Re: [PLUG] Router Projects and VPNs

[Michel van der List <plug@vanderlist.com>]

Well, I do tend to at least use my trusty USB-serial cable
(something along the lines of this:
https://www.adafruit.com/products/954) since most of
the consumer grade boxes have at least the serial pins
on the board (or you can quite easily solder them
on).

If you have that, generally it's pretty hard to brick them
since most have at least some sort of tftp functionality to
re-flash the firmware.

I've 'bricked' my rather old Netgear WNR3500L many
times, since it's just soooo easy to blow out the 32K of
memory it has for configuration (using dd-wrt), but
just restarting with the console cable gives you an
easy way to re-flash.

Most of the rather capable devices that can run
openWRT run in the $50-$80 range. Also, upgrading
openWRT is one simple command and it has never
failed for me.

But there's always vanilla I suppose for those who
do not care for chocolate!

On 09/23/2014 04:19 PM, Rich Freeman wrote:
> On Tue, Sep 23, 2014 at 3:31 PM, Michel van der List
> <plug@vanderlist.com> wrote:
> > Just curious why you would not want something that's supported
> > by openWRT? Finding the right hardware can be a challenge,
> > but it generally gets you the tools for multiple VLANs, firewall,
> > etc. etc. It will also draw significantly less power.
> >
> > I use to use an x86 based router, but it reliably drew 40W or so
> > vs. my curent openWRT box which draws about 7 or 8. And no
> > noise.
> If I can get everything working with OpenWRT I don't have any
> objections to it.  Sorry if that was unclear.
>
> However, if I'm going to completely roll my own it would probably
> would be easier if it was hardware designed to be user-updatable so
> that I'm not constantly in fear of bricking the thing.  I guess
> ARM/SOC are fine if they're actually designed to be user-updateable vs
> being a hack.
>
> I don't mind hacking a router to install OpenWRT if it is a one-time
> thing and it will get me more of an out-of-the-box solution.  I just
> don't want to do that to then have to basically do a
> linux-from-scratch on top of it and if I mess up I'm bricked unless I
> start soldering JTAG cables.
>
> There definitely is hardware out there designed for this sort of thing
> which is user-updateable and open, but most of what I've run into so
> far costs $300+, etc.  If this was an alternative to Cisco gear that
> would be one thing.
>
> --
> Rich
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