Announcing OpenWrt/MLPPP - multilink firmware for consumer routers - Caneris & Acanac

[D. Hugh Redelmeier]

| From: Lennart Sorensen <lsorense-1wCw9BSqJbv44Nm34jS7GywD8/FfD2ys at public.gmane.org>

| Actually some DIR-825 rev B seem to have 64MB according to the dd-wrt
| developers.  Some have 32MB.  No one seems to know why this is.

Nice!  It would be nice to know if you could some how tell before you
buy.

| Gig is nice.

| USB could be nice.

I forgot to mention another interesting cheap choice: the TP-Link
TL-WR1043ND.  It is available several places, but this looks to be the
cheapest local source at the moment ($52.99 with free delivery in
the GTA):
  <http://www.bewawa.com/tp-link-ultimate-wireless-n-300mbps-gigabit-router-w-3-detachable-antennas-wr1043nd.html>

This seems to be:
- all atheros
- slower CPU (only 400MHz, not 600MHz like the others we were
  discussing)
- 1G WAN and LAN ethernet
- one USB 2.0 port
- 32M RAM, 8M flash
- support in OpenWRT tree
  <http://wiki.openwrt.org/inbox/tp-link.tl-wr1043nd>

I have no experience with this router or even with this brand.  (I was
going to say "manufacturer", but brands and manufacturers are not
isomorphic.)  I read a comment somewhere that TP-Link makes low cost
knock-offs of other companies products so there is a lack of coherence
to their product line as a whole.


How much does CPU crunch matter in these devices?

Some people have said that routers with USB ports make bad file
servers because USB takes considerable CPU and router CPUs are not up
to saturating a drive -- I don't know if this is true.  Some routers
(Asus) have defective USB ports that don't even support high speed USB
(contrary to their spec sheets).

I don't imagine that the CPU is involved directly in the switching of
packets.  If it were, then 1G ethernet might put new loads on the CPU.
Actually routing the packet surely does involve the CPU so the faster
CPU may be useful there.  Maybe the new ADSL2+ service could make the
faster CPU worthwhile.

Bulk crypto should be offloaded from the CPU.  It is in at least some
of these consumer routers but I'm not sure which and I'm not sure
which crypto hardware is available to open source.  If the CPU is
doing crypto, the faster CPU would be helpful.

Without measurement, guesses about CPU requrements are just that.
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