Posted: Thu Dec 09, 2010 1:15 Post subject: ESR-9850 DD-WRT status update request
Hi all,
After the demise of my Belkin N1 Vision, following years in waiting for it to get DD-WRT, I moved on to one of these. My brief layman's review is that it is an impressive piece of kit, with many pluses but also some minus: in my experience, after a month of service, I find wireless performance and DNS stability to be somewhat flaky. Also, I'm not much fond of the web interface, which I found confusing and cumbersome.
I already contacted jwbaynham via PM to declare my willingness to contribute financially to acquire one of these units for dispatch to DD-WRT -- although I didn't much appreciate the sarcasm about free riders made by one of the mods in this same thread, because not everyone lives in Germany, and the times are especially rough elsewhere...
By reading the thread here, I saw that chateau swiftly manged to get JTAG access to the unit and was able to do a lot of testing (which BTW I find highly commendable, even if in the end it doesn't result in a compatible DD-WRT build: way to go, mate, and thanks).
On a final note, I Googled around and am under the impression that the unit is Telnet capable, but such functionality has been hidden from end users. Has any one come across a way to get to the CLI on his ESR9850? I think it would do a lot of good, as the less savvy/brave among us could then do a little testing too.
I saw that chateau swiftly manged to get JTAG access
The unit has 8 pins that may be JTAG but I never explored that and did not obtain JTAG access.
Quote:
I Googled around and am under the impression that the unit is Telnet capable
No telnet that I am aware of. The only ports open are 80, 53 and one other that I have forgotten. No port 23.
Using the serial port and option 4 during uboot will put you in a command line interface but you are limited on what can be done. No way that I was able to find to access folders. Was able to finally brick the unit with a couple of dumb commands in this mode.
Quote:
I didn't much appreciate the sarcasm about free riders
The guy that made that comment has been very helpful to myself and others in several posts on various routers. Cut him some slack since up to that point nobody had contributed much of anything to the ESR-9850.
Quote:
I find wireless performance and DNS stability to be somewhat flaky
I have had two of these routers running factory firmware, one was in service for several months (before I bricked it) and was rock solid in all areas. The second one has been running now for a couple of weeks and has worked well also. EDIT: Forgot to mention that even a bricked ESR-9850 makes a nice 4 port Gibabit switch so all is not lost.
If you are having DNS problems, look under SYSTEM, LAN. There are several DNS options to consider that may help.
I like the router and really would like to see DD-WRT on it as well but the factory firmware has several neat features that I have not seen on other routers.
Posted: Tue Dec 14, 2010 22:28 Post subject: Sorry :oops:
chateau wrote:
Midas wrote:
I saw that chateau swiftly manged to get JTAG access
The unit has 8 pins that may be JTAG but I never explored that and did not obtain JTAG access.
I meant serial access -- after some more research, I now see these are 2 different beasts, something I was unaware of when I wrote this...
chateau wrote:
Midas wrote:
I Googled around and am under the impression that the unit is Telnet capable
No telnet that I am aware of. The only ports open are 80, 53 and one other that I have forgotten. No port 23.
Using the serial port and option 4 during uboot will put you in a command line interface but you are limited on what can be done. No way that I was able to find to access folders. Was able to finally brick the unit with a couple of dumb commands in this mode.
Sad to hear that -- about the lack of telnet and about your bricked kit. But thanks for keeping me from embarking on another wild goose chase...
chateau wrote:
Midas wrote:
I didn't much appreciate the sarcasm about free riders
The guy that made that comment has been very helpful to myself and others in several posts on various routers. Cut him some slack since up to that point nobody had contributed much of anything to the ESR-9850.
Of course I will. I'm just a noob here, venting some idle opinions... you guys are the real pros.
chateau wrote:
Midas wrote:
I find wireless performance and DNS stability to be somewhat flaky
I have had two of these routers running factory firmware, one was in service for several months (before I bricked it) and was rock solid in all areas. The second one has been running now for a couple of weeks and has worked well also. EDIT: Forgot to mention that even a bricked ESR-9850 makes a nice 4 port Gibabit switch so all is not lost.
If you are having DNS problems, look under SYSTEM, LAN. There are several DNS options to consider that may help.
I like the router and really would like to see DD-WRT on it as well but the factory firmware has several neat features that I have not seen on other routers.
The DNS options I have right now: "First DNS" is set to "From ISP" and the "Second DNS" is set to "DNS relay". This seems to be the only way it works, but whenever I fiddle with something I end up having to reboot the router.
The thing is I have built myself a somewhat convoluted network setup and I'm really keen on simplifying, in order to have better oversight. I'll try to explain: I have a Sitecom DC-224 modem/router (cross-flashed to a more stable and recent Billion firmware) acting as ADSL modem; the EnGenius ESR-9850 has its WAN interface connected to a LAN port of the modem and its IP is on the modem's DMZ; this makes impossible to access the modem's web interface through the LAN and I have to get a laptop wired to it to be able to check it; since I live in an old house with thick walls, I had to get a Longshine LCS-WA3-50 AP for the living room downstairs, for multimedia and couch surfing purposes; I also have a few other wired devices (NAS, LAN printer, etc.). Managing this setup is getting to be too much for my humble networking knowledge...
An example: the modem/router seems to have acquired the capability of having one of its ports in bridge mode, while retaining routing functionality for the rest. I'm considering configuring it to be on a different subnet and then plug an additional cable to link it to a LAN port on the EnGenius, getting thus a double connection allowing me to access the modem/router via LAN... (of course this will require some kind of static routing, right?)
My guess is that DD-WRT would make all of this much more flexible...
I have a Sitecom DC-224 modem/router (cross-flashed to a more stable and recent Billion firmware) acting as ADSL modem; the EnGenius ESR-9850 has its WAN interface connected to a LAN port of the modem and its IP is on the modem's DMZ; this makes impossible to access the modem's web interface through the LAN
Not sure about your equipment but I have a DSL modem that is setup for PPPOE (does the login connection to ISP) and with a LAN address of 192.168.100.1 and DHCP server turned on.
My ESR-9850 WAN (dynamic) gets an IP Address from the DSL modem in the subnet range of 192.168.100.xxx
The LAN IP address of my ESR-9850 is 192.168.1.1 and my DHCP clients get an IP address in the range of 192.168.1.xxx and any of them can access the WEB interface of the ESR-9850 at 192.168.1.1 or the WEB interface of the modem at 192.168.100.1
The ESR-9850 DNS is set as you described of ' From ISP ' and ' DNS Relay (192.168.1.1) and everything works.
As you noted your ESR-9850 is in your modem's DMZ and mine is not.
I am running the latest V2 firmware from Engenius.
Last edited by chateau on Thu Dec 16, 2010 0:04; edited 1 time in total
Joined: 14 Jun 2007 Posts: 41 Location: Germany/Gießen
Posted: Wed Dec 15, 2010 22:51 Post subject:
Ok, i ordered a ESR9850 from Linkecomputer/HK on the 29th November, it reached me this morning. I payed 65€ including transport. Interestingly there was no customy duty, maybe because the paket was declared as a gift with a value of 20us...
I know would volunteer to order the device for the DD-WRT team and send it to them, but i wouldnt want to pay it alone. Earlyer in this Thread some people mentioned that they would offer to donate some money for this purpose, maybe those people can contact me via PM so we can work something out.
So far i got one another person willing to also donate some money to buy a 9850 for the DD-WRT Crew
Have you checked with DD-WRT to see if they have one already?
Nope, i thought they maybe would write it into this thread, but i think i will just aks the DD-WRT guy who already wrote in this Thread.
It is better if you write an email (not pm) to Brainslayer and ask him, he has indicated to me that he may have the hardware already and that the problem is how to do a factory to dd-wrt firmware that can be loaded via the factory firmware web gui.
Engenius has a special way of loading firmware and with limited size for the linux kernel when updating via the web gui. _________________ Kernel panic: Aiee, killing interrupt handler!
Joined: 22 Jun 2007 Posts: 277 Location: Physically: Somewhere in time and space / Mentally: As lost as the next person
Posted: Mon Dec 20, 2010 9:32 Post subject:
LOM wrote:
Schwarzie wrote:
chateau wrote:
Quote:
So far i got one another person willing to also donate some money to buy a 9850 for the DD-WRT Crew
Have you checked with DD-WRT to see if they have one already?
Nope, i thought they maybe would write it into this thread, but i think i will just aks the DD-WRT guy who already wrote in this Thread.
It is better if you write an email (not pm) to Brainslayer and ask him, he has indicated to me that he may have the hardware already and that the problem is how to do a factory to dd-wrt firmware that can be loaded via the factory firmware web gui.
Engenius has a special way of loading firmware and with limited size for the linux kernel when updating via the web gui.
Thanks for the info LOM!
I do hope it can be worked out as THIS IS a really good unit in my own opinion.
Yes it is a good bang for buck router. And surprisingly good performer as well.
Does 50,000 max simultaneous connections and has good throughput if you enable HNE.
I'm curious of when DD-wrt becomes compatible; will HNE be available still ?
HNE is some sort of hardware integrated inside that makes packet filtering much faster with the firewall enabled on router. Makes throughput better as well :x
HNE cannot be enabled the same time that QOS is as well. So you have to chose between one or the other.
