Throwing tomatos at my wrt54gs part 1

February 19, 2008

Posted in: Computers, Networking, Wireless

Tags: Archos 605, firmware, Linksys, networking, Tomato Firmware, wifi, wifi extender, WRT54GS

You heard me right, I said tomatos! Sometime ago I had come across an article talking about 3rd party firmware running on linksys routers, and it planted a seed. Then it started to grow, and last night I seized the opportunity of a free night to start.

So I grabbed the dusty white box that housed my old Linksys WRT54GS (v1.1) router, an extra network cable and sat down at my computer to see what I could do.

I was immediately rewarded with a username and password screen that I couldn’t remember, so after hoping it was something more common and even trying the default ones, nothing. So I pressed the little red button on the back and reset it, which did the trick and allowed me to log in (192.168.1.1 blank/admin).

I had decided that I would try tomato firmware because it sounded like it would do what I wanted - I wanted to extend my wifi coverage. Don’t get me wrong my straight laced DLink 635 has been flawless covering my entire house, hooking up multiple devices, supporting WPA2, and basically working hands free for the year+ I’ve had it. But come summer, when there’s lots of yard work and stuff - I want to be able to be outside and connect to it with no trouble or have devices connect to it (like my Archos 605) while I’m out there.

So this piece is the first part, getting the firware loaded.

It is a very easy process, so easy in fact I did it! But it’s just like updating the firmware with OEM versions. Head over to tomatos home page and download it, but make sure you’re router is supported!

Download and uncompress the file, inside you’ll have a few different files to choose from, just match up the model to the file name. Then once you’ve logged into your linksys (WRT54gs in my case) under Administration there should be an option for firmware. Once on that screen, browse for the new firmware you downloaded and update.

It’ll take a few minutes and once it’s done, I suggest rebooting the device.

Now for tomato, the default ip is 192.168.1.1 and admin/admin (watch out the documentation is very lite as in non-existant..lol). Due to the lack of documentation I’ll be pairing up with my resident guru to help with the next installment - setting it up as a wifi extender.

Stay Tuned!

Posted in Computers, Networking, Wireless