[Cerowrt-devel] ADSL Gateways using OpenWRT

[Fred Stratton]

I have flashed an WBMR-HP-G300H with BB RC2, getting it working on the 
day RC3 appeared. This connects apparently successfully to a WNDR3800 
running CeroWRT with standard dhcp/dhcpv6 configuration on ge00

I have yet to test all situations in which ipv6 connectivity between the 
two devices might be lost.

The impetus for doing this was to move away from a very stable bridged 
device and pppoe authetication on the WNDR3800, in the hope that the 
henet tunnel endpoint, moved to the WBMR-HP-G300H, might update cleanly 
with ipv4 address changes from the ISP.

This has not happened. I run a cron job to reauthenticate the tunnel at 
intervals: the ISP-provided ipv4 address may change 3 times a day.

The Buffalo WBMR-HP-G300H has an AR9 series SoC, with 64MB RAM and 32 MB 
flash. It only has 2.4 GHz wireless, which I have disabled. It supports 
ADSL protocols only.

In Europe, it is roughly twice the price of the TP-Link TD-W8970, which 
has an VR9 chip, 64MB RAM, 8MB flash and 2.4 Hz wireless only.

However, the Buffalo can be flashed via dd-wrt without adding a serial 
port, necessary to install OpenWRT on a TD-W8970 or any other device, 
including all offering VDSL protocol connectivity.

Even after downloading the package repository, it took 5 attempts to 
install cleanly offline. The device behaves similarly to the TD-W8970 
with TP-Link firmware in terms of line stability. The ISP DSLAM reports 
itself as Infineon.

The wiki lists 2 possible flash layouts: this device had a third one. 
The OpenWRT image comes with annex b firmware installed. This must be 
removed as an initial step for the installation to succeed.

Apart from these two devices, the BT HomeHub 2b or ECI OpenReach \r 
version1 CPE fibre box are OpenWRT installation candidates.

The Buffalo device -now 4 years old- is the only one with 32MB flash.  
None have 5 GHz wireless.