Today I took some time to flash my Linksys WRT41G with the OpenWRT firmware. This firmware sets up the router as a little embedded Linux router. I have to say that the flash went through pretty easily. All I did was upload the image using the Linksys web interface, telnet to the router after it restarted, and then set the root password (which stopped telnet and started SSH). The OpenWRT web interface is pretty nice but nothing beats the SSH shell. I plan on setting up a few services on this to test out what can be done with it:

• dnsmasq – For DHCP plus a simple DNS server for home… no more 192.168.1.xxx in my scripts.
• IPtables – What good is a router without a firewall and NAT
• Wifi – I don’t really need it but if I get a good supported 802.11g card then this will let me work on my laptop more
• openntd – I really need to sync all my clocks and the router would be the perfect device to sync them to
• nmap – I need to scan certain public servers to make sure my firewalls are setup right, the router would make a good ‘run and check back later’ box
• tcpdump – Just for fun ;)
• Ruby – Though not part of the included packages, I bet I can get it working on there. A nice simple webrick servlet would be sweet
• Lighttpd w/CGI – This would be even sweeter than webrick. I could then try out my Ruby-Fu on some CGI scripts

Eric Davis