Category archives: DD-WRT

Wireless Network Security Tips

This post describes some best practices for securely configuring your home wireless network. A few high-level PC security tips are thrown in for good measure. I’ve been on a bit of a security kick lately…more than usual anyway. I’ve always been a bit of a security fanatic but lately I’ve been learning a whole lot more. Working as an IT auditor by day and just naturally being attracted to technology, security is of great interest to me. I’m also becoming a huge fan of the open source DD-WRT firmware as I start to use more and more of its features on my home network.

A lot of security topics exists that I’d love to write about sometime, but securing your wireless network is one that should be useful to most of my blog readers. Plus, this is a natural progression from my recent post about How to Flash the WRT54GL with DD-WRT Firmware. This post will not cover the intricate details of the hows and whys of wireless security nor will provide a ton of details on how to circumvent (i.e., crack) common security settings. Maybe I’ll cover those topics at a later date. For now, I just want to tell you about what security settings you should use on your home or small business wireless network to ensure no one is able to sniff (see what your doing on your wireless connection) or use your wireless connection without your permission. Continue reading

How to Flash the WRT54GL with DD-WRT Firmware

**DISCLAIMER** The following instructions are provided without warranty of any kind. Flashing firmware does not come without risk. I will not be held responsible for any resulting equipment failure or otherwise undesirable results. Proceed at your own risk.

This tutorial explains how I successfully flashed my Linksys WRT54GL version 1.1 with the open source DD-WRT version 23 SP2 VPN firmware (generic).

Before proceeding, verify your WRT54GL is version 1.1. Per Wikipedia entry and DD-WRT Wiki), you can tell which version you have by checking the serial number. The serial number should be located on a sticker underneath the router. The serial number prefix CL7B corresponds to version 1.1 and CL7A corresponds to version 1.0.

Don’t despair if your router is version 1.0. You can still flash to the DD-WRT firmware. However, the process will be different due to a flash file size limit on the version 1.0 WRT54GL firmware. The main difference is that you will need to flash to a smaller version of the DD-WRT firmware (the mini version) first and then re-flash to the standard, VOIP, or VPN versions.

As a bit of background information, used a fully patched (as of April 6, 2007) Windows XP Pro with Service Pack 2 (SP2) and Internet Explorer 6 during the firmware upgrade process. The OS and web browser shouldn’t matter, but I have heard reports of Firefox causing some problems with the Flash for some people in the past though others have claimed to use Firefox without any problems.

Before you begin, download the package and version of the DD-WRT firmware best suited to your needs. This tutorial walks through flashing to the open source DD-WRT version 23 SP2 VPN firmware. Once you’ve downloaded the file, go ahead an unzip the files. The zip package contains several files, you will only need the “DD-WRT.v23_vpn_generic” file. We’re going to be using the generic file rather than the wrt54g file because we’re going to be using the web GUI to upload the file. Continue reading