Tomato on Asus RT-N16 router

Hardware
Networking
Security
Author

Vinh Nguyen

Published

June 6, 2010

Recently I've been playing with DD-WRT as my firmware of choice for my main router at home and the one I use as a wireless bridge. I recently purchased an Asus RT-N16 for a variety of reasons:

  1. Gigabit ethernet,
  2. DD-WRT,
  3. 2 usb ports (for NAS and printers),
  4. Wireless N, and
  5. Great with bittorrent.

Reason 1 was the real reason I wanted a new router since I have a NAS connected to it via ethernet, and I plan on getting an HTPC soon (connected either wirelessly or through ethernet) and/or some net top boxes that can connect to the NAS (I'm tired of copying things to USB). Reason 3 wasn't too much of a concern anymore since I recently bought an Acer NAS with Ubuntu server loaded on (this derserves its own post). I've been hearing this thing called tomato that is supposedly even better than DD-WRT. Been wanting to try it, especially since it is supposed to work well on the Asus router, especially to get the USB support (don't think USB is supported in DD-WRT, but it's a random guess since DD-WRT is great and has a large community supporting it). I decided to load this (currently beta) mod of Tomato (don't use this since it does not support the NT-R16). Had trouble loading it after flashing the router to DD-WRT. Turns out I need an exact version of DD-WRT loaded first. Follow this guide to get it going.

Note: I had a problem getting wireless working with my Macbook. Things worked when I flashed the openvpn version of tomato with TKIP/AES encryption in WPA/WPA2 (think this part is the answer).

Also: To do a factory reset (erase NVRAM?) on the Asus, all I have to do is unplug router, press on WPS button, plug router, and release WPS button. Don't think I have to do the 30-30-30 reset (don't even know if that works on here).

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