Author Topic: Routers - which to pick (Read 1593 times)

Saras · « **Reply #20 on:** January 01, 2013, 10:49:59 PM »

Really? Wireless G? Granted that old linksys is a fine router and all that, but it has been a bottleneck on speed since 09 or so.

I'd recommend an Asus RT-N56U, but it's not on your list. Out of your list, I'd go with EA2500, heard a decent amount of praise what concerns it.

gits · « **Reply #21 on:** January 02, 2013, 02:09:15 AM »

I don't think it matters with 2mbps line
^

Freedom Kira · « **Reply #22 on:** January 02, 2013, 03:15:27 AM »

I have ASUS's RT-N16 with Tomato USB installed on it. It's quite excellent.

bloody000 · « **Reply #23 on:** January 02, 2013, 12:45:40 PM »

One thing to keep in mind, while dd-wrt and Tomato have lots of features, they generally have worse (or far worse) routing performance than the original firmware. Every test of dd-wrt/tomato on smallnetbuilder.com I ever read shows this.

kitamesume · « **Reply #24 on:** January 02, 2013, 03:23:53 PM »

^ plus i've started reading that tomato works better than dd-wrt with QoS management, or more like dd-wrt's QoS seems to be broken.

i'd really like to have a working QoS, specially with a stupid slow 2mbps line. i only need to de-prioritize torrent and huge downloads( over 100mb per file ), while prioritize gaming and browsing.

edit: as a follow up, i've been reading on smallnetbuilder for some of the routers on the list (linksys E1200, netgear WNR2000)
and i was like wtf about their simultaneous connections, WNR2000 only had max 200, while linksys had 8142... if torrenting does put up a connection to each seed/peer, it would mean that it'd get saturated easily in just a few torrents up and running =x
im getting worried about the ASUS router, although asus claims 30,000 max sessions on RT-N12. but since i can't find any real review on it its giving me worries, well so far at least.
PS: linksys E1200 is on dd-wrt.

edit2: it seems like ASUS RT-N12 could at least handle up to 2,000 connected P2P, i'm running on the safe side since my torrent is capped at 400 global max connections. 2days till i pick one up, i need more good news to feel satisfactory.

megido-rev.M · « **Reply #25 on:** January 02, 2013, 08:09:48 PM »

I have the N16 as well. It's quite good.

A quick query popped this brief comparison, though I can't vouch for its accuracy.

Saras · « **Reply #26 on:** January 02, 2013, 08:23:32 PM »

Code: [Select]

Quote from: gits on January 02, 2013, 02:09:15 AM

I don't think it matters with 2mbps line
^

Right. That I missed.

kitamesume · « **Reply #27 on:** January 03, 2013, 06:11:17 AM »

as much as i'd want an N16 i don't really see one locally, sucks i know. although i'd only guess of it's price hovering at about $100.

@megido - looking at that fast comparison, i might pick an N12 over an N16 because of two reasons.
Reasons for preferring the N12 over the N16:
1. Cooler operation
2. Smaller footprint
3. Better looking (subjective, I know)
4. Amazing value for such high performance – about 40% of the RT-N16's cost.

as been discussed a few posts back, the living room where the router sits is quite hot.

Freedom Kira · « **Reply #28 on:** January 03, 2013, 08:56:04 AM »

Quote from: bloody000 on January 02, 2013, 12:45:40 PM

One thing to keep in mind, while dd-wrt and Tomato have lots of features, they generally have worse (or far worse) routing performance than the original firmware. Every test of dd-wrt/tomato on smallnetbuilder.com I ever read shows this.

Read some Newegg reviews on ASUS's RT-N16. The responses have been overwhelmingly in favor of Tomato, with lots of complaints about the original firmware just generally being really shitty (and of course, I would expect the R12 to have equally shitty firmware). Pretty much all reviews under four eggs are either using original firmware or have not mentioned flashing it.

If I had not seen such overwhelming support for Tomato, I would not have flashed it in the first place. It's not something I like doing.

megido-rev.M · « **Reply #29 on:** January 04, 2013, 03:45:32 AM »

ASUS was never greatly consistent with the firmwares they push out. Guess I got lucky with the version preloaded in mine

kitamesume · « **Reply #30 on:** January 05, 2013, 09:45:00 AM »

ok i just got the Asus RT-N12 rev.C1, the stock firmware is so-so and much better than the current one that i'm still using, im gonna migrate the settings from the old one.

a few questions though.

1) are there any other private IP address for router use other than 192.168.0.0 | 10.0.0.0 | 172.16.0.0?
2) is this the correct dd-wrt firmware for RT-N12 C1 "don't click"?

Pentium100 · « **Reply #31 on:** January 05, 2013, 11:46:26 AM »

Quote from: kitamesume on January 05, 2013, 09:45:00 AM

1) are there any other private IP address for router use other than 192.168.0.0 | 10.0.0.0 | 172.16.0.0?

No. These are the only ones for private networks. There is also the link local IP range 169.254.0.0, but you should not use it or it may cause problems.
All others are publicly routable or special (say, multicast) IPs and you should not use them in a private network or you will have problems connecting to the "real" IP.

kitamesume · « **Reply #32 on:** January 05, 2013, 12:30:08 PM »

ohh well, i just finished loading the firmware and it was the right one, although the settings is much more confusing, or rather complex.

edit:
~~how do i setup static ip on both wireless and wired clients while maintaining DHCP on other clients with dd-wrt?~~
http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Static_DHCP
quite a round-about method =x well it works at least.

~~also, where the heck is the reboot in this GUI =/~~ command line "reboot"...

edit2:
anyway i fired up the router, and to my surprise ~~my PC(3500~)~~ total connections is hovering at 3800~ connections with a max connection of 4096... ouch? its pretty close to the max connection which i think is bad...
i found a solution though, lurking in dd-wrt forums.

Code: [Select]

echo "16384" > /sys/module/nf_conntrack/parameters/hashsize
nvram set ip_conntrack_max=16384
[save startup]

Pentium100 · « **Reply #33 on:** January 06, 2013, 02:51:58 PM »

Quote from: kitamesume on January 05, 2013, 12:30:08 PM

anyway i fired up the router, and to my surprise ~~my PC(3500~)~~ total connections is hovering at 3800~ connections with a max connection of 4096... ouch? its pretty close to the max connection which i think is bad...
i found a solution though, lurking in dd-wrt forums.

That is good, but it may still fill up after a few days. he reason is that conntrack by default keeps established TCP connections for 5 days (without any packets going trough) before deciding that the connection is really broken and freeing up the memory. This may be good for some protocols (like telnet) that do not send any packets but you would still like to keep the connection open (though normally all currently used protocols support some kind of keepalive or are just not kept idle for days). However, bittorrent is entirely different - it creates lots of connections and does not tear down a lot of them properly (say the other end lost power or crashed, nobody is sending the FIN or RST packet now), so the conntrack table becomes full of useless entries.

To change that you need to do this:
echo 36000 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/netfilter/ip_conntrack_tcp_timeout_established

This makes the tcp connection time out in 10 hours if no packet is going trough. You may need to adjust this if you use protocols that idle for a long time and have no keepalive function. On my current router (Windows Server PC with lots of RAM) it is set to 24 hours, but when I had a Linux router with less RAM I used 1 or 2 hours.

Another one is UDP -
/proc/sys/net/ipv4/netfilter/ip_conntrack_udp_timeout
You can set this to a few minutes (on my router it is set to 1 minute) since UDP is not supposed to idle for a long time and also since UDP cannot tear down the "connection".

kitamesume · « **Reply #34 on:** January 06, 2013, 03:13:06 PM »

RT-N12 rev.C1 has 32MB of ram, which i think can handle up to 32K of connections, i won't risk it though.

2Hrs timeout sounds fine, although would this work instead? both are set to 300seconds at the moment, i'm waiting for some dropout connection first and if the 16K connection upperlimit still has enough space to spare.

Quote

IP Filter Settings (adjust these for P2P)
TCP Congestion Control
Maximum Ports
(Default: 4096, Range: 256 - 4096)
TCP Timeout (in seconds)
(Default: 3600, Range: 1 - 86400)
UDP Timeout (in seconds)
(Default: 120, Range: 1 - 86400)

Pentium100 · « **Reply #35 on:** January 06, 2013, 08:05:52 PM »

Quote from: kitamesume on January 06, 2013, 03:13:06 PM

RT-N12 rev.C1 has 32MB of ram, which i think can handle up to 32K of connections, i won't risk it though.

A conntrack entry takes up about 310B, so 32K entries would take up about 9.5MB, though the RAM is also used for other stuff, not just conntrack.

Quote

2Hrs timeout sounds fine, although would this work instead? both are set to 300seconds at the moment, i'm waiting for some dropout connection first and if the 16K connection upperlimit still has enough space to spare.

5 minutes may be a bit too short for TCP, for example if you use telnet or ssh.

kitamesume · « **Reply #36 on:** January 06, 2013, 11:45:42 PM »

Quote

Total Available - 80%
26160 kB / 32768 kB
Free - 45%
11888 kB / 26160 kB
Used - 55%
14272 kB / 26160 kB
Buffers - 9%
1344 kB / 14272 kB
Cached - 27%
3916 kB / 14272 kB
Active - 6%
915 kB / 14272 kB
Inactive - 5%
670 kB / 14272 kB

this is the level of ram on my router @ 901connections, assuming that the free ram of 11,888kB is correct, i can hold as many as 32K connections.

i use neither, although i'll push it to 24hrs on both TCP and UDP and set connections to 32K for now, see if it crashes or anything.

edit: ok, it crashed at about 3hrs after setting it as such, i dunno at what connection count it did but i'm at 90% at 5,500~ connections.
i'm gonna try [ 24hrs TCP | 3hrs UDP | 12,288 connections ] this time.
edit2:

Quote

i'm gonna try [ 24hrs TCP | 3hrs UDP | 12,288 connections ] this time.

6hrs and no crashes so far, seems like its a good setup, although hovering at 96% ram usage with only 8K connections is kind of making me worry.
also, does changing the congestion control to anything else help improve internet consistency? i've set it to HTCP currently and its been good so far as well.
to note though my internet is quite leaky, dropping packets and such.
edit3: ~~i'm gonna try out westwood TCP, it favors good consistency and efficiency on leaky pipelines, might be a good decision.~~ tried HTCP | Vegas | cubic | westwood - vegas gave the most consistent connection...

Pentium100 · « **Reply #37 on:** January 07, 2013, 07:20:43 PM »

3 hours for UDP is way too long - set it to 5 minutes or so, even the default isn't that big.

kitamesume · « **Reply #38 on:** January 07, 2013, 08:05:57 PM »

i'm fiddling with it, most likely i'll set it to 30mins later on.

i'm fine-tuning the settings first, taking off all the unnecessary services to reduce overall ram/cpu usage =P
i'll need to set a few static IPs too since a few of my PCs hosts game servers (minecraft, etc.)

edit: speaking of improvements, OMG i can load <2MB images almost instantly! mangas <33
looks like either the TCP congestion control or QoS is working, Utorrent and the other apps aren't interfering with my browsing at all.

CappinHoff · « **Reply #39 on:** January 18, 2013, 01:37:49 PM »

DD-WRT doesn't make the router a beast, it more or less adds more router control options. It does not increase performance. Though it does make the gui for the router better and more user friendly. I suppose that makes it run better(in theory).