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59 Comments
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -6/+25So a normal router just isn't good enough for these nerds?
- imjustabill, on 10/12/2007, -2/+17Why in the world would you use Ubuntu for this? There are dozens of distos created exactly for this purpose, and they are all much smaller than Ubuntu. You shouldn't need a system with 384 mb of ram to run a router.
- seanmc303, on 10/12/2007, -3/+17People need a good excuse to get that old Pentium 2 back on its feet and they also feel as if they are paying too little for their electricity bill. Considering that they are choosing Ubuntu as their distro for this extremely basic task, they also want their router to run much slower than it should be running if they chose a custom lightweight firewall/router distro. This is a perfect waste of time for people who have too much time, money, and a desire for sub-optimal performance.
- schestowitz, on 10/12/2007, -5/+19FWIW, there are some specialised Linux distributions for this. They are lightweight.
- lebe0024, on 10/12/2007, -1/+13Or ... you could just buy a buffalo WHR-G54S from buy.com for $32 shipped using google checkout. Flash it with the Tomato or DD-WRT firmware and enjoy router heaven. To me the time saved is easily worth $30. Not only that, I'm sure it will consume a lot less power.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9You can actually automate a plant watering system. Tie it in with your automated lights, music, and whatever else, and you can have automatic plant watering.
- SteveMax, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8Exactly. If you are going to use old hardware as a router, you should simply install Coyote or something equivalent. Remember, it's good to KISS.
- graystar, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8What next.....how to use Ubuntu to water your plants?
- KibibyteBrain, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6Especially with 3rd party firmware like ddwrt and openwrt that basically give you any Linux routing functions you could dream of(and more).
- wvdavis, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6Isn't the Linksys WRT-54G already using a Linux OS?
- KibibyteBrain, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5@wvdavis Only the older 54Gs and the WRT-54GL. Newer G's run a 3rd party locked down firmware that offers "similar" functionality while using far less RAM(at least originally, now Linux can fit in there too). The good news is either way, you can kick out the underpowered linksys firmware for 3rd party firmware.
- pentium4borg, on 10/12/2007, -5/+10Running your own Linux router has advantages like having more control over your traffic. I have a Gentoo-based wireless router and it works great.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6Why Ubuntu/Debian? The whole GNU/Linux thing is already 1 slash too many, imo.
- fjc8, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5Old versions of the Linksys WRT54G ran Linux. The latest ones include less RAM and flash and run VxWorks.
There are a few Linux distributions designed to be a router or wireless access point. DSL is not one of them.
Some are open and some are commercial. Many are based on projects originally for the WRT54G, but have since evolved to support many platforms.
Here's what I know of:
Free ones:
http://www.openwrt.org -- My favorite. Kamikaze is quite nice.
http://www.freewrt.org/trac/ -- a fork of OpenWRT, apparently
Partially free ones:
http://www.dd-wrt.com -- amateruish in my opinion -- distributed freely for some hardware platforms
Commerical ones:
http://www.staros.com/
http://www.sveasoft.com/ -- evil and amateurish
http://www.antcor.com/ac/cikarusos
http://www.mikrotik.com/ -- RouterOS -- has a nice Windows-based GUI
(and please stop enclosing links on digg in parentheses) - KibibyteBrain, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4I guess the one cool thing about this is it is a proof on concept of the power of desktop linux as being a "do it all" solution. Microsoft once had a marketing scheme to the effect of "windows on the [insert device here] ; windows everywhere" but of course microsoft's "windows" operating systems are many different OSes with similar looks and feels. Plain old Ubuntu can do pretty much anything these days, from driving software radios to routing to web services to letting you frag your friends, and that is pretty much what we were all promising everyone 10 years ago with Linux.
- linksus, on 10/12/2007, -4/+7http://www.freesco.org/
Its ciSCO on a floppy. Its Linux, Its Free , Its Open Source.. What else u want?
Whats the point in downloading hundreds of meg of pointless bloaty OS just to make a router. - xyphur, on 10/12/2007, -1/+42nd
Additionally, I'd think DSL (http://www.damnsmalllinux.org) would be perfect for the job, and you'd still have many of the luxuries of the above system, such as a GUI, etc.
DSL can run on as little as a 486DX with 16MB of RAM, and/or entirely in RAM on as little as 128MB. - ninjacob, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Everyone whining about power consumption should realize this can be used in tandem with your Ubuntu install, making the Ubuntu desktop PC also function as a wireless router. You do not need to do this on dedicated hardware. This would in fact SAVE energy, if you kept the PC all the time anyway. No need for an additional wireless router to provide access to others.
- t3soro, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4you're a moron
- lilrabbit129, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4I think a good motivation is to be able to go through the process. I'm personally very interested in things like this. Yes, a store bought router would probably be smaller, consome less power, make less heat, etc... But all I've learned from setting that up, is how to plug it in.
That being said, if I didn't have the time to set one of these up (like now for example), I'd pick one of those routers up in a second. - monergism, on 10/12/2007, -7/+9No.
No, HELL NO.
Restart time + Power consumption + moving parts != anything near acceptable.
Sorry but as a Believer that we have a responsibility to keep this planet green and clean, I prefer to use devices that use MUCH less power. - humperdeath, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Wow, I'd like to digg up for using Ubuntu, but this is not making anything easier. I wonder how much power and desktop real-estate is wasted, just to avoid a linksys router? I'm gonna have to pass on this one.
- Ub3rg33k, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2DD-WRT is now available for x86. Definitely consider this along with the other specialized Linux distros for routers.
- zdiggler, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4Why? DD-WRT and OpenWRT is there and work with most portable hardware out there.
Saving energy? what. Router don't take much energy and they run off 5V power supply, which you can probably get it from a cheap solar panel with a cheap regulator.
Just get a WHR-54 and install DD-WRT.
That's a frigging huge Router!!! - Niten, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3I agree with other posters who questioned the use of Ubuntu, in particular, for this project. But you have to realize that such a box, once configured with Linux or (in my preference) OpenBSD, can do a whole lot more for you than any off-the-shelf consumer WiFi router could hope to achieve.
Right now I'm running an OpenBSD router that, in addition to running a firewall that does all sorts of nice things like SYN proxying (try finding a Linksys to do that for you), is an OpenVPN endpoint, a gateway onto the IPv6 network, a Privoxy web proxy, and a virus scanner for POP-downloaded emails. It can also automatically switch over to my apartment's redundant Internet connection should my cable go out.
Even DD-WRT has its limitations. My point is that this sort of thing does, in fact, have its uses. Besides, after I ripped the graphics card out of my old PowerMac G4 and set the hard drive to only spin up once every 45 minutes, it consumes less power than a light bulb. - regeya, on 12/31/2007, -0/+1I'm about to set up something like this, but the "router machine" is also my main axe. If it weren't for that, I'd be flashing a cheap router with dd-wrt.
- regeya, on 12/31/2007, -0/+1I'm repeating myself here, but Buffalo routers make great DD-WRT routers. Just do yourself a favor and keep it up to date with the beta releases. We're running DD-WRT at work on a WHR-G125, and for a cheap router like that, it's brilliant.
- nograz, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I have been thinking about getting one of the specialized boards that DD-WRT are selling for a home installation when we buy a house in the next up coming months. They have add-ons that could come in handy with out having to purchase more hardware for access points, just more antennas.
Though, the Asus 500 Deluxe also has my eye, since it probably one of the most powerful as far as features and capabilities out of all the main stream ones. I especially like that it has USB ports and can run samba to attach a network drive. Would allow for a quick and easy dump for the house, but I guess my NAS could do the same.
The WRT based projects defiantly are killer and I love the fact that they are embedded rather than running moving parts to do the same thing, less to go wrong. Now I just got to figure out how make a NAS system out of a embedded system with out having to pay a fortune or have something that isn't as scalable like the current NAS systems (thinking a SATA bridge to eSATA for just a case with drives is ideal for what I need). - steven401, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3@kibibytebrain
I have DMZ enabled all the time for me.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demilitarized_zone_%28computing%29 - dbr_onix, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1http://www.smoothwall.org - Nice web-UI, fairly easy to use, fair ammount of modifications available on their forums
..and..
http://www.pfsense.com - Like a bigger version of m0n0wall (but m0n0wall is intended for embedded devices), more powerful than Smoothwall
..are another two good "PC->Router OS's" - KibibyteBrain, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3*not recommended, especially if you have your router serve as your firewall like everyone does.
- regeya, on 12/31/2007, -0/+1Aye, and DD-WRT runs brilliantly on many Buffalo devices. We have a WHR-G125 at work running DD-WRT and it's brilliant, and I'm sure Buffalo's sponsorship of DD-WRT has something to do with it. :-)
- Digitalmarley, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3Now if only setting up Ubuntu to use my wireless network wasn't a 3000 step process involving stuff like
a) ndiswrappers
b) bits and pieces of several types of NIC drivers
c) a coat hanger
d) toilet paper roll
e) macgver like skills
i'd consider doing this....but frankly WHY! the point about power consumption above is a good enough reason not to replace a stand alone box with a whole machine let alone the seemly unnecessary amount of complicated configuration. Call me a tech n00b or whatever, but i like my life and things i do to be simple, not overly complicated. oh well, im sure some ubuntu fanboy will rub one out to this, and more power too him! - kuscsik, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I fit my compressed Ubuntu distro on a 128 MB IDE flash. It is lightweight, fast and serves as router well. I using also Gentoo on some servers and my experience is that Gentoo, Debian and Ubuntu are the most flexible distros.
- lilrabbit129, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2"Ubuntu is versatile, for sure, but this does sound like a big waste. Why couldn't he just put the extra nics and wireless card in his primary desktop system, set up the dmz there and the wireless broadcasting, and skip having an old pc pulling 250+ watts of power all day and night? I have a Linksys router with dd-wrt and am totally satisfied with it. And it heats up my home office a LOT less than having another computer puffing along in the corner."
Because you wouldn't want your main machine "available" to the general internet. Having a seperate machine as the firewall/webserver/router etc, provides you with an extra layer of security. - lilrabbit129, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1"who in the right mind will buy airport extreme.
Airport extremes are the most Ripoff over priced router in the market! If you bought one either you're dumb and like to get ripped off or just apple fan boy"
The newer Airport Extremes aren't bad. As N routers go, they're reasonably priced. The USB printer and mass storage capabilities are also nice. Of course comparing them to G routers makes them seem over priced, G routers have been out for years and their prices are much much lower. - KibibyteBrain, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2@TheLostSignal Ubuntus package tree is quite a bit different than any of the Debian releases, and is the main reason for Ubuntu's success on the Desktop. Debian's package trees made sense 12 years ago, but now are near useless in general. Ubuntu is forking further and further from Debian anyway, as seen by anyone who has foolishly ventured to add debian repos into an Ubuntu sources.list and got into big trouble pretty quickly. Until debian has a package like "ubuntu-desktop" that lets people know they have a "standard" set of desktop tools for interoperability and compatibility as a desktop environment, it is useless on the desktop to anyone but a select few.
- dbr_onix, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1[What the hell, Digg's comment-editing screwed up the links.. Repost..]
http://www.smoothwall.org - Nice web-UI, fairly easy to use, fair ammount of modifications available on their forums
..and..
http://www.pfsense.com - Like a bigger version of m0n0wall (but m0n0wall is intended for embedded devices), more powerful than Smoothwall
..are another two good "PC->Router OS's" - zdiggler, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1going to 192.168.1.1 in DD-WRT router is not easy enough?
you can also make a ff based front end. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Most wireless routers run a linux daemon anyway.
My next statement/question is "Why is this news?" - geminitojanus, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1A) It doesn't "need" 384MB of RAM, it has 384MB of RAM. Big difference.
B) "Why in the world would you use Ubuntu for this? There are dozens of distos created exactly for this purpose, and they are all much smaller than Ubuntu."
Perhaps the machine already has Ubuntu on it, and these instructions are for setting up Ubuntu to do more instead of running out to buy more hardware? I know of, and have seen, people use their desktop as a router in their house, this Howto applies very well to people who want to do this. - geminitojanus, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2"I wonder how much power and desktop real-estate is wasted, just to avoid a linksys router?"
Two camps of thought: one, hardware-per-server. People in this school of thought feel it's better to get dedicated hardware to do something; instead of setting up a router, grab a COTS router. Instead of setting up an AP, grab a WRT. Instead of setting up your own LAMP, go to someone else. Two, I own, and am already running this server, why not make more use of it? People in this school already have a server running a LAMP-type setup, and it's very likely underutilized. Instead of letting it go to waste and buying yet another computer to do something their server is perfectly capable of doing, they set it up that way.
Personally, I wish I could be in the school of 1.5; I like hardware appliances, but I also wish they did more [give me a 100MHz ARM9, 1-4GB of Flash or an ATA controller, 64MB of RAM and I've got everything I need]. But I'm squarely in the second camp, and already have a 333MHz Celeron box running my firewall, (wireless) router, LAPS server (sqlite instead of mysql) for remote admin-type services, NFS file server, SVN, and I have DistCC running on it (for no other reason than "I can"; every machine in the house runs DistCC/Folding). The machine doesn't have a monitor or a video card (not even integrated) and tops out at about 120W (it's rated for 200W, but even with all disks whirring away it never peaks above 130W).
Point of the story: for some people, it makes more sense to use what you've already got instead of buying more. It costs me less to setup something than it does for me to run out, buy something, bring it home, and set it up. And I can repurpose it later (which is really hard to do with those little routers, they've just not got enough power to do anything more than route packets). - zdiggler, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2who in the right mind will buy airport extreme.
Airport extremes are the most Ripoff over priced router in the market! If you bought one either you're dumb and like to get ripped off or just apple fan boy. - orb_nsc, on 10/12/2007, -3/+3Ubuntu is versatile, for sure, but this does sound like a big waste. Why couldn't he just put the extra nics and wireless card in his primary desktop system, set up the dmz there and the wireless broadcasting, and skip having an old pc pulling 250+ watts of power all day and night? I have a Linksys router with dd-wrt and am totally satisfied with it. And it heats up my home office a LOT less than having another computer puffing along in the corner.
- KibibyteBrain, on 10/12/2007, -3/+3Running your own router on an old linux box is great, but theres no reason commercial WiFi boxen are not cheaper and better than a self built solution for the wireless functionality on your LAN. Just set it up in access point mode and have your linux router do the routing. Everyones happy.
- humperdeath, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0@geminitojanus: I admit, it is cool that this can be done, but reading the original post, it appeared that the author was doing this for his desktop. (Ubuntu desktop) - so I pictured 2 pc's side by side, one being used for a router. Now if some fancy networking is needed and the router cannot handle it, that is one thing. But just to prove a point, that's another. Just more of an educational experience, but not so practical.
- ajstrobus, on 11/10/2008, -0/+0To everyone who wonders "why would you want to do this". I can think of one obvious scenerio but won't assume mine is the only one. If someone had a ubuntu setup thats already always on & connected to his friends wireless next door & wants to route the connection to his wired home network. I'm sure theres probably other implementations but This would seem to be a useful and efficient added solution.
- fuzz111111, on 11/03/2008, -0/+0For all you people talking about power consumption, consider my setup:
Router - linksys wrt54gl with Tomato firmware
Switch - netgear gs105. Why a seperate switch? Because I want gigabit speeds between my wired PC's and while some routers exist which have gigabit switches built in, they dont perform as well as most cheap seperate switchs such as mine, and they come with all sorts of stuff I neither need or are willing to pay for (such as anything to do with wireless as you'll see next).
Wireless AP - netgear wgt624 router set to act as an AP. Why a seperate AP? Because the wired PC's, cable modem, and router are all in one end of the house, as far from where I *want* to use wireless as can be, and for some reason my house seems to hate wireless devices communicating inside it.
Each uses its own inefficient wall wart. Now I'm adding an old laptop to add as a permanent bittorrent downloader and fileserver amoung other things (because leaving my games beast running 24/7 is definately a waste of power), so it'd be nice if it could take on one more task as a router (meaning I wouldnt need to use my existing one) and maybe run the whole setup off a single 12v switching power supply which will certainly help with power consumption. - ahmerhussain, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2WHY would you want to do this?!
If you're not running a huge commercial infastructure where you would see some benefit to have a whole server dedicated to being a router then this is pointless! An airport Extreme could do all these things and consume a lot less power.
But if you use the box for other stuff at the same time, you could possibly use it as a signal extender sort of thing, but a box dedicated to this kinds of stuff is EXTREMELY stupid when you factor in the cost of energy. - TheLostSignal, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0This is yet another story that proves the power of DEBIAN, not the gooey INSTALLER known as Ubuntu. That being said, it's hardware overkill, informative for newbies though.
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