So my WRT-350N decided to stop being a router last night and to start being a brick instead. All ports and WiFi appear to be dead. People have discussed the latest and greatest here - so what's the best basic router for: * enough wireless range for a smallish two storey house; * able to connect and configure about 15 wireless clients and 4 wired (one wired in a DMZ) * probably going to stick with stock firmware, as the Linksys one on the WRT-350N was pretty much okay for the last 8 years; and * would be nice if it wasn't unholy expensive, was available retail today, and was likely to last at least another 8 years. My network setup is very simple: just internal IPs assigned by MAC address via DHCP, and locked in the router. Yes, I manually copy /etc/hosts files about: don't judge. It worked fine until the router went kablooie. I'm wondering if I even need a router, though. The Sagemcom box from Teksavvy (rented from Bell) has WiFi and four LAN ports. What does having my own router do for me? Recommendations and advice welcomed. Assume I have no idea what I'm doing if you haven't already. Thanks in advance Stewart
On Mon, Jan 30, 2017 at 08:35:57AM -0500, Stewart Russell via talk wrote:
So my WRT-350N decided to stop being a router last night and to start being a brick instead. All ports and WiFi appear to be dead. People have discussed the latest and greatest here - so what's the best basic router for:
* enough wireless range for a smallish two storey house;
I have my router in the basement and it works fine on the main floor and upstairs.
* able to connect and configure about 15 wireless clients and 4 wired (one wired in a DMZ)
* probably going to stick with stock firmware, as the Linksys one on the WRT-350N was pretty much okay for the last 8 years; and
* would be nice if it wasn't unholy expensive, was available retail today, and was likely to last at least another 8 years.
My network setup is very simple: just internal IPs assigned by MAC address via DHCP, and locked in the router. Yes, I manually copy /etc/hosts files about: don't judge. It worked fine until the router went kablooie.
DNS is great and all, but if you only have a few machines, then hosts files do work fine. I setup local DNS at my parents place, but for some reason can't seem to get around to doing it at home. I just type the IP address. :(
I'm wondering if I even need a router, though. The Sagemcom box from Teksavvy (rented from Bell) has WiFi and four LAN ports. What does having my own router do for me?
Well potentially nothing, if the sagecom has all the features you want. I run with the wifi and router part of my modem disabled because I want dual band wifi and better performance. Also I want gigabit switched ports, not 100MBit (which is what the sagecom has, as does the awful Cellpipe I am still using).
Recommendations and advice welcomed. Assume I have no idea what I'm doing if you haven't already.
I am currently very happy with my WRT1900ACv2 (aka WRT1900ACS if buying it now). Lots of flash, ram, cpu power, good wifi, USB3 and eSataP ports, gigabit switch, etc. I must admit that I barely looked at the original firmware since I wanted to run LEDE on it (essentially openWRT). LEDE has worked great so far. Canada computers appears to sell it for $240 currently, or $170 for a refurbished one. Someone who really wants options might prefer the WRT3200ACM which has twice the flash, a slightly more advanced switch chip, and the CPU clocked about 20% higher as well as a second 5GHz radio for $300. -- Len Sorensen
On 30/01/17 10:14 AM, Lennart Sorensen via talk wrote:.
I must admit that I barely looked at the original firmware since I wanted to run LEDE on it (essentially openWRT). LEDE has worked great so far.
LEDE is the current target of all the bufferbloat team's efforts to "make wi-fi fast", so it's a good free OS to run if you have more that one wi-fi-using device. --dave -- David Collier-Brown, | Always do right. This will gratify System Programmer and Author | some people and astonish the rest davecb@spamcop.net | -- Mark Twain
On Mon, Jan 30, 2017, 08:36 Stewart Russell via talk <talk@gtalug.org> wrote:
So my WRT-350N decided to stop being a router last night and to start being a brick instead. All ports and WiFi appear to be dead. People have discussed the latest and greatest here - so what's the best basic router for:
* enough wireless range for a smallish two storey house;
* able to connect and configure about 15 wireless clients and 4 wired (one wired in a DMZ)
* probably going to stick with stock firmware, as the Linksys one on the WRT-350N was pretty much okay for the last 8 years; and
* would be nice if it wasn't unholy expensive, was available retail today, and was likely to last at least another 8 years.
My network setup is very simple: just internal IPs assigned by MAC address via DHCP, and locked in the router. Yes, I manually copy /etc/hosts files about: don't judge. It worked fine until the router went kablooie.
I'm wondering if I even need a router, though. The Sagemcom box from Teksavvy (rented from Bell) has WiFi and four LAN ports. What does having my own router do for me?
Recommendations and advice welcomed. Assume I have no idea what I'm doing if you haven't already.
I recently bought a ASUS RT-AC55U 802.11ac Wireless-AC1200 because it was rated a best buy by Consumer Reports. It was on sale at Canada Computers for $100. Ivan.
Thanks! The Asus looks neat, especially with the even more special deal at Canada Computers this week taking it to $84. It's not supported by LEDE, though. The Linksys WRT1900ACS that Lennart mentioned looks solid, but it's still a bit pricey refurb at $170. Still, it's supported by OpenWrt and LEDE, and Linksys seem to be cool with using third party firmwares. Perhaps niftiest deal of all at Canada Computers is the TP-Link Archer C2600 on special offer from $250 to $130 this week. I'm getting mixed messages whether this uses locked and signed firmware, because LEDE say that it's supported. I remember that Lennart and Hugh had an exchange about the Archer C7. Hmm. Thanks, again, Stewart
I have Asus RT-N66U, which is at the top in Wireless-N market. I haven't "upgraded" to AC yet. -- William On Mon, Jan 30, 2017 at 01:40:29PM -0500, Stewart C. Russell via talk wrote:
Thanks! The Asus looks neat, especially with the even more special deal at Canada Computers this week taking it to $84. It's not supported by LEDE, though.
The Linksys WRT1900ACS that Lennart mentioned looks solid, but it's still a bit pricey refurb at $170. Still, it's supported by OpenWrt and LEDE, and Linksys seem to be cool with using third party firmwares.
Perhaps niftiest deal of all at Canada Computers is the TP-Link Archer C2600 on special offer from $250 to $130 this week. I'm getting mixed messages whether this uses locked and signed firmware, because LEDE say that it's supported. I remember that Lennart and Hugh had an exchange about the Archer C7. Hmm.
Thanks, again, Stewart
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Asus AC line been pretty good to me. I program some of the firmware on that line (so no bias here!! :) ), but seriously had very little trouble with it, and like the fact I just ssh into it, even x-compiled tcpdump, and other tools i need to dev on it (and generally have a nice linux env.). -tl On Mon, Jan 30, 2017 at 2:37 PM, William Park via talk <talk@gtalug.org> wrote:
I have Asus RT-N66U, which is at the top in Wireless-N market. I haven't "upgraded" to AC yet. -- William
On Mon, Jan 30, 2017 at 01:40:29PM -0500, Stewart C. Russell via talk wrote:
Thanks! The Asus looks neat, especially with the even more special deal at Canada Computers this week taking it to $84. It's not supported by LEDE, though.
The Linksys WRT1900ACS that Lennart mentioned looks solid, but it's still a bit pricey refurb at $170. Still, it's supported by OpenWrt and LEDE, and Linksys seem to be cool with using third party firmwares.
Perhaps niftiest deal of all at Canada Computers is the TP-Link Archer C2600 on special offer from $250 to $130 this week. I'm getting mixed messages whether this uses locked and signed firmware, because LEDE say that it's supported. I remember that Lennart and Hugh had an exchange about the Archer C7. Hmm.
Thanks, again, Stewart
--- Talk Mailing List talk@gtalug.org https://gtalug.org/mailman/listinfo/talk
Talk Mailing List talk@gtalug.org https://gtalug.org/mailman/listinfo/talk
On 2017-01-30 02:43 PM, ted leslie via talk wrote:
Asus AC line been pretty good to me. I program some of the firmware on that line (so no bias here!! :) )
… no no, none at all. Not even a bit. :-) Thanks also to William Park for the Wireless N suggestion. My last one was N, and if I'm to make this outlast my next couple of desktops, then AC it was. I went with the refurbished Linksys - and discovered that despite the “Open Source ready” notice on the product page, the WRT1900ACSv2 that I got has the locked-down-at-the-FCC's-request USA wireless drivers. I don't know if I can back them out by saying that I'm a nice Canadian. Digging around the LEDE pages it says that the hardware is identical to the v1 router, just got a bit of software locked away. Dammit. Stewart
On Mon, Jan 30, 2017 at 07:09:21PM -0500, Stewart C. Russell via talk wrote:
… no no, none at all. Not even a bit. :-)
Thanks also to William Park for the Wireless N suggestion. My last one was N, and if I'm to make this outlast my next couple of desktops, then AC it was.
I went with the refurbished Linksys - and discovered that despite the “Open Source ready” notice on the product page, the WRT1900ACSv2 that I got has the locked-down-at-the-FCC's-request USA wireless drivers. I don't know if I can back them out by saying that I'm a nice Canadian. Digging around the LEDE pages it says that the hardware is identical to the v1 router, just got a bit of software locked away. Dammit.
Well the only bit locked away has to do with radio power settings apparently. That means they are doing what the FCC wanted in the way the FCC wanted it done, not the way everyone else did it (meaning they are locking away the radio power settings, but not the OS). As far as I can tell, the support for the WRT1900ACS v2 has been in lede builds since late December, 2016, so it actually ought to work, and certainly some people say that using snapshot builds from the last month do work. I can't check, since mine is a WRT1900ACv2 which is the same as the WRT1900ACS v1 as far as the wifi power tables are concerned. -- Len Sorensen
On Mon, Jan 30, 2017 at 01:40:29PM -0500, Stewart C. Russell via talk wrote:
Thanks! The Asus looks neat, especially with the even more special deal at Canada Computers this week taking it to $84. It's not supported by LEDE, though.
The Linksys WRT1900ACS that Lennart mentioned looks solid, but it's still a bit pricey refurb at $170. Still, it's supported by OpenWrt and LEDE, and Linksys seem to be cool with using third party firmwares.
Perhaps niftiest deal of all at Canada Computers is the TP-Link Archer C2600 on special offer from $250 to $130 this week. I'm getting mixed messages whether this uses locked and signed firmware, because LEDE say that it's supported. I remember that Lennart and Hugh had an exchange about the Archer C7. Hmm.
Well 32MB flash is pretty small (compared to 128MB), and the CPU a bit slower than the WRT1900. Signed firmware seems to mostly apply to US models, which so far we seem to have mostly been spared in Canada, surprisingly. So hard to say which model you get here for the C2600 though. The firmware download page has Archer C2600(CA)1.0 listed versus Archer C2600(US)V1 so I guess make sure it says CA and not US by the serial number. At least for the WRT1900ACS it is simple. NCIX for example lists the model as: WRT1900ACS-CA so clearly that is a model made for Canada, not the US. Of course Linksys has already said the WRT1900 is not locked down even in the US since they worked with Marvell on the chip design to make sure they would not have to lock down the whole firmware to comply with the new FCC rules. https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/05/linksys-wrt-routers-w... -- Len Sorensen
On 2017-01-31 06:08 AM, James Knott via talk wrote:
Since you're with Teksavvy over ADSL, you'll want to get one that supports IPv6.
Yes, it does, and I think that I do have an IPv6 address somewhere. But I've got a static IPv4 address from Teksavvy, and that's about the limit of what I understand/need. (bit of a change from 1992, when as a founding member of the UK's first ISP [Demon] I was assigned a block of addresses larger than most countries could hope to have.) The router's working nicely now, and is just a shade faster than the old one. Shame it's so big - would make a nice cat warmer. Stewart
I'm not sure what Teksavvy does, but an ISP is supposed to provide at least a /64 prefix,which provides 18.4 billion, billion addresses. I get a /56 from Rogers, which is 256 times the size of a /64. Since it's available, why not give it a try? That's the direction the world's moving, so no point in hanging back. From: Stewart C. Russell via talk <talk@gtalug.org> To: talk@gtalug.org Sent: Tuesday, January 31, 2017 10:29 AM Subject: Re: [GTALUG] Router advice sought On 2017-01-31 06:08 AM, James Knott via talk wrote:
Since you're with Teksavvy over ADSL, you'll want to get one that supports IPv6.
Yes, it does, and I think that I do have an IPv6 address somewhere. But I've got a static IPv4 address from Teksavvy, and that's about the limit of what I understand/need. (bit of a change from 1992, when as a founding member of the UK's first ISP [Demon] I was assigned a block of addresses larger than most countries could hope to have.) The router's working nicely now, and is just a shade faster than the old one. Shame it's so big - would make a nice cat warmer. Stewart --- Talk Mailing List talk@gtalug.org https://gtalug.org/mailman/listinfo/talk
On Tue, Jan 31, 2017 at 07:05:38PM +0000, James Knott via talk wrote:
I'm not sure what Teksavvy does, but an ISP is supposed to provide at least a /64 prefix,which provides 18.4 billion, billion addresses. I get a /56 from Rogers, which is 256 times the size of a /64. Since it's available, why not give it a try? That's the direction the world's moving, so no point in hanging back.
Well I get a /56 from teksavvy as far as I recall. -- Len Sorensen
participants (8)
-
David Collier-Brown -
Ivan Avery Frey -
James Knott -
lsorense＠csclub.uwaterloo.ca -
Stewart C. Russell -
Stewart Russell
-
ted leslie -
William Park