router | ShocKNetworK Blog

Using 2 ISPs at home at the same time! Tomato MultiWAN – works great! (Video)

Why do you really need this? When Shibby first put out the firmware with MultiWAN support, I questioned why someone would pay for 2 service providers. Too much bandwidth utilization? If you need more bandwidth, just upgrade your line with your current ISP. It would be cheaper than getting a new line!

Do you need reliability? When you work from home and need to be connected to the Internet for your work and it’s not available, that’s when you might look into a solution like this one! I have Comcast Business. Does that help? No, not really when the problems is with the infrastructure and not a misconfiguration or something internal. It just means that when you call, you talk to someone a little more competent and you can get a person quicker than going through the phone system. You can have someone come on-site a little faster too. That said, the service is the same as that of all other consumers. After a few rains and a couple of Comcast outages (not exactly outages, but huge degradations in service), I started to think about getting a second provider. Luckily, in San Francisco, we have a few options for service providers here. I happen to be lucky enough to have access to 2 different cable providers, Comcast and Wave Broadband (formerly Astound). I used Astound before. It was not bad. My experience was not nearly as bad as what the Yelp reviews say. I’ve now had them for a couple of weeks and still have the same opinion. They seem to be just fine.

So, moving onto the implementation. As you can see from the screenshot, Shibby makes it easy! First configuration the VLAN. It points to a link for where to do it – in advanced settings. You can look at the next screenshot to see an example of the VLAN being set up. I’m using LAN port 1 for the 2nd WAN port.

In this screen however, You might notice my “Load Balance Weight”. The problem with my service providers is that Comcast gives me unlimited bandwidth. Wave Broadband does not. Because of this, I want more connections to go out of the first WAN link and Shibby gives us a couple of ways to do it. First is with “Load Balance Weight”. I’m just setting the 1st link to 2 and 2nd WAN link to 1. You can play with the numbers to try finding your desired balance.

Another place to do load balancing is by pinning a particular host to a particular WAN link. For example, I have some traffic I want out of 1 WAN link and some out of another. This way, I can tell my highest traffic hosts to go through WAN1 while some others through WAN2.

Here’s a status window to show that I have both WANs connected.

Lastly, you can see from different searches of what’s my IP, that both WAN links are being utilized.

Please post your comments and share!

Wait … before you move to Tomato from DD-WRT!

If you’re reading this, it’s probably too late. You’re probably already running into this issue:

and it’s probably driving you nuts!

If you haven’t done the move yet, good. Telnet into the router and run:

nvram get http_username

and

nvram get http_passwd

The way that Tomato and DD-WRT store passwords usernames and passwords is different – DD-WRT stores them encrypted whereas Tomato doesn’t, so with this, you can use it to log into Tomato after you’ve done the move. I call it a move and would hate to call it an upgrade, because some hardcore DD-WRT users might be offended.

Now, if you haven’t done this already and are seeing the error, this will be interesting. With the ASUS router, I think I was able to just do a 30-30-30 reset and it took care of it. Unfortunately with Shibby’s implementation of Tomato, they don’t implement the reset button, so you can press the reset button until you’re blue in the face and it won’t do a thing. On other routers, you may need to press the SES/AOSS button. On the Netgear Nighthawk, it’s the WIFI on/off button. You can hold it down and it will start a password-less telnet daemon at port 233 if held for 20+ seconds. So, when you’re booted into Tomato (the web login will still say DD-WRT) and you can’t log in, hold the button down for 20+ seconds and then go to the command prompt and run:

telnet <router IP> 223

There, you should be able to run the 2 ‘nvram get’ commands and use that info to log into the router and do a reset from there.

Hope this helps!

Why I choose TomatoUSB over DD-WRT

I recently bought a Netgear Nighthawk R7000 for my home router. I figured it would be a good time to get a new router, so I was debating between this on and the ASUS (RT-AC68U). I chose the Nighthawk purely based on price. It was 10% off at Target. 🙂 When I shop for a router, I normally try to get open-source. The reason for this is so that I can hack it as I enjoy doing things like that and I like to use features that are not designed the original product. Why companies build routers and put their own firmware on it is beside me. I really wonder why they don’t just use the open-source stuff since it’s so good. If you look at my blog, you’ll see that I have run DD-WRT on my older routers as well.

The reason I decided to go with Tomato instead of DD-WRT is because of a couple of features that I like in Tomato. The first feature is the QOS transfer rates.

I haven’t found where I can easily do this in DD-WRT. The reason I like this feature is because I can instantly know who is using up my bandwidth.

Another feature I like that unfortunately does not work on this router yet is A feature where I could see all of the URLs that I’ve visited and searches that I’ve done. I hope that Shibby fixes this in the 121 build.

These are the two major reasons why I decided to use Tomato over DD-WRT. I’ve also run into issues with using the wireless bridge feature in DD-WRT where Tomato worked very easily.

I would love for some DD-WRT hardcore fans to debate with me. I’ve used DD-WRT firmware for a long time and just switched to Tomato very recently. The main reason I switched to Tomato was back in the days when I had the ASUS RT-N16 router. DD-WRT had Wi-Fi that kept dropping off almost daily and I had to find something better and Tomato was the answer at the time.

Please post your comments! Thanks!

P.S. Here‘s a good link on how to set up DD-WRT with a VPN.

Drobo connected to Asus router running TomatoUSB

Simple – Don’t do it! This was from a couple of years ago when running TomatoUSB on an ASUS RT-N16 router. DD-WRT had issues where the wifi would drop off periodically. I found that TomatoUSB (Shibby or Toastman) were both very good alternatives. So good that I’ve since moved onto Tomato for almost all of my routers.

Anyways, some of the issues I ran into were:

Value too large for defined data type …

Sep 24 00:01:08 unknown daemon.err smbd[1539]: disk_free: sys_fsusage() failed.
Error was : Value too large for defined data type
Sep 24 00:01:08 unknown daemon.err smbd[1539]: disk_free: sys_fsusage() failed.
Error was : Value too large for defined data type

root@unknown:/tmp/etc# df -h
Filesystem Size Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/root 5.6M 5.6M 0 100% /
tmpfs 62.0M 400.0K 61.6M 1% /tmp
devfs 62.0M 0 62.0M 0% /dev
df: /tmp/mnt/Monster: Value too large for defined data type

Along with this, the CPU on that router just couldn’t handle NTFS-3G well – CPU utilization was going through the roof on writes. I think reads were okay.

It would be better to just build a cheap NAS.

How to Flash an AirLink101 AR430w router with DD-WRT firmware

1. Connect cable to WAN port and power on router

Download contents from: http://www.dd-wrt.com/dd-wrtv2/down.php?path=downloads%2Frelease+candidates%2FDD-WRT+v24+RC7%2FAtheros+WiSoc%2FAirlink+101+AR430W/

2. Set your host IP to 192.168.20.80 (Don’t bother with any values in DNS Server/Alternate DNS)
3. ping -t 192.168.20.81
4. Run PuTTY/PuttyTel (YOU MUST USE PUTTY – SecureCRT and the regular Windows telnet DON’T WORK!) and set port to 9000 with Telnet option. – on the 2nd ping, hit open to connect to the router on 192.168.20.81. If you miss this, you may need to reset the router and try again.
You’ll see:
You’ll probably get these messages:
/releases/svn.porsche/redboot-ar231x/redboot-ar231x/redboot_cobra/ecos/packages/devs/eth/mips/ar531x/current/src/ae531xecos.c#390:ae531x_send AHB ERROR: AR531X_DEBUG_ERROR = 00000145
/releases/svn.porsche/redboot-ar231x/redboot-ar231x/redboot_cobra/ecos/packages/devs/eth/mips/ar531x/current/src/ae531xecos.c#393:ae531x_send AHB ERROR status_4 = 00000145

It’s safe to ignore them.

5. Started TtftpSrv in background.

In the screen, run:
load ap61.ram
go

6. change host IP to 192.168.1.23 and then change your command prompt window to run: “ping -t 192.168.1.1”

7. with putty, telnet to 192.168.1.1 9000
You’l see: DD-WRT>

Unfortunately, after this, it’s a little shaky as to what I did. If you do all of these steps in this order, it should work.

ip_address -l 192.168.1.1 -h 192.168.1.23
fconfig bootp false
bootp: Setting to false
Update RedBoot non-volatile configuration – continue (y/n)? y
… Erase from 0xbffe0000-0xbfff0000: .
… Program from 0x80ff0000-0x81000000 at 0xbffe0000: .
DD-WRT> fis init
About to initialize [format] FLASH image system – continue (y/n)? y
*** Initialize FLASH Image System
… Erase from 0xbffe0000-0xbfff0000: .
… Program from 0x80ff0000-0x81000000 at 0xbffe0000: .

DD-WRT> ip_address -l 192.168.1.1 -h 192.168.1.23
IP: 192.168.1.1/255.255.255.0, Gateway: 0.0.0.0
Default server: 192.168.1.23
DD-WRT> load -r -b %{FREEMEMLO} ap61.rom
Using default protocol (TFTP)
Raw file loaded 0x80080000-0x800a8717, assumed entry at 0x80080000

fis create -l 0x30000 -e 0xbfc00000 RedBoot
An image named ‘RedBoot’ exists – continue (y/n)? y
… Erase from 0xbfc00000-0xbfc30000: …
… Program from 0x80080000-0x800a8718 at 0xbfc00000: …
… Erase from 0xbffe0000-0xbfff0000: .
… Program from 0x807f0000-0x80800000 at 0xbffe0000: .

reset

DD-WRT> fis init
About to initialize [format] FLASH image system – continue (y/n)? y
*** Initialize FLASH Image System
… Erase from 0xbffe0000-0xbfff0000: .
… Program from 0x80ff0000-0x81000000 at 0xbffe0000: .

fconfig boot_script true
boot_script: Setting to true
Update RedBoot non-volatile configuration – continue (y/n)? y
… Erase from 0xbffe0000-0xbfff0000: .
… Program from 0x80ff0000-0x81000000 at 0xbffe0000: .
DD-WRT> fconfig boot_script_timeout 3
boot_script_timeout: Setting to 3
Update RedBoot non-volatile configuration – continue (y/n)? y
… Erase from 0xbffe0000-0xbfff0000: .
… Program from 0x80ff0000-0x81000000 at 0xbffe0000: .
DD-WRT>

DD-WRT> load -v -r -b 0x80041000 linux.bin

You should see something like this:

|——————————————————————————-
Raw file loaded 0x80041000-0x803cefff, assumed entry at 0x80041000————–
DD-WRT> ———————————————————————-
——————————————————————————–
——————————————————————————–
——————————————————————————–
–

Then run:
fis create linux
This will take forever. This would probably be a good time to set your telnet session so that putty doesn’t timeout and die.

Here’s a screenshot:

DD-WRT> fis create linux——————————————————–
——————————————————————————–
——————————————————————————–
… Erase from 0xbfc30000-0xbffbe000: …………………………………………………
… Program from 0x80041000-0x803cf000 at 0xbfc30000: …………………………………………………
… Erase from 0xbffe0000-0xbfff0000: .
… Program from 0x80ff0000-0x81000000 at 0xbffe0000: .
DD-WRT> DD-WRT> DD-WRT>

DD-WRT> fconfig
Run script at boot: true
Boot script:
Enter script, terminate with empty line
>> fis load -l linux
>> exec
>>
Boot script timeout (1000ms resolution): 3
Use BOOTP for network configuration: true
Default server IP address: 192.168.1.1
Console baud rate: 9600
GDB connection port: 9000
Force console for special debug messages: false
Network debug at boot time: false
Update RedBoot non-volatile configuration – continue (y/n)? y
… Erase from 0xbffe0000-0xbfff0000: .
… Program from 0x80ff0000-0x81000000 at 0xbffe0000: .

Please reference: http://www.dd-wrt.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=29779

and http://www.dd-wrt.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=23510&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=240

and of course http://www.dd-wrt.com/dd-wrtv2/downloads/release%20candidates/DD-WRT%20v24%20RC7/Atheros%20WiSoc/Airlink%20101%20AR430W/flashing.txt

By the way, here’s the end result:

UPnP Problems?

For some reason, on my home LAN, I have trouble playing Age of Empires. I know, it’s an old game, but I still like to play it. I’m connected at home via a Linksys WRT54G-L. I’ve also connected up a Netgear MR814 used as a hub, but I don’t think that’s the issue. I’m not using dhcp on either of those boxes – I have a separate machine as a dhcp server. Anyways, clicking “Show games” would never work! I thought initially it was some software issue, so I reinstalled Windows and it still didn’t work. I swapped out the WRT54G-L for a switch and then it worked! After some googling, I found that it might be the UPnP. Hopefully, this fixes it. It works now, but then again, it used to work before too. We’ll see.

DHCP server with DDNS

authoritative;
include “/etc/bind/rndc.key”;
server-identifier chunli.shocknetwork.com.;
ddns-domainname “shocknetwork.com.”;
ddns-rev-domainname “in-addr.arpa.”;
ddns-update-style interim;
ddns-updates on;
ignore client-updates;
zone shocknetwork.com. {
primary 127.0.0.1;
key rndc-key;
}
default-lease-time 21600; # 6 hours
max-lease-time 43200; # 12 hours
option domain-name “shocknetwork.com”;
option domain-name-servers chunli.shocknetwork.com, resolver1.opendns.com;
default-lease-time 600;
max-lease-time 7200;
log-facility local7;
subnet 192.168.0.0 netmask 255.255.255.0 {
range 192.168.0.100 192.168.0.200;
option domain-name-servers chunli.shocknetwork.com, resolver1.opendns.com;
option domain-name “shocknetwork.com”;
option routers 192.168.0.1;
option broadcast-address 192.168.0.3;
default-lease-time 600;
max-lease-time 7200;
zone 0.168.192.in-addr.arpa. {
primary 192.168.0.3;
key rndc-key;
}
zone localdomain. {
primary 192.168.0.3;
key rndc-key;
}
}
/etc/named.conf –> I’m using Ubuntu 6, so it’s actually /etc/bind/named.conf and named.options, etc, but for the sake of simplicity, I’ll put them all together.
options {
directory “/var/cache/bind”;
auth-nxdomain no; # conform to RFC1035
};
zone “.” {
type hint;
file “/etc/bind/db.root”;
};
zone “localhost” {
type master;
file “/etc/bind/db.local”;
};
zone “127.in-addr.arpa” {
type master;
file “/etc/bind/db.127”;
};
zone “0.in-addr.arpa” {
type master;
file “/etc/bind/db.0”;
};
zone “255.in-addr.arpa” {
type master;
file “/etc/bind/db.255”;
};
controls {
inet 127.0.0.1 allow {localhost; } keys { “rndc-key”; };
};
// Add local zone definitions here.
zone “shocknetwork.com” {
type master;
file “/etc/bind/shocknetwork.com.zone”;
allow-update { key “rndc-key”; };
notify yes;
};
zone “0.168.192.in-addr.arpa” {
type master;
file “/etc/bind/0.168.192.in-addr.arpa.zone”;
allow-update { key “rndc-key”; };
notify yes;
};
include “/etc/bind/rndc.key”; Some troubleshooting tips: 1) turn on logging for DNS:
logging {
category “default” { “debug”; };
file “/tmp/nameddbg” versions 2 size 50m;
print-time yes;
print-category yes;
}; That’s about it – it should give you all you need.]]>

VMotion failed … everything looks right … why?

Obviously, if everything’s right, it won’t fail, but here, it’s more a bug than anything else. In this case, if you use dedicated NICs just for VMotion and you’ve just a crossover cable between the 2 nics, you may have a problem if you’re using the same network IP addresses for the Vmotion IPs. It seems to want to look for the router or something. You’ll see that it logs in both boxes, so you may want to rule out the networking issue, but you can’t in this case. The logs on both sides will indicate timeout. In this case, both of the servers are on the 10.x.x.x/24 network and the VMotion and iSCSI networks have ip addresses that were both 10.x.x.x/24, but the VMotion nics can’t access the router. The fix is easy. Just change the IPs to something that the server doesn’t know about … something like 192.168.0.1/24 or something.