Upgrading firmware on a Linksys WRT54GS to DD-WRT 
Sunday, March 16, 2008, 05:20 PM - Wireless
Posted by Goonda
Recently I upgraded my old linksys WRT54GS from the Linksys suppled firmware to the spiffy DD-WRT linux-based distribution so I could more effectively troubleshoot problems with my pain-in-the-ass cable modem service. Since Linksys has gotten purchased by a certain networking giant, each subsequent hardware revision of the WRT54G/WRT54GS series has gotten smaller and smaller amounts of RAM and Flash. The most plausible reason for crippling these $40-$50 dollar routers is that with an alternate firmware like DD-WRT, suddenly these cheap boxes are capable of much greater functionality like Quality-of-Service (QoS) bandwidth management, policy routing, IPv6 support, wireless captive portal, login access via SSH/telnet, third party packages, and much more. In other words, they might be able to start cannibalizing the revenue stream from their more expensive big brothers.

Luckily, the router I had was WRT54GS revision v1.1 which has a whopping 32M of RAM and 8M of flash which can run the DD-WRT standard distribution. Make sure to very carefully check the supported devices list to make sure your router is supported before you start, so you don't brick your router!!

Before beginning, make sure to review the DD-WRT Installation Wiki.

Upgrading to the DD-WRT Standard distribution dd-wrt.v23_sp2_standard.zip
was a two step process. When you unzip the zipfile, pay special attention to the file labeled 'hwsupport.txt' as it may contain special instructions for your hardware. In my case it stated:

3.) Linksys WRT54G/GS (any version) flashing notes:
---------------------------------------------------
-For upgrading from the original Linksys firmware, please use the generic mini version (dd-wrt.vXX_mini_generic.bin) and flash
it from the web GUI interface. After this first flashing you can change to any other distribution, if you want.
-For flashing via the web GUI interface, always use the included 'generic' binaries. The other Linksys router specific binarie
s are only meant for tftp upgrades.

This meant I had to go back and download the Mini distribution dd-wrt.v23_sp2_mini.zip
from the website and flash that first. The flashing process was uneventful, brought up the web interface from the standard linksys distribution and selected the mini distribution above. Flashing took a minute or two, and then rebooted into the DD-WRT mini distribution. The default login is root with a password of admin.

Initially the web interface would not come up although I could ping the router which caused me some fear I had bricked it. However after disconnecting the power cable while holding the reset button (See also DD-WRT Reset and Reboot ) did the trick and I was able to bring up the web interface.

Then I was able to select the standard DD-WRT distribution and using the same web process to upgrade. After the last reboot I was able to login to my new more capable router!

I've been having some fun playing with SNMP, Macupd, rflow, SSH, the flash filesystem (jffs2), and other items which will be subject of future blog entries. Happy hacking!

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