Question Fun experiments that one can do with a LinkSys WRT54GL (1.1?) router? Anything cool?

[VirtualLarry]

I've got a bunch of them winging my way, under $20/ea. Should be good for some fun times.

Suggestions?

I do want to flash a 3rd-party firmware to a couple of them for WDS/ClientBridge purposes, probably AdvancedTomato or FreshTomato, or DD-WRT if I can find an up-to-date build that don't exceed the puny 4MB (originally put GB) flash memory space on these.

(Why do our $5 flash drives have 64GB worth of storage, but a $50-nominal router only has 4MB.)

Can I turn one of these into the equivalent of a DNS-wormhole / PI-Hole for ad-blocking? I realize that they can't even route the full 100Mbit/sec that their LAN/WAN ports are capable of, but ... there has to still be SOME use for these things.

Supported for FreshTomato, but listed as "K26" (Linux Kernel 2.6). The DD-WRT wiki says that you need to flash a new modded CFE to get 2.6 kernels to work, and that it's not recommended. Would that also apply to FreshTomato builds?

hardware_compatibility [FreshTomato Wiki]

wiki.freshtomato.org

 

[mxnerd]

DD-WRT » Router Database

dd-wrt.com

Don't know what VPN feature it can provide. (probably PPTP only)

Linksys WRT54GL - DD-WRT Wiki

wiki.dd-wrt.com

 

[mxnerd]

Also try DNS forwarding using DNSMASQ feature of DD-WRT.

DD-WRT DNS Forwarding -

One of the (many) nice things about DD-WRT is that it has a built-in, lightweight DNS server that you can use as a DNS forwarder. Also, one of the …

churnd.net

Set up AdGuard as the forwarding DNS servers. There is no way the Linksys can run Pi-Hole. Too little ROM, too little RAM.

AdGuard DNS — ad-blocking DNS server

Create your ad-blocking DNS server that will protect your personal data, prevent tracking and allow you to control access to specific content on the Internet.

adguard.com

For "Family protection" servers: (porn keywords, sites blocked)
94.140.14.15
94.140.15.16

According to https://churnd.net/2011/01/10/dd-wrt-dns-forwarding/ you probably have to fill all 3 DNS entries with above 2 DNS IP addresses.

 

[sdifox]

Waste of electricity and money.... Stop buying network hardware of questionable use!

 

[VirtualLarry]

Waste of electricity and money.... Stop buying network hardware of questionable use!

Those Blue cases just give me the warm fuzzies, and remind me of a simpler time on the internet. When 3Mbit/sec meant that you were Cruisin'!

 

[mxnerd]

Linux Pi-Hole alternative on Windows is Technitium DNS server. Give it a try.

Technitium DNS Server | An Open Source DNS Server For Privacy & Security

Technitium DNS Server is an open source authoritative as well as recursive DNS server that can be used for self hosting a DNS server for privacy & security.

technitium.com

 

[aigomorla]

Those Blue cases just give me the warm fuzzies, and remind me of a simpler time on the internet.

my head bashing the table every so often because i would have to reboot the stupid thing from crashing it by hammering it on torrents with over 5000+ simultaneous connections.

Ahhh yes the much funner unregulated days with morpheus, kazaa, limewire, and napster.
Then the MPAA and RIAA got smart and decided to go after my fax machine for thinking it was downloading a taylor swift album when in actuality it was doing nothing but sending faxes.

 

[mxnerd]

Supported for FreshTomato, but listed as "K26" (Linux Kernel 2.6). The DD-WRT wiki says that you need to flash a new modded CFE to get 2.6 kernels to work, and that it's not recommended. Would that also apply to FreshTomato builds?

hardware_compatibility [FreshTomato Wiki]

wiki.freshtomato.org

The supported list is absolutely wrong. The list used to have only a few AC devices from recent years.
Don't know why the author suddenly grab a list of supported devices probably from other abandoned Tomato projects. The FreshTomato firmware is feature rich, there is no way it can run on early devices. You should go to the download link https://freshtomato.org/downloads/ and search the supported devices.