, load balancing, router- the cheapest I could get it down to was ~$350. Ouch. (Using places like newegg, mini-itx, and logic supply.)
I've been happily using a XiNCOM Twin WAN Router for a couple of months http://www.xincom.com/products/502/overview.php. It cost $150, has decent bandwidth, and costs $30 a year (yes, $30) less in electricity. It doesn't sound like a jet engine and produces quite a bit less heat, as well. I know others have had problems with that vendor, but their latest updates seem to have squashed most bugs) - cakefart, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Noise and Power mean a great deal in commercial settings- I don't know where you get the idea that they'd matter less.
Just check out google's Quarterly statements, where 60% of their operating expenses are from electricity. - ellisgl, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Vyatta is your best bet. The newest public release (Vyatta Community Edition 2) we are having issues with. Can't get more than 500 / Mbit/s on 2 1 Gb/s cards on PCI express X1 cards on a dual core (64 bit) machine with a gig of ram. The test was done with a SmartBits machine.
- bullox, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Soekris/WRAP/Acrosser or stfu.
- pairanoyd, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Smoothwall rocks. I've been using it for years. I think I started with it around '02 when it went from alpha to beta.
Best of all is the adzapper mod. Install smoothwall then google for "martybugs" and follow the directions there to install the adzapper mod. Bye bye annoying ads! Can't beat it.
I've installed several smoothwalls in commercial settings with large numbers of users and they run forever. - multitude, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1It will waste more electricity than you need to. Get an old linksys wrt54g (not one of the brand new ones), or a Buffalo router and put openwrt on it.
- mrsteveman1, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Smoothwall definitely beats a lot of things available.
DDWRT and the other embedded systems are like a half ground between home use and a real firewall, i fail to see what DDWRT is useful for beyond feeling 1337 that you hacked the router. Its not even very stable, ive seen it crash more than windows. The lack of a reliable bootstrap is a concern as well, lots of people end up having to short pins on the flash chip to recover those things. And, those little routers don't have enough ram to handle any real functionality like VPN or IDS, or real time spam/advertisement/website filtering or blocking, they just cant do it reliably without slowing to a crawl and crashing.
If you want a real firewall either use smoothwall etc or a real cisco firewall, but don't pretend DDWRT can do all kinds of stuff it cant do, and its mostly stuff you probably don't need anyway if your seriously considering a linksys router. -
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