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Shaocaholica
Oct 29, 2002

Fig. 5E
I'm at a loss as to why my N wireless is so slow.

Both my Asus ultrabook and MBP are transferring about 1MB/s from my NAS over 5Ghz N. I'm connected over 5Ghz which should be G/N. Signal is high as reported by inSSIDer and the 5Ghz channel isn't crowded. My laptops are also about 6-10ft direct line of sight to the antennas. I've verified there's nothing wrong with the router and NAS by doing the same task over ethernet where I get ~55MB/s. Router is an Asus RT-N66U with latest firmware. MBP is on latest 10.10. Ultrabook is on Win7 with latest Intel wifi drivers.

edit: I didn't want to do it but I changed my 5ghz control channel from 'auto' to 165(which was empty, according to iSSIDer) and now I'm getting ~1.5MB/s from my NAS.

edit2: holy poo poo I changed channel again on 5ghz to 40 (also empty according to iSSIDer) and now I'm at ~12MB/s. WTF. Why wasn't my router smart enough to do that? Its not that old/low end. Could it be the factory firmware? Does DD-WRT or some other firmware do a better job at auto channel selection? I don't want to bother with this if these channels get crowded. I would rather this be done by a machine.

Shaocaholica fucked around with this message at 16:30 on Apr 17, 2015

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Coxswain Balls
Jun 4, 2001

Shaocaholica posted:

edit2: holy poo poo I changed channel again on 5ghz to 40 (also empty according to iSSIDer) and now I'm at ~12MB/s. WTF. Why wasn't my router smart enough to do that? Its not that old/low end. Could it be the factory firmware? Does DD-WRT or some other firmware do a better job at auto channel selection? I don't want to bother with this if these channels get crowded. I would rather this be done by a machine.

The router only knows what the signal looks like in one location of the home, and because of that I never trust the automatic channel selection. Whenever I used to help people out with wireless issues I'd do a basic site survey by checking out what the signal and channel saturation looks like in the parts of the home where they typically use their wireless connection. Other issues you can run in to with automatic channel selection is if you're in a really saturated area like an apartment complex, the router may hop between channels often, which can cause all of your devices to drop connection momentarily.

Shaocaholica
Oct 29, 2002

Fig. 5E

Coxswain Balls posted:

The router only knows what the signal looks like in one location of the home, and because of that I never trust the automatic channel selection. Whenever I used to help people out with wireless issues I'd do a basic site survey by checking out what the signal and channel saturation looks like in the parts of the home where they typically use their wireless connection. Other issues you can run in to with automatic channel selection is if you're in a really saturated area like an apartment complex, the router may hop between channels often, which can cause all of your devices to drop connection momentarily.

I feel like an idiot now that I didn't do this sooner when I bought this $200 router and replacement relocated antennae. I was like, 1.5MB/s is pretty good for this torrent but really I was just capped on wifi when my now wired torrent NAS is hitting ~7MB/s+.

I guess the silver lining is that most of the other routers in my complex are probably set to auto and will leave me alone in my corner of the spectrum.

Acid Reflux
Oct 18, 2004

This just in from Newegg: TP Link Archer C5 and Motorola SB6141 combo deal for $109.99. Good through 11:59 PM Pacific time, Sunday night.

Shaking lemur butt
Jan 5, 2015

:haw: :v: :ohdear: :cool:
I'm about to set up an old Linksys WRT54GL that I've had lying around as a wireless bridge. Currently it has Tomato on it, and I'm planning on flashing it with DD-WRT.
Anyone else still using this router (or just happen to) know the latest DD-WRT version the router is compatible with? I've been trying to navigate the wiki and the DD-WRT forums, but it's kind of a nightmare to find relevant information that doesn't seem outdated.
The wiki-page for the 54GL (http://dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Linksys_WRT54GL) says to install v24 build 12548 if coming from stock. The database lists builds 14896 and 13064.

Am I good to install 14896 since I've already gotten rid of the stock firmware? Does the build matter much since I'm just gonna use it as a bridge anyway?

Shaocaholica
Oct 29, 2002

Fig. 5E
Whats wrong with Tomato? Thats what I had on my WRT54G before retiring it.

Shaking lemur butt
Jan 5, 2015

:haw: :v: :ohdear: :cool:
From what I've heard setting up Tomato as a wireless repeater isn't really possible (and/or is a giant pain in the rear end).

Antillie
Mar 14, 2015

The WRT54GL is basically the old gold standard for DD-WRT. Since you are already running aftermarket firmware you should be fine to flash build 14896. I think.

However my general advice is to avoid using wireless repeaters and range extenders as much as possible. You would be far better off using some powerline networking adapters to connect the WRT54GL to your network and then just use it as a normal AP.

Shaking lemur butt
Jan 5, 2015

:haw: :v: :ohdear: :cool:

Antillie posted:

The WRT54GL is basically the old gold standard for DD-WRT. Since you are already running aftermarket firmware you should be fine to flash build 14896. I think.

However my general advice is to avoid using wireless repeaters and range extenders as much as possible. You would be far better off using some powerline networking adapters to connect the WRT54GL to your network and then just use it as a normal AP.

Well I really just want to extend the wifi into one room because streaming always stutters in there. It's not used very often though so I don't feel like spending any money on it.
Out of curiosity though, why do you recommend powerline adapters over repeaters? Is it because of the decreased speed you get with repeaters, or something else?

Thanks for the input :)

Update: Using build 14896 worked fine :toot:

Shaking lemur butt fucked around with this message at 11:17 on Apr 20, 2015

PSWII60
Jan 7, 2007

All the best octopodes shoot fire and ice.

Rexxed posted:

It may not be the issue but check the power brick with a multimeter if you have one handy, the power bricks seem to die on routers more frequently than a lot of other things. It may have been damaged in your power outage. If you don't have a multimeter try to find one that's the same voltage and the same or higher milliamps. If it is the power adapter they're usually less than $10 on amazon.

Thanks for the advice. My grandma just happened to be giving away her multimeter to whoever needed it in the family. I'll check it out.

Antillie
Mar 14, 2015

Shaking lemur butt posted:

Well I really just want to extend the wifi into one room because streaming always stutters in there. It's not used very often though so I don't feel like spending any money on it.
Out of curiosity though, why do you recommend powerline adapters over repeaters? Is it because of the decreased speed you get with repeaters, or something else?

Thanks for the input :)

Update: Using build 14896 worked fine :toot:

First you need to understand that the WRT54GL can function as either a range extender or as a repeater. They are not the same thing and each mode has its own special way of sucking.

In range extender mode the WRT54GL will connect to your existing wifi network as a client and then relay that connectivity onto its own separate SSID. So you will end with two separate wifi networks running on different channels. This is nice for avoiding channel interference in the 2.4ghz band if you are able to pick channels that are at least 5 apart. (1 and 6, 4 and 9, ect...) However it also means that if you are in a crowded area it might be very hard to find two channels that are far enough apart and not already crowded with other people's networks. Also since the WRT54GL will be splitting its antenna time between the two networks it literally cuts your bandwidth in half for the clients on the second SSID. Since wifi never actually gets anywhere near it's rated speeds this can easily put you into poo poo bandwidth territory. You also might have issues getting client devices to roam between the networks in a sane manner. Some devices really really like to stay on the same SSID even if a stronger one is available. Also, when a client device does roam to the other network it will renew it's DHCP lease. This will cause an interruption in connectivity that will be much more noticeable than simply hopping between two APs with the same SSID.

In repeater mode the WRT54GL will simply parrot whatever wifi signals is receives back out at full strength. This means that it will not have its own SSID, it will just repeat whatever SSID it picks up from the main AP as well as repeating the transmissions of any nearby wifi clients. And this is the problem. It will be on the same channel as the original AP and by repeating everything it hears, even from clients that can already reach the AP just fine, it will introduce a lot of interference into the network. This will have a negative effect on the throughput of the entire network. The more traffic there is on the network the worse this detrimental effect will be.

If you absolutely must use a range extender or repeater you certainty can. However I would consider it a last resort. Wiring in a second AP on its own channel with the same SSID will give you much better results and power line adapters are fairly cheap.

Antillie fucked around with this message at 17:24 on Apr 20, 2015

calranthe
Jul 2, 2009
Current setup
2 Gaming computers from EVE to GTA 5 online (wired)
1 Server 24/7 Mud with 10-20 tcp connections (wired)
1 Plex server (wired)
4 Consoles
1 Tablet
4 Phones

ADSL2+ (VDSL within the next year) UK

Until last week all the above went through the Draytek 2820n we bought in 2009, we got our use out of it.

Before then we tried a large amount of lower price models and even netgear business models but none could handle the usage which is more akin to a business than home.

When the 2820n died I got hold of a Draytek Vigor 130 paired it with an Asus RT-N66U this should have suited our needs but the stability of the line has gone down a lot, settings have been checked on both ends.

So I am looking for a good quality <=£250 router/modem that is Adsl2+ and VDSL ready, good wireless and able to handle heavy usage.

I have heard good things about the FRITZ!Box 7490 VDSL/ADSL Wireless AC/N Router so that is an option but any other options before I buy one next week would be nice.

isndl
May 2, 2012
I WON A CONTEST IN TG AND ALL I GOT WAS THIS CUSTOM TITLE

Antillie posted:

and power line adapters are fairly cheap.

I have that model of powerline adapters, and while it's cheap I still haven't found a fix for the intermittent connection drops beyond leaving a ping -t running 24/7. I wouldn't recommend it at this point. :shrug:

dpkg chopra
Jun 9, 2007

Fast Food Fight

Grimey Drawer
Is there such a thing as an adapter that will simulate a USB connection wirelessly?

Basically, I need a USB device to connect to a computer that can't be reached with a USB cord. The kind of thing that any regular wireless keyboard/mouse does.

I've been googling for it, but I keep coming up with either USB Wifi cards or wireless USB hubs which are designed specifically to share harddrives with the network which aren't what I need.

Don Lapre
Mar 28, 2001

If you're having problems you're either holding the phone wrong or you have tiny girl hands.
Powerline adapters are really all over the place. And a lot has to do with your home and what you have plugged in.

Shaking lemur butt
Jan 5, 2015

:haw: :v: :ohdear: :cool:

I'm just glad I'm not the only one somewhat confused about extender mode vs repeater; what I wanted to do and searched for was how to set it up as a repeater, whereas the guide I found described how to set up extender mode, while calling that repeater.
Oh well, from what you're saying I think I'll keep extender mode for now and just put the second network on a different channel. It sounds like the lesser evil. Like I mentioned before it's not that often I'll be using it, so switching manually back and forth on those occasions will be less annoying than not having the extender in the first place.
I would look into a better option, but I'll be moving to a different apartment in 6 months-ish, so it'll just have to do for now.

Thanks for the info though, it's good to know :)

Shaking lemur butt
Jan 5, 2015

:haw: :v: :ohdear: :cool:
Quote != Edit

Shaking lemur butt fucked around with this message at 23:37 on Apr 20, 2015

Vaporware
May 22, 2004

Still not here yet.

Ur Getting Fatter posted:

Is there such a thing as an adapter that will simulate a USB connection wirelessly?

Basically, I need a USB device to connect to a computer that can't be reached with a USB cord. The kind of thing that any regular wireless keyboard/mouse does.

I've been googling for it, but I keep coming up with either USB Wifi cards or wireless USB hubs which are designed specifically to share harddrives with the network which aren't what I need.

Like an ethernet USB extender, except wireless? How about USB > Ethernet converter > Wireless 1 > Wireless 2 > ethernet converter > USB? You're still going to be tethered to power cords.

Boten Anna
Feb 22, 2010

Has anyone else gotten a Technicolor TC8715D modem/wifi/router from their cable ISP? If not, a warning: this thing is absolute garbage.

When the tech was here setting it up, the web interface was slow, unresponsive, and wouldn't load CSS half the time. Immediately after he left I found the bridged mode settings and turned off wireless and it started working fine.

The thing is goddamned terrible at handing out leases properly, and when I put my Linksys E3000 (w/ Tomato) on it, it usually doesn't connect to the modem unless I unplug the modem for like an hour and then plug it back in.

When I did an initial speedtest, I got 300+ mbit but after rebooting drama and getting my E3000 in the mix, a gigabit router, it was hard capping at exactly 100 mbit. I called the ISP to find out what is going on and they made me plug in my computer directly to the modem wherein it broke everything and its been several hours and a paperclip reset of the modem later trying to get it working again.

I am so sick of their garbage modems that I went fuckit and grabbed a Netgear CM500-100NAS off Amazon but that won't show up for a couple days.

My questions are:

1) Is there anything about the E3000 or Tomato that might be hard capping the connection at 100mbit?

2) Does anyone have any tips for getting that garbage Technicolor modem into usable condition for the next couple days? drat thing isn't handing out a lease to the loving router again and I left it off for a long time seriously gently caress this thing.

3) Is that Netgear CM500-100NAS a good call? The only other options are some SMC or Arris garbage, or another Netgear which has wifi that I don't need, but if there are any gotchas I'd like to know.

Moey
Oct 22, 2010

I LIKE TO MOVE IT
Is the WAN port on the e3000 a 100meg port?

Boten Anna
Feb 22, 2010

Moey posted:

Is the WAN port on the e3000 a 100meg port?

No, by all indications it is a gigabit port as well: http://www.speedguide.net/routers/linksys-e3000-high-performance-wireless-n-router-892

Antillie
Mar 14, 2015

My guess would be that one of the ethernet cables you are using is either crap or only cat5 and not cat cat5e. This would cause whatever port it is connected to to auto negotiate to 100 mbps. The cables should have what type they are printed on them. You want cat5e, it can handle gigabit speeds, regular cat5 cannot. Its also possible that one of the cables has a broken wire. 100 mbps ethernet only uses 4 pins, gigabit ethernet uses all of the pins so a broken wire inside the cable can force a 100 mbps link.

However according to router charts the E3000 caps out at about 218 mbps so even if you get it working you still won't get the full 300 mpbs speed your internet connection is capable of without getting a new router.

Boten Anna
Feb 22, 2010

Yeah I swapped out one of the cables that doesn't look up to snuff but I don't know if it works yet because I can't get the router to connect to the loving modem, and in the shock of the century, the ISP is no help at all. It sounds like I might have to wait out ~12h for the modem's DHCP lease to renew! How exciting.

Boten Anna
Feb 22, 2010

Good news! I got the Netgear cable modem and it just works and is amazing. It was even giving my router a new lease every 20 seconds before I got the modem activated with my ISP as what I can only assume is a huge gently caress you to that technicolor piece of poo poo :v:

Bad news! Yeah the E3000 can't handle 300 mbit, it seems to cap out at around 100. I used the new cables from both of the modems for modem->router and router->PC so I doubt the cables are the problem, my poor E3000 is just too long in the tooth.

The OP doesn't seem to be updated in a while, what's the new hotness in high end home routers? I'm not opposed to spending a decent amount for something good that will last me through Title II and home gigabit implementation if that kind of thing is reasonably affordable.

Budget: $200ish

Wifi: My house is not too big and one story, but has strange acoustics (its a rather open floor plan but it's hard to hear someone in the other room) and hey if I ever set up a chromecast in the back room not worrying would be nice. I don't need anything ridiculous and 1 AP should be fine as long as it's solid

Internet speed: 300mbit

Firmware: I love custom firmware like Tomato since manufacturer firmware tends to be garbage, but it doesn't seem like CFW is as heavily emphasized or some things just come with it now?

Skill level: I work in IT so setup doesn't have to be pissbabby easy, but I also work in IT and don't want maintaining it to be a second job :v:

Usage level/device count: There are between 3 and 5 (inclusive) hell nerd adults in my household with plenty of devices. Everyone has a desktop, there's Playstations and Wiis, cell phones, 3DSes, laptops are brought from workplaces occasionally, a much used chromecast, and I'd like something that I won't need to replace if/when I get around to the time and expense involved in wiring my house for ethernet.

I was considering going for a Nighthawk but wanted to check if there are other or better options I haven't considered, like using a NUC as a router or something or other brands.

E: Considering this one, cheaper than a Nighthawk and seems solid http://smile.amazon.com/RT-N66U-Dual-Band-Wireless-N900-Gigabit-Router/dp/B006QB1RPY

Boten Anna fucked around with this message at 04:21 on Apr 23, 2015

Queen Fiona
Jan 8, 2008

Of all evil I deem you capable: therefore I want the good from you. Verily, I have often laughed at the weaklings who thought themselves good because they had no claws.
So I've got a weird edge use case, and I want some advice on how to approach things before I make any hardware purchases I'll regret.

I have a Linksys E4200v2, which for a while had no custom firmware options. This has since been changed. I'm not sure about running Debian or IP Fire, but OpenWrt seems to have what I need. Our entertainment infrastructure currently consists of running a USB stick back and forth, and my wife constantly runs out of hard drive space and deletes things. (Plus, she keeps getting HD quality seasons and clips, which bugs me on a weird level; then again, all my HD clips are massive.)

It's a fairly simple job to set up a USB drive with SMB on the stock firmware, but I wanna go one step further - since I don't keep my HTPC on all the time in the bedroom, and with my wife's desktop always on but out of space and without a network share, I was thinking of not only setting up a new hard drive as a router-attached external, but using OpenWrt's Transmission torrent client (and a handy remote GUI interface) to maintain files directly on the router. (Bonus points if I can use Lynx or something to download HTTP files on OpenWrt, which I haven't looked into.) My main concern is whether Transmission on the router will perform poorly, or otherwise not work well; in particular, I want to make sure that any traffic on my other network devices overrides the torrent, so I don't have to worry about Steam downloads or turning Transmission off to stream something. Is this doable, or will uTP do it for me, or...?

I'm also using a SmartRG SR505N as a pure modem in bridge mode right now, since I've heard you get better overall performance when you use a dedicated router rather than sticking it all in the same machine. If I'd be better off converting this to a full wireless combo machine or using some kind of firmware or torrent thing on that, let me know!

Antillie
Mar 14, 2015

Boten Anna posted:

Good news! I got the Netgear cable modem and it just works and is amazing. It was even giving my router a new lease every 20 seconds before I got the modem activated with my ISP as what I can only assume is a huge gently caress you to that technicolor piece of poo poo :v:

Bad news! Yeah the E3000 can't handle 300 mbit, it seems to cap out at around 100. I used the new cables from both of the modems for modem->router and router->PC so I doubt the cables are the problem, my poor E3000 is just too long in the tooth.

The OP doesn't seem to be updated in a while, what's the new hotness in high end home routers? I'm not opposed to spending a decent amount for something good that will last me through Title II and home gigabit implementation if that kind of thing is reasonably affordable.

Budget: $200ish

Wifi: My house is not too big and one story, but has strange acoustics (its a rather open floor plan but it's hard to hear someone in the other room) and hey if I ever set up a chromecast in the back room not worrying would be nice. I don't need anything ridiculous and 1 AP should be fine as long as it's solid

Internet speed: 300mbit

Firmware: I love custom firmware like Tomato since manufacturer firmware tends to be garbage, but it doesn't seem like CFW is as heavily emphasized or some things just come with it now?

Skill level: I work in IT so setup doesn't have to be pissbabby easy, but I also work in IT and don't want maintaining it to be a second job :v:

Usage level/device count: There are between 3 and 5 (inclusive) hell nerd adults in my household with plenty of devices. Everyone has a desktop, there's Playstations and Wiis, cell phones, 3DSes, laptops are brought from workplaces occasionally, a much used chromecast, and I'd like something that I won't need to replace if/when I get around to the time and expense involved in wiring my house for ethernet.

I was considering going for a Nighthawk but wanted to check if there are other or better options I haven't considered, like using a NUC as a router or something or other brands.

E: Considering this one, cheaper than a Nighthawk and seems solid http://smile.amazon.com/RT-N66U-Dual-Band-Wireless-N900-Gigabit-Router/dp/B006QB1RPY

Awesome! As for router recommendations:

Antillie posted:

For routers the ASUS RT-N66U is a good wireless N option and the ASUS RT-AC66U is a good wireless AC choice. However it is very hard to beat the Archer C7 which is not only cheaper, but one of the fastest consumer routers on the market today, easily able to handle gigabit speeds.

If you like messing around with this sort of thing you can always build a pfSense box and use the old E3000 as an AP. If a "leave it in a closet for 10 years and forget its even there" level of reliability is your goal then its pretty hard to beat a tiny x86 system with no moving parts running pfSense or a similar Linux distro.

Antillie fucked around with this message at 14:28 on Apr 23, 2015

Antillie
Mar 14, 2015

Queen Fiona posted:

So I've got a weird edge use case, and I want some advice on how to approach things before I make any hardware purchases I'll regret.

I have a Linksys E4200v2, which for a while had no custom firmware options. This has since been changed. I'm not sure about running Debian or IP Fire, but OpenWrt seems to have what I need. Our entertainment infrastructure currently consists of running a USB stick back and forth, and my wife constantly runs out of hard drive space and deletes things. (Plus, she keeps getting HD quality seasons and clips, which bugs me on a weird level; then again, all my HD clips are massive.)

It's a fairly simple job to set up a USB drive with SMB on the stock firmware, but I wanna go one step further - since I don't keep my HTPC on all the time in the bedroom, and with my wife's desktop always on but out of space and without a network share, I was thinking of not only setting up a new hard drive as a router-attached external, but using OpenWrt's Transmission torrent client (and a handy remote GUI interface) to maintain files directly on the router. (Bonus points if I can use Lynx or something to download HTTP files on OpenWrt, which I haven't looked into.) My main concern is whether Transmission on the router will perform poorly, or otherwise not work well; in particular, I want to make sure that any traffic on my other network devices overrides the torrent, so I don't have to worry about Steam downloads or turning Transmission off to stream something. Is this doable, or will uTP do it for me, or...?

I'm also using a SmartRG SR505N as a pure modem in bridge mode right now, since I've heard you get better overall performance when you use a dedicated router rather than sticking it all in the same machine. If I'd be better off converting this to a full wireless combo machine or using some kind of firmware or torrent thing on that, let me know!

OpenWrt is a solid firmware platform and I would pick it over vendor firmware any day. That said, not all vendor firmware is terrible these days. Running your SmartRG SR505N in bridge mode is the right call. Modem/wifi combo devices tend to suck for one reason or another. Bridge mode usually helps with this.

OpenWrt does QoS so I don't see why you couldn't use QoS to put your normal traffic at a higher priority than the BitTorrent traffic. There is a simple walk through on how to set up QoS on OpenWrt here.

Fil5000
Jun 23, 2003

HOLD ON GUYS I'M POSTING ABOUT INTERNET ROBOTS

Antillie posted:

Awesome! As for router recommendations:


If you like messing around with this sort of thing you can always build a pfSense box and use the old E3000 as an AP. If a "leave it in a closet for 10 years and forget its even there" level of reliability is your goal then its pretty hard to beat a tiny x86 system with no moving parts running pfSense or a similar Linux distro.

Seconding the Archer C7. I picked one up the other week and it goes like stink while having a good range of settings on it. I'm genuinely baffled as to how it goes for £85 when most other comparable stuff seems to cost about 20-30% more.

Also, not sure if this has popped up in the thread yet but D-link are about to (or have) put out a new powerline adapter that goes stupidly fast. Obviously it still depends on your house wiring, but this is looking like seriously impressive speeds:

http://www.techradar.com/news/networking/d-link-delivers-lightning-quick-powerline-extender-1290766

Prescription Combs
Apr 20, 2005
   6

Boten Anna posted:


Slow gateway problems :words:


Ubiquity Edgerouter lite($90-100) and keep the E3000 around as an AP. :q:

Edgerouter X (50bux) is coming out soon.

Boten Anna
Feb 22, 2010

Prescription Combs posted:

Ubiquity Edgerouter lite($90-100) and keep the E3000 around as an AP. :q:

Edgerouter X (50bux) is coming out soon.

Agh this is a great option but I can't just pick one up at the store where I am returning some things anyway :argh:

I'd much rather have dedicated devices that are REALLY GOOD at what they do than combo devices.

dpkg chopra
Jun 9, 2007

Fast Food Fight

Grimey Drawer
Is having UPNP enabled a security risk?

At our small office we have a PBX that handles our VOIP calls. After a couple of stories about $10000 bills, I'm kind of terrified of Chinese hackers getting into my system because I forgot to shut off some stupid router "feature".

I know that most of these "hacks" happen because people left their PBX or whatever exposed to the internet with a weak password which (I hope) isn't my case (Mixed case, special characters, numbers, etc.)

Antillie
Mar 14, 2015

Its possible to generate UPNP commands with a flash app running on some random website in your browser. So basically, any random web site that uses flash can mess with your router using UPNP. Yes the article is old. But there isn't really a fix because its not a bug with UPNP or flash. UPNP was just designed that badly. Its actually supposed to allow that sort of functionality.

Basically the people who designed the UPNP protocol were loving retards who had no idea what security is or why you might want it on a network.

The other issue is buggy/lovely router firmware that accepts UPNP requests on the internet interface or just plain allows for stupid poo poo to be done with UPNP requests. That can get your poo poo owned pretty quick. As a general rule, if you don't need it, turn it off. In fact, I would turn it off anyway. Manually doing port forwarding isn't that bad and doesn't open you up to the types of attacks that UPNP does.

The best thing you can do to make a good password is to make it long. Really loving long. Special characters don't really help much. XKCD explained it the best.

Antillie fucked around with this message at 22:49 on Apr 23, 2015

Nystral
Feb 6, 2002

Every man likes a pretty girl with him at a skeleton dance.
Trying to wrap my head around some openwrt config file mess I've made.

I have a TP Link TL-WR710N which is running the latest trunk build - openwrt-ar71xx-generic-tl710n

I am a huge dummy and followed some guide online blindly and now have a router I can SSH into but does not actually do anything.

Quick run down:
* Three Interfaces - wlan0, en0, en1
* ifconfig shows the mac address for wlan and en0 as the same, Should they be separate?

Right now traffic from en1 or wlan0 does not forward onto en0 as expected. I think this is because of the shared MAC for wlan0 and en0. Assuming that is the case, then I have another slot - en2 - that needs to be detected. Any idea where I should be looking to resolve this issue?

ThermoPhysical
Dec 26, 2007



My WNDR3700v2's WiFi has randomly just died today. There's a high-pitched noise whenever it's plugged in and the WiFi no longer works while the wired connection works fine. After a quick Google search, it looks like a common issue with this router and there's a thread on the Netgear forums about it. It looks like the case is some inductors that randomly broke. Honestly, I'd rather just buy a new router so that's what I'm here for.

However, I don't know if the OP is still current as to the best routers anymore. Any good recent routers in the sub-$100 to about $100 range? Any to avoid?

Antillie
Mar 14, 2015

ThermoPhysical posted:

My WNDR3700v2's WiFi has randomly just died today. There's a high-pitched noise whenever it's plugged in and the WiFi no longer works while the wired connection works fine. After a quick Google search, it looks like a common issue with this router and there's a thread on the Netgear forums about it. It looks like the case is some inductors that randomly broke. Honestly, I'd rather just buy a new router so that's what I'm here for.

However, I don't know if the OP is still current as to the best routers anymore. Any good recent routers in the sub-$100 to about $100 range? Any to avoid?

The high pitched noise is a guaranteed indicator that a capacitor or some other electrical component on the board has failed. That router is technically a fire hazard now so throw it out or return it if its still under warranty. Here my thoughts on new routers:

Antillie posted:

For routers the ASUS RT-N66U is a good wireless N option and the ASUS RT-AC66U is a good wireless AC choice. However it is very hard to beat the Archer C7 which is not only cheaper, but one of the fastest consumer routers on the market today, easily able to handle gigabit speeds.

The Archer C7 fits your price point perfectly.

dpkg chopra
Jun 9, 2007

Fast Food Fight

Grimey Drawer

Antillie posted:

:words: about UPNP

Thanks for the advice. I've disabled it for now.

My main worry was our PBX-IP breaking as well as SKYPE, but it seems like everything is working fine so far.

I'll take into the account the long passwords advice as well, it just seems like every website out there recommends special characters and mixed case now so I figured it was the most secure method.

Boten Anna
Feb 22, 2010

I ended up getting an AC68U because I am too impaitent to order the Ubiquiti and this thing is amazing :swoon:

It actually has good firmware with cool features, I actually don't feel compelled to flash it with CFW

Why didn't ASUS make routers earlier oh god

ThermoPhysical
Dec 26, 2007



Antillie posted:

The high pitched noise is a guaranteed indicator that a capacitor or some other electrical component on the board has failed. That router is technically a fire hazard now so throw it out or return it if its still under warranty. Here my thoughts on new routers:


The Archer C7 fits your price point perfectly.

Thank you! I'll pick up the C7 later on next month.

Are there any differences between Verison 1, 1.1, and 2? I heard some people asking on Amazon about it.

Also, how many Wifi devices are allowed to be connected to it or is that even a thing anymore?

Antillie
Mar 14, 2015

Unfortunately I am not familiar with the different versions of the Archer C7.

There is no theoretical limit to how many clients you can have connected to a single wifi network. However there is only so much bandwidth and it must be shared between all of the wifi clients connected to the AP so at some point you will hit a practical limit depending on how chatty the clients are.

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Fil5000
Jun 23, 2003

HOLD ON GUYS I'M POSTING ABOUT INTERNET ROBOTS
I've got the C7 v2 so I can say with confidence that that one is fine. I don't know about the 1 or 1.1.

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