Procrastination and Firewalls
I was working on a post about downgrading a Gateway MX8711 from Vista to XP, but it was more fun to go through some old files and put the Smooth And Naked page back up… Also fitting because Smoothwall 3 was just released.
Ok, I see…I was hoping for a little more speed in aquiring APs. Using it while driving was what I was looking for. If I have time, I will break the Buffalo down and give it a retry just for fun. I think your right about the GPIOs. It seems that all routers are not created equal, at least from what I have read. Apparently, the pinouts vary even within the same models. About as far as I got the first time was the card looked like it was formatting upon initialization. It then took a dive and I could never get into the card. Who knows? I mainly just like to tinker around.
For the Buffalo mod, I remember it was fairly confusing getting the GPIO set up properly, but if you follow the info at http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/SD/MMC_mod#Setting_up_DD-WRT_to_support_the_modification, it does work. Play around with the GPIO tool through SSH to verify that the wires from the SD Card are connected to the LEDs they should be, and double-check which side of the LEDs that you soldered to. I think the ones near the top of the photo were ambiguous in the documentation, but it’s been a while now…
Unfortunately (for you) I gave that router to a friend 3000 miles away so he can get free internet access, so I can’t check any settings for you. 🙁 I guess I need to build another one with one of the 1GB cards I have lying around.
Also, the AutoAP script is fairly slow, so don’t expect to be able to use it while driving and have near-continuous internet access. It takes 4-5 minutes to acquire & test a new signal once it loses one…
Ok…I see now…I was using Opera browser when I first clicked on the “naked” page. Opera I guess would not allow the pics to show. Figures, there is always something wrong with Opera.
I am running Clarkconnect as my gateway here at the house. Works great and looks like i have 135 days up now. I had several servers pinging the Uptime Project. Too bad it went away. I am surprised nobody has come up with a new uptime tracking system. I still say it is strange how the project just ended. I think there was more to it other than the claimed bandwidth issues.
Also, I tried your Buffalo mod to integrate AutoAP. Never did get it working. I could not get the router to recognize the SD card. I used several different cards, but had no luck. Maybe I will drag it out and throw it on the bench for another attempt.
“Smooth and Naked” was a bunch of parts that I had lying around, and I thought it would be fun to see what kind of uptime I could manage using junk screwed to a piece of plywood. Now that the uptime project is retired, I don’t have the actual stats, but I think my record was around 140 days or so…
I was using it mainly as a dial-up gatway for my home network, and playing around with Smoothwall mods, like uptime and ppled.
Now I’m using a Centos 5 box to do all the neat stuff at home, so my smoothie is now retired also. (But I’m tempted to take a look at version 3 just to see what’s new…)
If you haven’t already, check out http://www.jeremycole.com/stuff/smoothie to see the specs and some more pics.
JC
Ok…you got me here…What in the world is “smooth and naked?” I’m a Clarkconnect fan, but Smoothwall is pretty damn good also. – Preston