Wireless Networking with Tomato

[tonster]

I'm not sure where I should categorize this (move if you want BV). 

I just got a new laptop for my wife and with it, an Asus WL-520GU wireless router.  Usually you clone your PC's mac address and you are good to go.  Unfortunately, Asus had firmware that told it that I had chosen the wrong connection type (dynamic IP) for my cable modem.  This caused the internet connection to cease anytime I made ANY changes in the router configuration.  Sigh*

After hours of frustration, I installed "Tomato".  This is a (linux?) version of firmware that allows me to reboot the router without disconnection issues.  In addition, it has some really cool features like real time bandwidth monitoring. 

Has anyone else used Tomato or DD WRT?  Just curious.  I may have some question for you if you have.  I don't understand all of the settings  

[trashy]

I'm a bit confused regarding a few things.

Clone your PC's mac address?  Why would you do such a thing?

As far as "Tomato", I have never heard of it.  What kind of router do you have?

Finally, what settings do you not understand?

[tonster]

For some reason when you have a cable modem, the first computer you connect it to is the one it uses for authentication.  It checks to see if that mac address is connected to the cable modem.  If you don't clone your mac address from your PC to your router, then the router will not connect to the gateway and DNS servers at their office. 

I think they do this so that they can rent you a wireless modem of their choosing.  It allows them to make money and to say they don't support third party hardware.  This is a great thing for them. 

My router is an Asus WL-502-GU as stated below.  They might be good at making motherboards and their equipment is good, but their firmware sux for the router

The settings that I don't totally understand are mostly to do with QoS settings within the Tomato firmware.  I'll get that info tonight when I'm home.

[trashy]

Gotcha Tonster.

One solution for me would be to get an old PC to use as your router/gateway.  It sounds to me like the ISP wants to charge for extra PC's sharing one internet connection.

You can do this with an older PC and free Linux software quite easily.  As of matter of fact, that's the way my network used to be set up before my gateway/router/firewall PC bit the dust.  It's not practical to buy a PC for this purpose, but it is a good way to recycle an old PC that you might have laying around.

You would basically have the modem > router PC > your router > your network setup.

I'll do my best to help you with the settings within the firmware.  You can tweak it some, but it's kind of a "hit or miss" kind of thing (QoS).

Can you get to a command prompt while logging into your router?  If so, there are a few other software tweaks that can possibly be done.

[couttsj]

I'm not sure where I should categorize this (move if you want BV). 

I just got a new laptop for my wife and with it, an Asus WL-520GU wireless router.  Usually you clone your PC's mac address and you are good to go.  Unfortunately, Asus had firmware that told it that I had chosen the wrong connection type (dynamic IP) for my cable modem.  This caused the internet connection to cease anytime I made ANY changes in the router configuration.  Sigh*

After hours of frustration, I installed "Tomato".  This is a (linux?) version of firmware that allows me to reboot the router without disconnection issues.  In addition, it has some really cool features like real time bandwidth monitoring. 

Has anyone else used Tomato or DD WRT?  Just curious.  I may have some question for you if you have.  I don't understand all of the settings

Sorry if I am not understanding this correctly, but I am assuming that you want to place a wireless router where you once had a PC directly connected. And like many ISPs, the DHCP server they are using has recorded the MAC address of the PC that was previously connected. The reason for this is so that the DHCP server can use that unique MAC address as an index to keep track of IP address assignments. Some servers require that the number be registered, and some just record the first one that comes in on that circuit.

I just went through the same thing with my new router (Siemens SE567), so I hope I am on the right track. The router should have a default IP address on the LAN interface (usually 192.168.1.1 or 198.168.1.254 with a netmask of 255.255.255.0). Simply configure your computer with the same netmask and an IP in the same range (but different), and plug it directly into one of the LAN ports. Enter the IP address of the router in your Web browser and configure your router (probably requires a UserID & Password). One of the options on most routers is to clone the MAC address of the WAN interface. My ISP requires the MAC address to be registered, so rather than do that, I just cloned it with the MAC address from the old router that I removed. That way I can always put the old router back in if I need to (it's slated for retirement like me).

Then connect it back in the circuit and reboot, and you should connect OK. I would actually recommend sticking with the static private address rather than letting the router dish out dynamic private addresses on the LAN interface. You usually don't have a choice on the WAN interface.

J.A. Coutts

[tonster]

Looking at my original post, I wasn't very clear in that I did get it setup and it all works with Tomato.  It worked with the asus firmware, but anytime you changed a setting, you had to reboot the cable modem and that wasn't always failsafe. 

Just for convenience I installed Tomato firmware and it works great.  I just have some settings in Qos that I don't know what to set to.  I am pretty well worked out on most of the stuff though. 

I apologize for leaving this thread for awhile, but I had my bosses video card go out, my other bosses home computer I'm trouble shooting as we speak and my gaming server needed reconfiguration.  I've been a busy boy.  I'll get those questions out soon. 
Tony

[Black Viper]

I apologize for leaving this thread for awhile, but I had my bosses video card go out, my other bosses home computer I'm trouble shooting as we speak and my gaming server needed reconfiguration.

It is a bummer that you have 2 bosses.