Netgear's open wireless-G router for open source hackers

Hello,



NETGEAR Launches Open Source Wireless-G Router Enabling Linux Developers
and Enthusiasts to Create Firmware for Specialized Applications

Open Source Wireless-G Router (WGR614L) Delivers Higher Processing Power
and More Memory for a Wide Variety of Customized Applications and is
Supported by a Dedicated and Responsive Open Source Community


SANTA CLARA, Calif. - June 30, 2008 - NETGEAR, Inc. (NASDAQGM: NTGR), a
worldwide provider of technologically advanced, branded networking
solutions, today announced the launch of the Open Source Wireless-G Router
(WGR614L), a full-featured wireless router designed to serve as a reliable,
high-performance platform to support a wide variety of applications created
by the open source community.

The high-performance WGR614L, which is "Works with Windows Vista"
certified, features a 240 MHz MIPS32 CPU core with 16 KB of instruction
cache, 16 KB of data cache, 1 KB of pre-fetch cache, and incorporates 4 MB
of flash memory and 16 MB of RAM.  In addition to an external 2 dBi
antenna, the WGR614L integrates a second internal diversity antenna to
provide enhanced performance and range.  The router supports free open
source Linux-based Tomato and DD-WRT firmware and will soon support
OpenWRT.

The WGR614L is supported by a dedicated open source router community,
www.myopenrouter.com, which provides open source firmware downloads,
forums, blogs, articles, source code, and user guides, and provides users
with dedicated and responsive support by open source experts.  "The launch
of the WGR614L is significant to the open source community as there has
been a growing demand for more powerful platforms to support a rapidly
growing segment of open source enthusiasts that are seeking to create more
robust, commercial-grade applications for their wireless routers," stated
Som Pal Choudhury, senior product line manager for advanced wireless at
NETGEAR.  "In addition to adding a more powerful processor and additional
memory to the proven Broadcom platform, the most popular open source
firmware, Tomato and DD-WRT, are available on WGR614L making it easier for
users to develop a wide variety of applications. An important feature of
our offering is the dedicated and responsive open source community which
enables users to easily exchange ideas and troubleshoot issues. New
applications currently being developed by this community include traffic
shaping applications, redirections to captive portals for hotspots, guest
access via a separate SSID, upstream and downstream QOS, and intelligent
bandwidth monitoring."

The NETGEAR Open Source Wireless-G Router (WGR614L), which features one
10/100 Internet WAN port and a four-port 10/100 LAN switch, incorporates an
802.11g access point to support wireless connectivity at speeds of up to 54
Mbps.  The WGR614L supports static and dynamic routing with TCP/IP, VPN
pass-through (IPSec, L2TP), NAT, PPTP, PPPoE, DHCP (client and server), and
Bigpond.  A Stateful Packet Inspection (SPI) firewall protects the network
from intruders, and the wireless connection is secured with support for
40-, 128- and 152-bit WEP encryption, Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA),
WPA2-PSK, and Wi-Fi Protected Setup (WPS).  Additional security features
include: Exposed Host (DMZ), MAC address authentication, URL content
filtering, logs and e-mail alerts of Internet activity.

The NETGEAR Open Source Wireless-G Router (WGR614L) is backed by a one-year
hardware warranty and is available now via select retailers, direct
marketers, e-commerce sites and value added resellers at a retail price in
the U.S. of $69.

About NETGEAR, Inc.

NETGEAR (NASDAQGM: NTGR) designs technologically advanced, branded
networking solutions that address the specific needs of small and medium
business and home users. The company's product offerings enable users to
share Internet access, peripherals, files, digital multimedia content and
applications among multiple personal computers and other Internet-enabled
devices. As an ENERGY STAR partner, NETGEAR offers products that
prevent greenhouse gas emissions by meeting strict energy-efficiency
specifications set by the U.S. government. NETGEAR is headquartered in
Santa Clara, Calif. For more information, visit the company's Web site at
www.netgear.com or call (408) 907-8000.

© 2008 NETGEAR, Inc. NETGEAR and the NETGEAR Logo are registered
trademarks of NETGEAR, Inc. in the United States and/or other
countries. Other brand and product names are trademarks or registered
trademarks of their respective holders. Information is subject to change
without notice. All rights reserved. Actual data throughput will vary from
maximum signal rates stipulated. Network conditions and environmental
factors, including volume of network traffic, building materials and
construction, and network overhead, lower actual data throughput.

What I'd like to see is a completely unbrickable router platform for Tomato/*WRT with descent
performance. It is way too easy to brick routers when reflashing them. Reboot too fast after
the flash - *poof*. Choose the wrong image - *poof*. Choose a version that happens to be
incompatible with your particular revision of the hardware - *poof*. Select a bad combination
of settings in the web interface - *poof*.

Most of the times it's possible to "unbrick" by doing a series of "reset nvram" button
presses, but too often even that isn't possible and you'll have to get special hardware and
solder stuff on the motherboard to re-flash.

What is needed is a router with a REAL "reset to factory defaults" button, that restores ALL
flashable components and CMOS to a re-flashable state, nothing excluded.

> What I'd like to see is a completely unbrickable router platform


As long as you have jtag access to the board's chipset/flash then it shouldn't be a big deal
at all. It's what I got to do at work when a programmer fubars a box. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JTAG

If you want to play around with Linux or programming other types of embedded devices it's a
life saver. The only downside is that some manufacturers only provide proprietary hardware and
drivers for windows.

This is what the DBoard is for OpenMoko 
http://wiki.openmoko.org/wiki/Neo1973_Debug_Board_v3

So if you want something that is friendly for hackers look for easy access to jtag port,
adapters, and documentation. (or equivalent) You may have to look up the actual parts on the
board and go to the chipset's manufacturer's website and such to get everything you need, but
this isn't a big deal. As long as you know which pins on the board are the jtag stuff.

Or maybe you may end up with a situation like many BIOS boards were you have a removable chip
that you'd need a special programmer for. Which is fine, as long as it's all documented and
the hardware for doing that is affordable.

> What I'd like to see is a completely unbrickable router platform
...
> What is needed is a router with a REAL "reset to factory defaults"
> button, that restores ALL flashable components and CMOS to a re-flashable
> state, nothing excluded.

That means that you need about twice as much flash as you would otherwise have, which is
unrealistic on cost grounds in most markets (though I do know of some more "professional"
devices that work that way).

What is possible, however, is to have a small bootloader that isn't easily overwritten.  The
NSLU2 has a version of RedBoot for this.  When started up with a button held down in a
particular way [so you need the $ for at least one button!] this bootloader listens on the
network for instructions to write to the flash.  Even if you write garbage, you can still
repeat the process.

Whether or not you need twice as much flash depends on how capable the factory image is. If
the factory image is just a bootloader, and pretty dang generic, you can do it with a small
amount of ROM. In fact, the AT91SAM7 series does that whole thing on chip (it's got a USB
bootloader in the chip's ROM, and if you assert the "erase" pin, it clears the flash and runs
that bootloader). If the USB and that pin are accessible, you pretty much can't brick it
except by damaging the chips.

It doesn't really work if you want a locked-down device, since the bootloader won't enforce
signed-image requirements, and it wouldn't work for users who want their hardware to route
packets out of the box, but it'd be fine for this sort of device.

9/10 you can reflash these things from the serial port - these things tend to have boot
loaders capable of receiving new flash via TFTP (there's also JTAG, but that's a bit too
extreme for most of us).

What's needed is for the vendors to provide an interface to the serial port, e.g. by including
a cheap TTL-serial <-> USB convertor...

The Linksys/Cisco WRT54GL has twice as much flash memory (8MB) for the same price.  The other
specs are essentially identical: 16MB RAM, 4+1 ports 10/100 ethernet with wireless, Broadcom
(MIPS) 200MHz CPU.  The physical form factor is different.  The lack of USB2.0 ports is a
glaring omission for both boxes.

Where do you get the idea that the WRT54GL has 8 MB of flash? Wikipedia thinks it has 4 MB. It
looks like the new thing is a slightly faster processor replacement for the WRT54GL with a new
number to reflect the different focus.

I owned the non-open-source version of this router. It was a piece of junk. It constantly
dropped connections. This was my first router, so I thought this was typical--I thought it was
interference from other routers, from the microwave...I moved the router around, which didn't
help. Then I paid three times more for a DLink, and it is rock stable. Looks like the average
Amazon.com reviewer doesn't have better luck with this router either.

I doubt open source firmware will improve this piece of crap. Go try the Linksys WRT54GL
instead.

i too have the closed-source version and it works fine, though i only use it as an access
point and only with one or two wireless clients at a time.

when used daily, it would need to be power-cycled about once a month (the activity lights
would blink acknowledging receipt of traffic, but the router wouldn't route the traffic
to/from the wireless side).  now it gets used less frequently (two or three times a month) and
only needs to be power-cycled every month or two (~1.5 months).  i've benchmarked
single-wireless-client throughput overnight and had no problems with the router surviving
that, so maybe it depends on your specific use-case.

i even have a shell script for cacti to scrape the router's statistics/counters from the web
interface, so the closed-source router does everything i want, even in lieu of "advanced
features" like snmp (though admittedly, i have limited requirements).

i bought a buffalo WHR-G54S two years ago, but it's still in the box as the desktop linux
router/firewall it was meant to eventually replace still works great (if it ain't broke, then
don't fix it).

My ASUS WL-500G Premium has 16MB of flash, 32 MB RAM, 2xUSB2 ports, 264 MHz CPU. Both the
Linksys WRT54GL and the Netgear fall behind. Runs rock solid with OpenWrt. It's the best home
router money can get.

The flash memory on these devices generally hangs off a word-addressable local bus from the
CPU, 
so it is relatively expensive NOR flash. The flash memory in your cheap USB drive is NAND
flash, 
which is only block addressable, like a hard drive. Most CPUs require NOR flash to boot from 
because it looks like regular memory. It would likely be more expensive to include both NOR
and 
NAND flash rather than just putting a little NOR flash down and calling it a day.

You're generally right about NOR flash being needed to boot, but some vendors support copying
NAND flash into RAM so it can be booted without needing NOR flash - see
http://www.internetnews.com/infra/article.php/2224021 for Samsung and Symbian collaborating to
deliver this.  You do need a smarter flash controller though.

You're right, my mistake. It's 8 MB flash, not 16.

Anyway, I hooked up an old 256 MB USB thumbdrive to it, and with a little hack I use it as the
root fs for Openwrt, giving me more than enough space for additional apps :)

Ok, netgear is playing nicely now.  So why do I buy their hardware vs the Linksys WRT54GL?
The Linksys has a very long history built up by now and the specs and price of both are pretty
much equal.

Somebody wants me to jump to their camp there are some things they could do.  Populate the
serial port and JTAG with actual headers for a start.  Add the max3232 and a DB9 on the back
and I'm a really happy dude.  More flash/ram are of course big product features that open up
so many additional uses for a small router/computer.  Add an expansion header and make i2c,
SPI, etc access available.  Not asking for major additions of hardware, just making otherwise
unused features in the SoC easy to get at.

In general, taking an aging platform and making the source tree available for it is a good
start.  Going the extra mile to make it friendly to hacking would be great.

So how is this news ? Sounds like a blueprint-copy of the WRT54GL that's been available for
several YEARS. The hardware doesn't sound much upgraded either.

How about a bit more RAM, and a bog-standard USB-port or two ? That way it's trivial to insert
a usb-stick if you want space for more software.