Become a wifi router "power user"
Convert an access point wifi router to a scanning auto seeking auto connect wireless repeater for your motor home.
I stongly advise you to read and re-read this and other related stuff on line before you plunge into doing this with a wifi router. You can break a good router doing this, but it's never happened to me. Once you become familiar with what you are reading about, then you are probably good to go. This is really just to give those of you interested the awareness that this stuff exists and is being used by people like me to make my life easier. Do your homework if you want to do this. Nobody including me is selling anything except whoever you might buy a little wifi router from. Everything else is free. If you turn a router into a "brick" by doing this, it ain't my fault. Just look into it using Google and educate yourself.
If you are not a service subscriber of a 3g type wireless card provider, a cheap wifi router for about 40 bucks might help out your wifi connectivity in ways you haven't known about.
WIFI ROUTERS CAN DO AMAZING THINGS IF YOU JUST DO A LITTLE SOFTWARE HACKING
Wouldn't it be cool to have a little wifi box that costs about 40 bucks, and when you pull into an RV park, you simply turn it on and wait. You watch the lights on the front of it, and when the big light goes on, you will have full scale wifi signal strength in your RV that gives you free connectivity right to the internet. Thanks to a whole bunch of volunteer effort by "open source computer geeks", this is now possible. The little box is a cheap wifi Linksys, Buffalo, NetGear or any number of other routers that are compatible with "hot rodded" third party firmware. After upload flashing the router with this "supercharged" operating system, the little beast can be configured to do some really interesting things, taking on the behavior of a router that costs upwards of 600 dollars or more. It isn't hard to convert these things, but in worst cases it is possible to turn your router into a little plastic "brick" that can be difficult but not impossible to revive.
If you are interested in this stuff, read on. Learn something about computer networks here. I warn you, you could get bored to tears and fall asleep wherever you are sitting. Maybe you should move that bowl of soup aside so your face doesn't fall into it....
Oh, and here's a link to check out to see an example of one outcropping of one of these things:
www.i-hacked.com/content/view/261/42/
You can also look at dd-wrt.com and explore the firmware side.
THE FIRMWARE
Several different open source firmware projects have taken on lives in the past several years. OpenWRT is one. Sveasoft is another. TOMATO is becoming popular. Probably the most popular and extensively developed is DD-WRT. DD-WRT is the free firmware I have been experimenting with. I have 4 Linksys WRT54GL's and 1 Linksys WRT54G-TM running it. It's nothing short of brilliant. The Linksys WRT54GL is one of the easiest to upload firmware to since it already runs a version of Linux and requires no "trickery" to change the firmware. This can all be done using any operating system. Most people modify their routers using Windows XP or Vista. Mac and Linux works too. You are simply uploading a flash file to the device using a web browser, so it ain't that hard. Just don't interrupt the upload, that's all. If you do, you'll feel that deep sinking feeling that you just messed up. Reading through some router types and how to change the firmware looks daunting but usually, as in life, thinking about doing some of these things is much worse than actually doing them!
THE HARDWARE
On the dd-wrt.com site, there is a huge list of compatible wifi routers that will take this firmware. The most popular routers are the Linksys WRT54G series excluding version 5 and 6 and a few others, and the Buffalo WHR-HP-54G and WHR-54GS series. The Buffalo routers are touted as being the most desireable with the WHR-HP-54G being one of the best long distance performers because of it's built-in transmitter amplifier and it's reciever preamplifier, both of which can be turned on and off. DD-WRT gives all of these routers the capability to select transmitter output powers from the normal stock 70 milliwatts to a newly capable 28 to 251 milliwatts selectable. By the way, it's sometimes easier to locate dd-wrt forum subjects using Google.com to find it. Search using something like "dd-wrt Buffalo router issue" or whatever. Sometimes that works better than typing it into the dd-wrt.com search window.
The firmware is not shareware, it's free open source software that's been hammered out for the last three years, and the open source brainiacs who dreamed this stuff up are no fans of malware, spyware and all the rest of it that infects Windows computers. This stuff falls into the "totally safe" computing realm. The firmware is a fully functional Linux operating system for the little router.
AUTO ACCESS POINT MODE, REPEATER MODE, AND REPEATER-BRIDGE MODE
The best feature for the RV'er is Repeater Mode running under "Auto Access Point" duty. Turning on the router's "Repeater" mode, and then enabling "Auto AP" can be an answer to wifi woes experienced by many an RV'er. When both of these are turned on and with the router only connected to a power plug, the router will scan as a receiver, and it will evaluate the best strongest signal that is an open access point, and it will then connect to it. In the RV park example, it will "repeat" the RV's wifi access point right inside your RV. You connect to your router, which itself is connected to the RV park's access point. You can see that if you have an external antenna or a good high gain antenna of some sort connected to the router, you let the router do all the work in getting attached to the park's access point, and your laptop only has to connect to your repeater-router only a few feet away, giving you a full strength signal for your laptop to work with.
--REPEATER MODE--
Repeater mode keeps you behind a firewall on your own internal network in your RV, but in this mode, you may have connectivity issues if you have to "sign on or log in" to the free wifi service. You may need to use "Repeater-Bridge" mode for this which may require turning off Auto Access Point mode and connecting manually to the park's access point.
--REPEATER-BRIDGE MODE--
Repeater-Bridge Mode is like Repeater Mode where you can connect to your router wirelessly and have internet connectivity via your router's wifi connection to the park's access point wifi router, but there's one important difference. In Repeater Mode you are behind a firwall on your own private network. Repeater-Bridge mode makes your wifi router act more like a message relayer. When your router establishes a wifi connection to the park's wifi access point router, it keeps the connection on the park's network. When you wirelessly connect your laptop to your Repeater-Bridge Mode router, you are in fact part of the park's wifi network instead of being "contained" within your own RV's wifi network. If you have to sign on and log into a park's wifi service before it will let you surf the web, you will have to use this mode so that the park's server can see your laptop directly and assign it whatever network addresses it needs to give to it so you can "surf on". if you are in "Repeater only" mode, the park's network server can only see your RV's router. Everything wirelessly connected to your router is isolated and can't be seen by the park's servers when your RV's router is in "Repeater only" mode, so your laptop will never get the login page if that's how the park's network is set up. Many motels and hotels are set up this way, so you'll have to use "Repeater-Bridge" mode.
--AUTO ACCESS POINT MODE--
Keep in mind that this mode does not have to be used to connect to the RV park's wifi access point. You can take control of the router through your web browser, disable AutoAP mode, and manually connect to whatever access point you want to. That being said, read on. When enabled, Auto Access Point mode, or AutoAP as it's called by the router, takes control of the router whether it's in Repeater or Repeater Bridge mode. In this mode, the router is turned on by plugging it into a power outlet. The router begins scanning for the strongest access point.
One version is a complete firmware upload that has AutoAP embedded in it with a GUI for it. The other is a small 4 line script you enter in the router's startup script window on one of it's admin web pages. Take your pick, the GUI version works but I found it a little buggy in my Linksys routers, so I went to the 4 line script method.
Since the router's memory space is small and in some cases can't store other programs permanently, the firmware designers did a brilliant thing. They make the router scan initially with a cute little 4 line startup program code. The router scans the wifi frequencies, and connects to the strongest one. It attempts to download another little 18 kilobyte program script which is the entire AutoAp program itself, and if it is successful it will then install the program in RAM memory which is alive only while the router is energized and turned on. The program then gives the router some "Automatic Intelligence" in how it monitors and searches for the best strongest access points so that you get the best internet connectivity. If, however, the router connects to an open access point and it is NOT successful in downloading the little AutoAP program, it will move on and continue to scan and try access points until it sucessfully downloads the AutoAP program and installs it. The little program will stay in the router's RAM (electronic memory) until the router is turned off. When the router is turned off, everything in ram is lost because ram memory relies on the router being turned on. If you turn the router off, then back on (rebooting it), the router will go through the routine of looking for an access point, downloading the little AutoAP progam, installing it and then intelligently monitoring and keeping the router connected to the best strongest open access point.
As you can see, it is a "bootstrap" type of program that builds it's functionality as it starts up and functions, much as how a computer boots up. In fact, that's where the term "booting" a computer came from; pulling one's self up by the bootstraps!
AUTO ACCESS POINT'S FEATURES
It's interesting reading for me to go through the forum where the guy came up with the idea for this thing. It developed, then it had multiple problems, then it got totally rewritten and redeveloped. All of this so it could be done in a small 18 kilobyte script. That's probably about 3 typewritten pages of gobbledygook jibberish to most of us, but you can actually sort of see how it works if you download it an open it in a text editor. In fact, most of the script is human readable text that the program ignors but is there so you can understand what the code is for. Very nicely done.
How does the program monitor it's internet connection quality and connectivity if it's such a wimpy program? First, as stated before, the 4 line startup script makes the router scan the channels, connecting to access points until it successfully downloads the larger 18 kilobyte program code. It then installs the code, and that program takes over the router's behavior. The router begins scanning again, this time looking for the strongest OPEN access point out there that has no security encryption or passwords. It connects to the strongest one. Then, it sends out a test signal called a "ping" (named after radar pings), directed at Google.com. When it pings Google, Google replies telling the router that it received the ping. When the router hears back from the Google ping, it decides that this is a good access point to stay attached to because it's strongest and it has "internet connectivity". Everything is good. But, it has to know when things go bad, like when the access point it's attached to is lost by moving, or whatever.
The little program has a feature whereby it pings google periodically, by default it pings Google once every two minutes to monitor quality of the internet connection. If the ping is unsuccessful in getting a reply back from Google, then the router will start scanning the channels for another open access point to connect to and begin the process all over again. A third function is to have the router begin a full channel scan after two hours of successful internet access so that it can connect to a better stronger access point if one is out there.
I think I'll stop here for now. But here's something to think about.
MESH NETWORKING
Mesh Networking is what the geeks who built this software intended it to be used for. Mesh wifi networking refers to automatic detection and connection to other wifi open access points to the internet. If a good initial open access point is found, then you can just locate these routers within a good signal strength distance from one other router in the network and build a large area wifi network just by turning them on and letting them do their thing. I have one of these routers in my Cummins/Onan service truck to get high speed access to my online service manuals. The company hasn't given me a 3g wireless laptop card, so this is how I have to do it.
If I have trouble connecting using that one router with it's two outside antennas, I have 2 more routers with the same programming in a laptop bag in the truck. One of them has a very high gain 2.4 gig yagi antenna with a tripod mount. The yagi antenna and router are attached to each other with a very short piece of coax for low loss of signal. With the truck's router turned off, the portable router with the yagi is mounted on the tripod, turned on and rotated around until the big light on the router turns on, then the laptop is connected wirelessly to it and the router's configuration webpage is looked at. The signal strength meter on the router's web page is used to point the router yagi antenna for best signal. Then, the truck's router is turned back on and it automatically connects to the router with the yagi antenna because that is the stronges signal with internet connectivity. Any other router with the same programming setup will connect to one of these routers if they are the closest ones to it.
Pretty neato eh?
Links
dd-wrt.com
Look at the "supported hardware" section and the "community/forums" section. The "supported hardware" section lists all of the compatible devices and how to flash the firmware to them. Google dd-wrt and subject you are interested in to see if it is in their forum.
Bob in Arcata, California
pages.suddenlink.net/reed
Convert an access point wifi router to a scanning auto seeking auto connect wireless repeater for your motor home.
I stongly advise you to read and re-read this and other related stuff on line before you plunge into doing this with a wifi router. You can break a good router doing this, but it's never happened to me. Once you become familiar with what you are reading about, then you are probably good to go. This is really just to give those of you interested the awareness that this stuff exists and is being used by people like me to make my life easier. Do your homework if you want to do this. Nobody including me is selling anything except whoever you might buy a little wifi router from. Everything else is free. If you turn a router into a "brick" by doing this, it ain't my fault. Just look into it using Google and educate yourself.
If you are not a service subscriber of a 3g type wireless card provider, a cheap wifi router for about 40 bucks might help out your wifi connectivity in ways you haven't known about.
WIFI ROUTERS CAN DO AMAZING THINGS IF YOU JUST DO A LITTLE SOFTWARE HACKING
Wouldn't it be cool to have a little wifi box that costs about 40 bucks, and when you pull into an RV park, you simply turn it on and wait. You watch the lights on the front of it, and when the big light goes on, you will have full scale wifi signal strength in your RV that gives you free connectivity right to the internet. Thanks to a whole bunch of volunteer effort by "open source computer geeks", this is now possible. The little box is a cheap wifi Linksys, Buffalo, NetGear or any number of other routers that are compatible with "hot rodded" third party firmware. After upload flashing the router with this "supercharged" operating system, the little beast can be configured to do some really interesting things, taking on the behavior of a router that costs upwards of 600 dollars or more. It isn't hard to convert these things, but in worst cases it is possible to turn your router into a little plastic "brick" that can be difficult but not impossible to revive.
If you are interested in this stuff, read on. Learn something about computer networks here. I warn you, you could get bored to tears and fall asleep wherever you are sitting. Maybe you should move that bowl of soup aside so your face doesn't fall into it....
Oh, and here's a link to check out to see an example of one outcropping of one of these things:
www.i-hacked.com/content/view/261/42/
You can also look at dd-wrt.com and explore the firmware side.
THE FIRMWARE
Several different open source firmware projects have taken on lives in the past several years. OpenWRT is one. Sveasoft is another. TOMATO is becoming popular. Probably the most popular and extensively developed is DD-WRT. DD-WRT is the free firmware I have been experimenting with. I have 4 Linksys WRT54GL's and 1 Linksys WRT54G-TM running it. It's nothing short of brilliant. The Linksys WRT54GL is one of the easiest to upload firmware to since it already runs a version of Linux and requires no "trickery" to change the firmware. This can all be done using any operating system. Most people modify their routers using Windows XP or Vista. Mac and Linux works too. You are simply uploading a flash file to the device using a web browser, so it ain't that hard. Just don't interrupt the upload, that's all. If you do, you'll feel that deep sinking feeling that you just messed up. Reading through some router types and how to change the firmware looks daunting but usually, as in life, thinking about doing some of these things is much worse than actually doing them!
THE HARDWARE
On the dd-wrt.com site, there is a huge list of compatible wifi routers that will take this firmware. The most popular routers are the Linksys WRT54G series excluding version 5 and 6 and a few others, and the Buffalo WHR-HP-54G and WHR-54GS series. The Buffalo routers are touted as being the most desireable with the WHR-HP-54G being one of the best long distance performers because of it's built-in transmitter amplifier and it's reciever preamplifier, both of which can be turned on and off. DD-WRT gives all of these routers the capability to select transmitter output powers from the normal stock 70 milliwatts to a newly capable 28 to 251 milliwatts selectable. By the way, it's sometimes easier to locate dd-wrt forum subjects using Google.com to find it. Search using something like "dd-wrt Buffalo router issue" or whatever. Sometimes that works better than typing it into the dd-wrt.com search window.
The firmware is not shareware, it's free open source software that's been hammered out for the last three years, and the open source brainiacs who dreamed this stuff up are no fans of malware, spyware and all the rest of it that infects Windows computers. This stuff falls into the "totally safe" computing realm. The firmware is a fully functional Linux operating system for the little router.
AUTO ACCESS POINT MODE, REPEATER MODE, AND REPEATER-BRIDGE MODE
The best feature for the RV'er is Repeater Mode running under "Auto Access Point" duty. Turning on the router's "Repeater" mode, and then enabling "Auto AP" can be an answer to wifi woes experienced by many an RV'er. When both of these are turned on and with the router only connected to a power plug, the router will scan as a receiver, and it will evaluate the best strongest signal that is an open access point, and it will then connect to it. In the RV park example, it will "repeat" the RV's wifi access point right inside your RV. You connect to your router, which itself is connected to the RV park's access point. You can see that if you have an external antenna or a good high gain antenna of some sort connected to the router, you let the router do all the work in getting attached to the park's access point, and your laptop only has to connect to your repeater-router only a few feet away, giving you a full strength signal for your laptop to work with.
--REPEATER MODE--
Repeater mode keeps you behind a firewall on your own internal network in your RV, but in this mode, you may have connectivity issues if you have to "sign on or log in" to the free wifi service. You may need to use "Repeater-Bridge" mode for this which may require turning off Auto Access Point mode and connecting manually to the park's access point.
--REPEATER-BRIDGE MODE--
Repeater-Bridge Mode is like Repeater Mode where you can connect to your router wirelessly and have internet connectivity via your router's wifi connection to the park's access point wifi router, but there's one important difference. In Repeater Mode you are behind a firwall on your own private network. Repeater-Bridge mode makes your wifi router act more like a message relayer. When your router establishes a wifi connection to the park's wifi access point router, it keeps the connection on the park's network. When you wirelessly connect your laptop to your Repeater-Bridge Mode router, you are in fact part of the park's wifi network instead of being "contained" within your own RV's wifi network. If you have to sign on and log into a park's wifi service before it will let you surf the web, you will have to use this mode so that the park's server can see your laptop directly and assign it whatever network addresses it needs to give to it so you can "surf on". if you are in "Repeater only" mode, the park's network server can only see your RV's router. Everything wirelessly connected to your router is isolated and can't be seen by the park's servers when your RV's router is in "Repeater only" mode, so your laptop will never get the login page if that's how the park's network is set up. Many motels and hotels are set up this way, so you'll have to use "Repeater-Bridge" mode.
--AUTO ACCESS POINT MODE--
Keep in mind that this mode does not have to be used to connect to the RV park's wifi access point. You can take control of the router through your web browser, disable AutoAP mode, and manually connect to whatever access point you want to. That being said, read on. When enabled, Auto Access Point mode, or AutoAP as it's called by the router, takes control of the router whether it's in Repeater or Repeater Bridge mode. In this mode, the router is turned on by plugging it into a power outlet. The router begins scanning for the strongest access point.
One version is a complete firmware upload that has AutoAP embedded in it with a GUI for it. The other is a small 4 line script you enter in the router's startup script window on one of it's admin web pages. Take your pick, the GUI version works but I found it a little buggy in my Linksys routers, so I went to the 4 line script method.
Since the router's memory space is small and in some cases can't store other programs permanently, the firmware designers did a brilliant thing. They make the router scan initially with a cute little 4 line startup program code. The router scans the wifi frequencies, and connects to the strongest one. It attempts to download another little 18 kilobyte program script which is the entire AutoAp program itself, and if it is successful it will then install the program in RAM memory which is alive only while the router is energized and turned on. The program then gives the router some "Automatic Intelligence" in how it monitors and searches for the best strongest access points so that you get the best internet connectivity. If, however, the router connects to an open access point and it is NOT successful in downloading the little AutoAP program, it will move on and continue to scan and try access points until it sucessfully downloads the AutoAP program and installs it. The little program will stay in the router's RAM (electronic memory) until the router is turned off. When the router is turned off, everything in ram is lost because ram memory relies on the router being turned on. If you turn the router off, then back on (rebooting it), the router will go through the routine of looking for an access point, downloading the little AutoAP progam, installing it and then intelligently monitoring and keeping the router connected to the best strongest open access point.
As you can see, it is a "bootstrap" type of program that builds it's functionality as it starts up and functions, much as how a computer boots up. In fact, that's where the term "booting" a computer came from; pulling one's self up by the bootstraps!
AUTO ACCESS POINT'S FEATURES
It's interesting reading for me to go through the forum where the guy came up with the idea for this thing. It developed, then it had multiple problems, then it got totally rewritten and redeveloped. All of this so it could be done in a small 18 kilobyte script. That's probably about 3 typewritten pages of gobbledygook jibberish to most of us, but you can actually sort of see how it works if you download it an open it in a text editor. In fact, most of the script is human readable text that the program ignors but is there so you can understand what the code is for. Very nicely done.
How does the program monitor it's internet connection quality and connectivity if it's such a wimpy program? First, as stated before, the 4 line startup script makes the router scan the channels, connecting to access points until it successfully downloads the larger 18 kilobyte program code. It then installs the code, and that program takes over the router's behavior. The router begins scanning again, this time looking for the strongest OPEN access point out there that has no security encryption or passwords. It connects to the strongest one. Then, it sends out a test signal called a "ping" (named after radar pings), directed at Google.com. When it pings Google, Google replies telling the router that it received the ping. When the router hears back from the Google ping, it decides that this is a good access point to stay attached to because it's strongest and it has "internet connectivity". Everything is good. But, it has to know when things go bad, like when the access point it's attached to is lost by moving, or whatever.
The little program has a feature whereby it pings google periodically, by default it pings Google once every two minutes to monitor quality of the internet connection. If the ping is unsuccessful in getting a reply back from Google, then the router will start scanning the channels for another open access point to connect to and begin the process all over again. A third function is to have the router begin a full channel scan after two hours of successful internet access so that it can connect to a better stronger access point if one is out there.
I think I'll stop here for now. But here's something to think about.
MESH NETWORKING
Mesh Networking is what the geeks who built this software intended it to be used for. Mesh wifi networking refers to automatic detection and connection to other wifi open access points to the internet. If a good initial open access point is found, then you can just locate these routers within a good signal strength distance from one other router in the network and build a large area wifi network just by turning them on and letting them do their thing. I have one of these routers in my Cummins/Onan service truck to get high speed access to my online service manuals. The company hasn't given me a 3g wireless laptop card, so this is how I have to do it.
If I have trouble connecting using that one router with it's two outside antennas, I have 2 more routers with the same programming in a laptop bag in the truck. One of them has a very high gain 2.4 gig yagi antenna with a tripod mount. The yagi antenna and router are attached to each other with a very short piece of coax for low loss of signal. With the truck's router turned off, the portable router with the yagi is mounted on the tripod, turned on and rotated around until the big light on the router turns on, then the laptop is connected wirelessly to it and the router's configuration webpage is looked at. The signal strength meter on the router's web page is used to point the router yagi antenna for best signal. Then, the truck's router is turned back on and it automatically connects to the router with the yagi antenna because that is the stronges signal with internet connectivity. Any other router with the same programming setup will connect to one of these routers if they are the closest ones to it.
Pretty neato eh?
Links
dd-wrt.com
Look at the "supported hardware" section and the "community/forums" section. The "supported hardware" section lists all of the compatible devices and how to flash the firmware to them. Google dd-wrt and subject you are interested in to see if it is in their forum.
Bob in Arcata, California
pages.suddenlink.net/reed
