User manual. The firmware upgrade

Transcription

1 User manual This manual describes the extra features, which are made available in the Tarifa b019 firmware. All the extra features are available via the WebPages. This firmware is the original Linksys firmware, with added rc_startup / rc_shutdown, static dhcp, telnet with login, transmit power setting, antenna settings, Loopback on/off option, WDS, WDS-bridge to Lan, l2tp and pptp support for ddns, Rssi-, Tssi-, uptime-, memory- and txpower-status, Reboot button, 20 port forwarding fields, Speedbooster support and works on WRT54G model v1, v1.1, v2, v2.2 v3, v3.1, v4 and the WRT54GL model v1.0. The firmware upgrade The upgrade can be done by use of the Administration-Firmware Upgrade page. Before doing this upgrade, you should default the router to his factory settings. For this a hard-reset is needed. To do this reset: unplug the power cord, press the reset button and hold it, plug the power cord, and keep holding the reset button for another 30 seconds. The safe way of upgrading is by use of a wired connection. The Upgrade process can take a long time, if this process is interrupted, the router will be bricked. Speedbooster or Broadcom Afterburner technology This firmware can be used in combination with Linksys Speedbooster products, this to increase the wireless speed. After uploading this firmware, Speedbooster is switched off. To enable Speedbooster, the Factory Defaults must first be loaded. Go to Administration->Factory Defaults and select Yes and hit Save Settings, all settings will be erased! Security Telnet can be accessed from the Internet, important for security is, to have a good and long (at least 6 characters) password and furthermore to have enabled the wireless security. For changing the password or the wireless security go to the web pages. Telnet is switched off on default, for switching on go to Administration->Management page. After changing the password a restart is needed, before the new password will take effect. Safety The nvram settings can be erased, by use of the reset button. To do a soft-reset: shortly press the reset button; the system will only do a restart. To do a hard-reset: unplug the power cord, press the reset button and hold it, plug the power cord, and keep holding the reset button for another 30 seconds. All settings in nvram will now be deleted.

2 WDS If you like to use WDS (Wireless Distribution System) there are things to consider. WDS makes it possible to wirelessly inter-connect multiple routers like the WRT54G(S) or WAP54G or WRE54G. When you use this firmware and/or the original Linksys firmware, you only have to setup one router to make a WDS connection. (you may configure both too) On the router that will be used as a repeater, you need to make the settings, on the router that will be used as gateway to the Internet no settings are needed. Setting up WDS: For setting up a WDS connection, go to the Wireless->Wireless Basic Settings page and enter the MAC address of the router, which you like to connect. This MAC address can be found Status->Wireless page on that specific router.. Now you can make the specific settings for the repeater: The repeater needs an unique ip-address, go to Basic->Basic Setup page to enter The radio channel needs to be the same, go to Wireless->Basic Wireless Settings and make the same.

3 The security must be the same, go to Wireless->Wireless Security and choose WEP (or WPA- AES) security and make here everything the same. For roaming the Wireless Network Name (SSID) must be the same, go to Wireless->Basic Wireless Settings and make the same, if you choose the same Wireless Network Name (SSID), Wireless Network Mode must be the same. Disable Loopback, go to Administration->Management page and hit Disable. Both routers should now be interconnected, check this by typing respectively and in your browser. And finally disable DHCP server, go to Basic->Basic Setup page and hit Disable. If your router has a stabile WDS connection, it will be listed in the Wireless Status Page. See picture below for an example If a mac address is entered from an access-point, that can t be reached or on which the WDS is not been setup correctly, the rssi value will stay 0. Look at the next picture.

4 Bridge or Accesspoint If you use the router to make a wireless bridge from router to router, without any wireless clients, then change the Mode from Access Point to Wireless Bridge. Loopback should be disabled if the router is used as a bridge to network. Bridge Restrict disables LazyWDS. LazyWDS is the auto-configuration of the WDS-bridge, it auto-configures the wireless bridge when a router connects with WDS.

5 Static DHCP Static DHCP means every computer (client) in your LAN-network will always make use of the same ip-address that you can pre-determine. This can be set in the Administration->Management page. The static DHCP range must be outside the normal DHCP range, the format used in this file is: IP-address<SPACE>MAC address<space>hostname<enter>. The Hostname can be any name, it is not used outside the router. Linux system information In the status->router page there is info added, about the amount of memory and the load of the Linux kernel. The Loads are averages from respectively 1 min, 5 min and 15 minutes time interval.

6 Reboot button, Loopback and Telnet. In the Administration->management page there is an easy way added to reboot your router. Furthermore is it possible to enable Telnet and disable the Loopback service. Rc_startup and rc_shutdown Rc_startup is executed shortly after the start of the services and rc_shutdown is executed shortly before the shutdown of the services. This is the place were you can store your custom settings. Some special functions can be made by using the rc_startup script; I will use a script that tunes the router for using bittorent as an example: #!/bin/sh echo 4096 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_conntrack_max echo 1 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/icmp_echo_ignore_broadcasts echo 1 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/icmp_ignore_bogus_error_responses echo 512 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/neigh/default/gc_thresh1 echo 2048 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/neigh/default/gc_thresh2 echo 4096 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/neigh/default/gc_thresh3 echo " " > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_conntrack_tcp_timeouts

7 Transmit Power, antenna settings, increasing the range. The Transmit power can be set in the Wireless->Advanced Wireless Settings page. The effect of this setting may vary depending on the hardware version; a safe setting is 100 mw. Transmit power can be selected up to 251 mw, depending on the hardware model. For transmitting the OFDM signal the amplifier (max 30 dbm) needs around 9 db headroom, this is the peak-to-average power ratio (PAPR). This PAPR value depends on the OFDM generator.

8 The peak-heat produced in the amplifier depends off the power setting and off the quality of your antenna(s). Transmit power that can t be radiated by the antenna s, will be transformed into heat through the amplifier. This means, never disconnect antennas when the router is switched on. The WRT54G v4.0 and the WRT54GL v1.0 have BroadRange, this increases the receive sensitivity. Changing antennas is possible too, like the Linksys HGA7-T high-gain antenna, which will give you a better range. The wrt54g has two antenna s, on default the right antenna is used for transmitting the beacons, the antenna diversity switch controls the use of the antennas. If you have one high gain antenna connect this antenna to the right antenna connector, you don t need to set the antenna-settings (auto). WRT54g v1, v1.1, v2 => look at the backside and change the right antenna WRT54g v2.2 v3 3.1 v4 and the WRT54GL v1.0 => seen from the frontside and change the right antenna. Telnet Some functions are only available in telnet, to start a telnet session, you need a telnet client (vt100 emulation). To start telnet in MS-Windows go to the command prompt in windows and type telnet Now a username will be asked, this is root and your password. If everything is ok you will gain access to the Linux system. Nvram Nvram is the place where the router stores all his settings. Accessing these settings can be done with the nvram command. If you type nvram in telnet, you will get the following screen:

9 To list all the stored settings, type at the command prompt of the above telnet session nvram show, all setting will now be shown in your screen. You can check each variable by entering nvram get varname, where varname is a variable found in the listing created by nvram show. Changing can be done with nvram set varname=value, where value van be a number or a string (=text). Do not change a variable, if you are not sure where that specific variable is used for. Some variables can make your system unstable! WL The wl command is used to set all the wireless settings, if you type wl at the prompt you will see a list of all possible settings. If you choose to make a setting here, this setting will be lost after a restart of the router. For example you can set the transmit power to 50mW, type: wl txpwr1 d o 17 You can check this setting by typing wl txpwr1 Now you can place your first setting in nvram, this setting will restart your router every day, type the following: nvram set rc_startup='#!/bin/sh /bin/sleep /sbin/reboot ' The variable rc_startup contains a string (=text) this you can recognise at a ` at the beginning and at a ` at the end of the string. To show the content of rc_startup type: nvram get rc_startup To make the setting permanent type: nvram commit After commit the nvram setting is made permanent. You can check this by restarting the router. To reboot the router type: reboot Other commands There is a lot you can do with these script files, like a restart every week or even a web server. There are a many sources for script files on the Internet, just look around and there will be something for you. 14 march 2006