> Tonight I bought a Linksys WRT54G wireless router for use at my
> mom's place when I'm in town, and was pleased to discover that
> this is one of the ones that runs Linux under the hood. (not
> that I plan to modify it myself)
I purchased a WRT54g with the express purpose of modifiying the firmware
to enable funcionality not supported by linksys. Within 15 minutes of
breaking the seal on the package I had installed the sveasoft [1]
firmware.
I plan to use the router to replace a P133 with three NICs that I use as a
firewall/router at home. The router has several features that make it
interesting for this purpose:
- The internal four port switch supports VLANs, each port can be assigned
to a specific virtual network, or configured as a trunk port carrying
mutliple VLANs to 802.1q aware devices. These networks can also be
seperated from the wireless network.- The router can be used to route and firewall between these networks.
Like all good linux projects my work is uncomplete, however I plan to
implement the following:
- Internal network for wired machines
- DMZ network for publicly accessible server, with minimal access to both
internal and external networks. - Wireless network with VPN based access
to internal resources, public access to internet. I intend to run this as
an open access point.
So far I have set up the VLANs, and a few of the firewall rules. I have
yet to implement the VPN solution.
The firmware that I am using to implement all of these wonderful features
is made by sveasoft [1]. To my knowledge it is the only firmware that
permits you to configure VLANs. There is some interesting VLAN related
documentation on the sveasoft forums (free registration required) [2].
I am unsure of the GPL status of this firmware, as you need to pay to have
access to the "pre-release" firmware (20 USD / annum, not a problem wrt
GPL), and do not have the right to redistribute it (big GPL problem, as I
understand it). I am using the Alchemy firmware.
-JohnF
P.S. I have been meaning to make a post about Ubuntu GNU/Linux [3], the
Debian derived desktop oriented linux distro with a regular release
schedule. If someone beat me to it I wouldn't complain.
[1]
http://www.sveasoft.com/
[2]
http://www.sveasoft.com/modules/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=21632#21632
[3]
http://www.ubuntulinux.org/