Linksys router doesn’t support class A subnetting? Read on.
Preliminary note #1: Special thanks to Jay Maynard (K5ZC) for providing the information in this thread that made this possible and Nic with the Stafford group, the brave man that bought a brand new router and was prepared to turn it into a doorstop, all for the good of DSTAR!
Preliminary note #2: Although this message appears to speak to one very specific router model, it is probably that similar processes are available for many other router variants using the links provided here.*** IMPORTANT NOTEBefore you begin, read this document in its entirety. I can’t be held liable for mistakes encountered through someone’s desire to get it done fast. In fact, please don’t hold me liable at all!*** THE ADVENTURE BEGINSLast weekend we were working on assisting in setting up the WW4VA Gateway and I wanted to run through our router experience in some level of detail with you as this will likely save some DSTAR admins some ca$h, at least for now.
Note: even if you have a working DSTAR gateway, you might want to read this to prepare for the case if/when your current router dies on you.
We confirmed the information in this thread – current LinkSys routers no longer support class A subnetting on the internal side of the network (LAN side) but we know earlier variants of some of the same model numbers (eg: the model recommended by ICOM) did because we are using one on the WW4VA repeater. Unfortunately, they don’t now. Obviously the marketing of the lower end router manufacturers (cheapy home routers like Linksys, the cheap line of DLINK, and nameless others) don’t expect that the average user is going to have millions of systems in their house that require unique IP addresses from the router – so for most people class C supporting 255 computers in your house is good enough.
KE5C nails it with his post in this thread so I wanted to go into a bit more detail since we actually had to execute the REMOVAL of the production Linksys firmware in the brand-spanking-new Linksys WR54G Version 6.0 router that Nic bought from Radio Shack. You are reading this correctly, if you are going to install the homebrew router firmware KE5C mentions (located here:
http://www.dd-wrt.com/dd-wrtv2/downloads.php) for this router you MUST following this process for this model of Linksys routers located here:
http://scorpiontek.org/portal/content/view/27/36/) . This process seems very very daunting and dangerous but I can assure you that, at least for the Linksys WR54G Version 6 (and likely several versions of the same model) Router this process is amazingly documented and a beautiful step by step process in:
1. Remove the existing Linksys firmware from the router
2. Installation of the homebrew firmware installer as the default load option for the router
3. Installation of the homebrew firmware available at the DD-WRT website
I should warn you (and the procedure does as well) that you are doing this at your own risk as it, no doubt, voids any warranty you may get with Linksys. The good news is that it turned our class C only router into a fully functional Class A router and
retains the very same look and feel as the Linksys Firmware with a few new slick features fellow geeks are going to love. If you download all the files they tell you to ahead of time and ensure you follow the process TO THE LETTER at the scorpiontek.org site you should not have any problems turning that useless class C into a functional class A.
The forums are exceedingly informative on those two sites regarding the various versions of the homebrew firmwares, what routers they support (they support a bunch), and how to install the firmware.
Side note 1: we tried to use the Linksys admin firmware update utility to load the dd-wrt.com firmware (dd-wrt.v23 SP2) directly but it fails because on this model, the Linksys admin firmware install utility appears smart enough to know that the dd-wrt firmware is NOT a Linksys firmware – thus the need to get rid of the Linksys firmware off the device before you can install a new one. If you try to load the homebrew firmware with the Linksys admin install utility and it fails, don’t worry. It doesn’t hurt anything. We tried it about 10 times and it failed every time with various homebrew firmware versions.
Side note 2: some of the steps can take a while to complete so be patient as you could be looking at a “please wait a few minutes” screen for “a few minutes” or more.
Side note 3: if you are not a least a little bit network saavy and know how to change between dynamic DHCP and static IP, are at least marginally familiar with the Linksys (or whatever your router is) firmware screens, and a teeny bit brave, get some help.
Side note 4: after you are done with everything, you may want to reboot everything and power-cycle your router one last time before going for your final DSTAR configuration setup to make sure everything is coming up clean. Worst case at this point is that you can always reload your original firmware.*** IMPORTANT NOTE ON THE SCORPIONTEK.ORG PROCEDUREThe procedure has you install the dd-wrt.v23 SP2 generic micro firmware. This is a very limited firmware, is not router specific, and doesn’t appear to let you save your settings. Once you have completed the procedure, power-cycled everything, and are in your new firmware configuration screen (the micro generic firmware), you need to now flash in the STANDARD firmware for your router model (v23 SP2 is located here:
http://www.dd-wrt.com/dd-wrtv2/downloads.php) using the admin part of the firmware as you normally would. In fact, now you can flash in just about any firmware you want.
Note: the firmware file names available from dd-wrt reference both the version of the firmware and the model of the router, we just downloaded what appeared the be the latest one and installed that which was the v23 SP2 standard firmware for the WRT54G.
I hope this helps some of you out there in either getting a new DSTAR gateway on the network or formulating a DSTAR hardware recovery plan.
Finally, I would like to express my thanks to Jay, Nic, and the WW4VA club for allowing me to participate in this setup and all the experimentation that went into getting them going. They should be live on the network shortly and we at the WW4EMC club look forward to further testing with them.If you would like to chat about this procedure, feel free to contact me on DSTAR or via email.
73,
Scott Harlow
K0RPX
k0rpx@emergencycommunicators.netDSTAR Admin – WW4EMC repeater (Virginia) – all modules
