Re:MikroTik routers are forwarding owners’ traffic to unknow...
by willangley on Tuesday September 04, 2018 @05:55PM
(#17913159)
+1 to OpenWRT 18.x / Netgear R7800.
It's one of the only WiFi routers I've ever worked with that has a fallback flash mode in the bootloader, and the only one that I know you can buy today. This is invaluable when you're not sure if something you're doing could make it fail to boot, like installing an upgrade without knowing whether it uses the same partition layout as you had. When it does you can just try again. (I've needed this once already.)
Re:MikroTik routers are forwarding owners’ traffic to unknow...
by amaccuish on Friday September 14, 2018 @10:04AM
(#17987232)
You can't SSH into Apple AirPort routers, unless I missed something big?
Re:MikroTik routers are forwarding owners’ traffic to unknow...
by ThatSmell on Thursday September 06, 2018 @02:56PM
(#17928610)
Quick word of caution on the r6700 series: Be careful to avoid the r6700v2 if interested in third-party firmwares. v2 is incompatible for chip-related reasons I don't fully understand, or was as of just a couple months ago. Easy to miss the v2 part when shopping on Amazon, which is how I ended up with my current doorstop.
Specifically, the best deals can be had on the oldest model, the R6700v3, from an Amazon warehouse deal for $70. This is what I use, and it works without issue with dd-wrt. You'll need to flash it 3 times.
The best device is probably the R7800 model. It uses a very fast, non-Broadcom (OpenWRT-supported), modern chip. The only way this matters in practice is if (1) you have a gigabit Internet connection and (2) if you need QoS turned on for scoring an A+ in "bufferbloat" on speedtest.net--i.e., you play games.
If you don't use QoS, you will be able to serve 1 gigabit with dd-wrt's "Shortcut Forwarding Engine," which is an accelerated "in-Linux-kernel IP packet forwarding engine." If you don't have a gigabit connection, the typical Linux routing stuff that dd-wrt uses is fine.
With regards to model roulette, you can always buy it off eBay for the specific model. These routers are so common I see listing for them in Craigslist in the Bay Area right now.
I would argue the two main reasons to do this are for improved security/stability and QoS. If you're not interested in these features, buy something that Wirecutter recommends in your price range. But compared to $70, I believe a truly decent router can be had for $50 (the Archer series others have mentioned) that is also truly ancient.
The Apple Airport devices run ARM NetBSD and you can SSH into them. The last generation ran NetBSD 7 and executed binaries from NetBSD userspace when compiled statically.
OpenWRT does not ship closed-source Broadcom drivers, so it tends to have worse support across the board. I don't think their OSS-related reasons for doing so are material to you.