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Why do I get periodic dips in the wireless speeds?

I am using a Netgear WNR3500L router to share my internet connection via WiFi to my home computers. My trouble is that I get periodic dips in wireless speeds every 120 seconds (almost exactly every 120 seconds, very regular). I have measured these dips on both a laptop running XP and a stationary computer running ubuntu 11.04. On the laptop (which seems to have a better wifi receiver and therefore better connection) the dips are very brief and not really noticeable unless you continually measure network speeds. On the stationary computer, the dips are much more noticeable, more or less dropping connectivity completely for 5-10 seconds. Plugging in a ethernet cable to the router removes the problem, so the culprit is definitely the wireless.

The router is flashed with Tomato Firmware v1.28.7476 MIPSR2-Toastman-RT K26 USB Ext which seems to work very well for everything else. Does anyone have any suggestions on specific settings to try with Tomato? I would rather not go through the hassle of going back to the original Netgear firmware or DD-WRT if this is some known solvable problem.

Update:
The problem persists even after flashing back to DD-WRT, so it is not Tomato specific.

Update 2:
I just changed my WiFi dongle to a newer and better one. The problem is still there, but now the dips are very shortlived, so they are not really noticeable unless you graph the bandwidth usage. Will try to do some Wireshark sniffing and see if I can find out anything else.

Tomato QoS: Why is some traffic unclassified when there are classifications for it?

Ok, I am trying to tweak my router to give priority to some traffic. My classifications seem to cover just about everything but I still see ~60 to ~80% of the traffic as unclassified:

TCP 192.168.1.100 64137 192.168.1.1 80 Unclassified
TCP 192.168.1.100 64175 192.168.1.1 80 Unclassified
TCP 192.168.1.100 64144 192.168.1.1 443 Unclassified

I assume that the 64### ports are just what my WAP uses to send packets inside my home network. But my classifications seems to cover any traffic for destination ports 80 and 443: (partial list)

TCP      Dst Port: 80,443     High   WWW
TCP/UDP  Dst Port: 1024-65535 Lowest Bulk Traffic

Why do I have so much unclassified traffic if I have a classification that should cover it?

Joining two routers together, but I have no access to the second router, although I know it's IP address and Gateway

I have temporarily moved into a rented apartment for 4 months, which has wireless. The trouble I am having is that the access points here are wifi only and no RJ45 and I need to use RJ45 to connect some equipment that I am working with. I have purchased an RT-N66U and installed Tomato (shibby ver. 1.28) and successfully replaced the existing access point, but now I want to enable the access point that I have replaced as it links wirelessly to 3 others. Can I plug in a cable from the access point to my RT-N66U and get it to access the internet via my router?

I have no access to the existing wireless access point, and don't want to reset it as it's not mine. There is another router situated in the roof somewhere which I also have no access to, but it's supplying my RT-N66U internet and I most definitely have a double-nat, which although isn't the best way of doing things I am limited with what I can do.

Any suggestions on routing tables, vlans etc would be helpful, but I have no experience in these fields before - but I know the tomato firmware can cater for this.

My router is set to IP 10.0.1.1 and dhcp is 10.0.1.100-200 The wireless access point address was 192.168.1.2 but this was assigned by the router in the roof which has the address 192.168.1.1. There is a cable from this router going to a wall socket which I now have my RT-N66u attached to via the WAN port.

I understand it's scruffy and it isn't the way to do things but I have tried to ask for the admin details but as the wireless network is looked after by a third party and nobody knows their details I am stuck with this dilemma.

Network diagram here

Blocking a device from all network traffic, but with specific exceptions

I have a router that runs Tomato, so I have access to iptables. There's a device on my network with an IP address of 192.168.1.100. I don't want it to send data to the Internet except for a very specific case.

Specifically, I don't want it to send outgoing data to the Internet at all except for secure SMTP (TCP port 587 or 465) and even then, just to one SMTP server. Incoming traffic is a concern too, but blocking outbound is more important. It should continue to allow LAN traffic, so packets with an origin and destination of 192.168.1.0/24 are fine.

I don't know much about iptables so I'm not sure how to go about doing this, or if iptables is even the best approach. I've set up rules before that drop packets, but I've never set one up that blocks everything but packets that meet specific requirements.

How would you suggest I go about doing this?

Migrating from DD-WRT to Tomato

Is it possible to switch to the latest version of Tomato on a router that's already running DD-WRT? Using the default Linksys firmware on my WRT54GL v1.1, I had to upload a micro version of DD-WRT first. I imagine that, since I'm now running third-party firmware, I won't have to do that again to make the switch, but I thought I should check so as not to brick it.

This router is taking a back seat to a new AirPort Extreme (for the 'n' capability), but I still want to have the soon-to-be-Tomato device sit between the AirPort Extreme and my modem for the superior traffic graphing.

tomato and dd-wrt alternatives

Is there any other alternative for the most popular custom firmware for the router, dd-wrt and tomato. I have a tp-link wr340g router. And its not supported on both. I want the QOS(quality of service) feature to be added to my routers functions because I only have limited connection speed(.47Mbps). And I am sharing it with 1 person. I want to be able to have a bigger portion of that little .47Mbps.

QoS for variable bandwidth connections

My DSL connection does not have a reliable max speed. I've used Tomato's QoS in the past, and it seems to work, but chokes when the DSL speed decreases lower than the max setting.

If your upload speed varies by much, you will need to be conservative and use 90% of your lowest score.

But this doesn't mean "reserve a certain amount of bandwidth for high priority apps". It actually limits the total bandwidth of the router to whatever I put in the box. If I put a number that's higher than the actual bandwidth for that day, it can't do its job. If I put a number that's too low, it limits everything to lower than what the modem's actually capable of:

For instance, normal speedtest.net results with QoS disabled:

• 2900 kbit/s down 700 kbit/s up
• 3140 kbit/s down 723 kbit/s up

After enabling QoS at 500 kbit/s down 100 kbit/s up to prove that it's limiting everything:

• 64 kbit/s down 459 kbit/s up
• 65 kbit/s down 456 kbit/s up

I really don't want to limit my bandwidth to 50% of the max speed all the time just to make QoS work, but I do want to be able to get priority for SSH stuff and web stuff, and decrease priority for background high-bandwidth stuff. Is there a way to do this? Like when high priority packets are going out, temporarily slow transmission of low priority packets?

Configuring Tomato Web Usage log

I am running Linksys E2000 with TomatoUSB (on the 2nd floor) as a "switch" connected to my main router (d-link 655 with stock firmware on the 1st floor, wireless disabled). All my computers are wired connected to the E2000 and there are some devices (iPod, phones, tab) connected wirelessly. The firmware I am using is the one specificly for E2000 (ver 1.28 beta).

I want to monitor the web usage (not bandwidth) - ip/url people visited etc. I found the web usage configuration, but it's not logging anything. I have left it on for several days and knowing for sure that the computers/devices have been used to browse the web etc - but the "Web Usage" log remains empty.

Is there anything special that I need to configure beyond the loggin config or is it not possible to log web-usage when it's not used as the main router?

Bridged Tomato network - problems with some devices on bridged wired segment

This is my network:

Dotted lines indicate wireless connections, solid lines indicate Ethernet connections.

I used two ASUS routers and Tomato to bridge my network. So I have have two wired segments and a wireless network provided by the main router connected to my cable modem.

Everything seemed to be fine when I set up the bridge last week.

The main .1 router is set up for DHCP and virtually everything is DHCP with reservations by MAC address. The bridge has .2 assigned to it's LAN and it is set in wireless bridge mode. The .2 router is set in bridged mode and connects wirelessly to .1, providing connectivity for all the devices on its Ethernet ports.

But what I'm seeing today is that Pogoplug 2 (.195) cannot seem to get to the Internet.

It cannot ping 192.168.1.1.

It can ping .2 (it's bridge), .199 (wireless Mac), .197 (wired), .196 (wired) etc.

I am connected from .199 to .195 via SSH.

If I use Tomato's tools on the bridge, it can ping .1, 8.8.8.8 etc, so it seems to be fine.

What am I missing here? Seems like something simple.

Pogoplug2 ifconfig:

[root@alarm ~]# ifconfig
eth0: flags=4163<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,MULTICAST>  mtu 1500
        inet 192.168.1.195  netmask 255.255.255.0  broadcast 192.168.1.255
        inet6 fe80::225:31ff:fe05:38bc  prefixlen 64  scopeid 0x20<link>
        ether 00:25:31:05:38:bc  txqueuelen 1000  (Ethernet)
        RX packets 169  bytes 20660 (20.1 KiB)
        RX errors 0  dropped 0  overruns 0  frame 0
        TX packets 89  bytes 11323 (11.0 KiB)
        TX errors 0  dropped 0 overruns 0  carrier 0  collisions 0
        device interrupt 11  

lo: flags=73<UP,LOOPBACK,RUNNING>  mtu 16436
        inet 127.0.0.1  netmask 255.0.0.0
        inet6 ::1  prefixlen 128  scopeid 0x10<host>
        loop  txqueuelen 0  (Local Loopback)
        RX packets 4  bytes 260 (260.0 B)
        RX errors 0  dropped 0  overruns 0  frame 0
        TX packets 4  bytes 260 (260.0 B)
        TX errors 0  dropped 0 overruns 0  carrier 0  collisions 0

A PC on the bridged part is fine - pings 192.168.1.1

OSX, Ubuntu, Windows devices on the bridged segment seem to be fine.

Pogoplug, Raspberry Pi have problems. Problem happens on either Tomato and DD-WRT firmwares. I have had a friend confirm what looks like the same problem with a FreeBSD device (but not a Windows client) on a bridged segment like this with Tomato on Cisco-Linksys routers.

Is this configuration or client defects or sensitivities or what?

Computer no longer connecting wirelessly to router after Tomato clean install

I just installed Tomato firmware (details below) on my wireless-N router and everything appears to be working fine on the router's end. I can connect to the Internet properly with a wired (Ethernet) connection; in fact, that's how I posted this question.

What I cannot do is connect to the router wirelessly in any way. At first, I thought that something was wrong with my wireless security settings, because I read about some incompatibilities between Windows 7 and AES encryption. However, when I changed to TKIP, the issue persisted; when I switched from WPA2 Personal to WEP, the issue persisted; and when I disabled wireless security entirely — just for testing purposes — the issue still persisted.

My Internet search for this issue brought up a lot of old forum and mailing list posts, most of which were useless. The only one that seemed promising suggested disabling Afterburner, but that came disabled by default on my install. I did try enabling it and then disabling it, but it had no apparent effect.

In case it's relevant: before I installed Tomato, I had a somewhat funky install of dd-wrt on the router. The first thing I did after installing Tomato was a full clean of the nvram through the web GUI's Administration → Configuration → Restore Default Configuration menu.

What do I have to do to get wireless running? I only have one computer available at the moment, but I'll try to update later if and when I can borrow more devices for testing.

Assorted specs:

Linksys WRT160N v3
Tomato Firmware v1.28.9054 MIPSR2-beta K26 Mini
Linux kernel 2.6.22.19 and Broadcom Wireless Driver 5.10.147.0 updates

EDIT:
This is a computer issue, not a router issue. Two smartphones with wi-fi connections and another computer are all able to connect to the wireless network with no problems. However, the original computer was able to connect to the same router just fine before Tomato was installed. It has an internal wireless-B/G card, and I had Tomato set up to broadcast G-only, so it should have been compatible. What's the next step I should take in diagnosing the issue?

EDIT 2:
The computer in question was the only device in the house that wasn't set up for wireless-N, so I went out and bought a Wireless-N USB adapter and changed Tomato to be N-only. Using the new adapter, I get connection again. I suppose it's possible that the computer's OEM internal wireless card failed at exactly the same time that I installed Tomato on the router, but that would be one heck of a coincidence. I'll see if I can connect to some other G or B network next time I'm around one....

Configuration for Router Behind Uverse 2Wire

I have a 2Wire Uverse router(RG). I'm not particularly fond of it and want to use it as a modem only. I have a Linksys router with Tomato firmware on it and want that to be configured as the router.

Most of the "guides" I've seen in my searches has been to enable DMZ Plus mode, but I don't see a way to make that work while my router has a static IP address. I played with it for quite some time yesterday and didn't see a way to get it to work. Then I ran across a setting in broadband for configuring another network. I played with that for a little bit but ran out of time and couldn't get it to work.

So my question is for anyone out there who has Uverse and successfully setup a Tomato based firmware router behind the RG. How did you get it configured? I'm sure if I continued playing with it I could get it to work, but if someone out there already has it working then that would make my life easier.

Thoughts? Thanks.

Domain resolving to lan ip address under dynamic dns and tomato

I have recently begun hosting my personal website under a home server using dynamic dns.

The domain is registered under Godaddy, and ZoneEdit as the dynamic dns manager. Everything works well till it reaches my router (with Tomato v1.28). The domain (lets say example.com) translates as follows:

http://www.example.com ---> http://192.168.1.200/wiki/index.php/Main_Page

instead of

http://www.example.com/wiki/index.php/Main_Page

I'm using the in built port forwarding feature in Tomato. The above ofcourse works on a machine connected to the local network.

This happens only when attempting to access the root url i.e. www.example.com, but www.example.com/blog or www.example.com/wiki retain the domain name.

I'm using a centos server, with apache.

Very slow internet with Linksys WRT54GL only in wireless mode (wired is OK)

I bought a new Cisco Linksys WRT54GL router to connect my laptop (running Windows 7) to the internet. I installed Tomato 1.28 firmware on the router.

When I connect the laptop to the router via ethernet cable, everything is fine and I get extremely fast up- and download speeds. When I connect wirelesssly however, websites load extremely slow - it takes dozens of seconds to load a website! <-- This is my question, how can I fix the wireless speed issue?

Gmail for example, is unusable this way. I tried speedtest.net, but this always fails in the upload part of the test so I can't even test the bandwidth (could the fact that it fails in the upload part, not the download part, be an indication what the problem is?!).

I have isolated the problem a bit, I am convinced it has to do either with the router itself, the router settings, or the settings of the wireless connection in Win 7. Because previously, I was using another router by Buffalo and I had no problems whatsoever. I have tried to reproduce the settings from the Bufallo router as closely as possible on the Linksys router (same channel, same encryption etc). The download speed problem only occurs with the Linksys router, and only in wireless mode! When I exchange the Linksys router with the Buffalo router I have here for testing, the wireless speed is up to normal again.

Also, before I had installed the Tomato firmware I had exactly the same problem, so it has nothing to do with the firmware itself.

Notes & things I already tried:

• Changing the channel: does not seem to affect anything, I am also on the same channel (10) which I was previously on when I had a Buffalo router.

• QoS is off.

• Ping to the router itself is OK, ~ 1 ms.

• Some current settings of the linksys router:

• WAN / Internet Type: DHCP
• Wirelesss Mode: Access Point
• B/G Mode: Mixed
• Broadcast: check
• Channel: 10 - 2.457 GHz
• Security: WPA2 Personal
• Encryption: AES

Tomato Firmware on Linksys WRT54GS Firmware Version: v1.50.6

I'm trying to install Tomato and get "Upgrade Failed". Any idea why it's failing?

Speed test wifi connection?

I'm having problems with my internet connection, and I'm pretty sure it's my ISP, but I'd like to rule out the wifi connection between my PC and router.

According to InSSIDER the radio connection is fair, but I'd like to see how this translates into transfer speed. Is there any easy way to test this? (Router is a Linksys WRT54G running tomato).