Hacking your wireless router

There are tons of ways to hack your router.   It doesn’t always mean upgrading your firmware (although this is the best way).

DD-WRT has so many options as a free firmware for dozens of routers that you can do so much more than the average manufacturer’s firmware. You can increase your router’s power, EoIP, VPN, VOIP, manage it as a Firewall, use as a repeater/bridge/AP, install Radius and dozens of other features.

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The Cisco E2500 along with several other Cisco routers allow you to put in a hidden webpage setting  that opens up several settings you can tweak- Here’s a post Dawn put up that describes her problem router and what she found –

I recently bought a Linksys E2500 router and wanted to tweak my network settings but was unable to find the settings for things like Beacon Interval, RTS and Fragmentation Threshold. I was a little frustrated and I’ll replace it. Well, for those interested, there is a hidden management page! Open Internet Explorer (or the browser of your choice), type the IP Address of your router into the address bar and add this to the end: /Wireless_Advanced.asp
and tweak away!

Here’s a few more that may and may not be available on your router-

/SysInfo.htm

/SysInfo1.htm

(either) /Site_Suvey.asp  or /Site_Survey.asp

/WL_ActiveTable.asp

/Cysaja.asp

(Oh, don’t tweak if you don’t have the information on HOW to tweak!!) 😉

Screenshot for the /Wireless_Advanced.asp

Linksys/Cisco WRT  Routers – These routers are some of the most hackable routers on the market.  Dawn found an excellent site that shows comparison charts, hacks and how-to’s on these home routers.

I recently flashed my WRT54GS with DD-WRT firmware.  This firmware unlocks your router and allows you to tweak settings such as output power from 1mw to 251mw of power.  It allows for site surveys and has hundreds of hidden tweaks. One of the most impressive screens is the site survey that shows the connections and their connection strength.

Tutorial page for DD-WRT firmware

MyOpenRouter is  a one-stop resource for tools and a list of the latest firmware including dd-wrt, openwrt, tomato and others.

Emulators

D-Link

Linksys

Netgear

V22-DD-WRT interface

V23-DD-WRT interface

V24beta-DD-WRT interface

Recently Jared L. wanted to extend his wireless from his home to his shop.  He flashed his older WRT router and bridged it to his home router and now it goes over 360′ into the metal shop.   Here’s what you do to bridge it.  Thanks Jared.

Note: This 360′ mark was a test to see how the connection was after bridging… he was able to stream Youtube videos.

Open source firmware can result in a ‘bricked’ router.  You must read the instructions.  Here’s a revival guide for some linksys routers.

Ryan’s mod (DD-WRT) to keep his new E3000 cool.

Hey, on the way to work this morning i picked up a E3000 from Wal-mart. I flashed it with DD-WRT, and did some mods on it.  I put a CPU fan on it, and also put some feet under neath to give it some more clearance for the air to flow, here are some pics

Don’t forget you can manage your router with Router Commander.