WL-500g Premium Howto Part One

[marcnesium]

What is it for?
This is a little "HowTo" for new Users of the Asus WL-500g Premium. It's a synopsis of my own experiences in setting up this box with Oleg's firmware "WL500gp-1.9.2.7-7f-pre4.trx". Thanks to Oleg fort his great work and thanks to all users of this forum, because almost every information I gathered comes from this site here (including the postings from macsat).
Comment: I tried to record every step of setting up the box, so I hope the amount of typos and principal faults is finite. And please be forbear with my grammar and orthography - English is not my native language..
In general: Any corrections, comments, improvements or suggestions are welcome!
2nd comment: principally you have to save every changes on flash fliesystem before you reboot with

 flashfs save && flashfs commit && flashfs enable && reboot

but you can execute more than one of this sections and commit changes to flash at the end, unlike I write you have to flash.

To get access
First of all you've got to get access to your box. Therefore I use Putty, you can get it here: http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~s.../download.html
If you didn't disabled telnet on the Asus-configuration site, you can access your box by opening a telnet-session with IP 192.168.1.1, Port 23, username "admin" and password "admin" (if you haven't changes yet, but you should).
Now you are connected to your box. You can try some commands to play a bit around: top, ps, df, free...

Install ssh-deamon
So, you have access, but with telnet this connection is not encrypted, so we will establish a ssh-connection. Therefore we need to install dropbear.
Create the dropbear-directory:

mkdir -p /usr/local/etc/dropbear

Generate dropbear-keys; it may take a few seconds:

dropbearkey -t dss -f /usr/local/etc/dropbear/dropbear_dss_host_key
dropbearkey -t rsa -f /usr/local/etc/dropbear/dropbear_rsa_host_key

Create the script-directory:

mkdir -p /usr/local/sbin/

Create the post-boot script-file

echo "#!/bin/sh" >> /usr/local/sbin/post-boot

Mark post-boot-file as executable:

chmod +x /usr/local/sbin/post-boot

Start dropbear in post-boot-script:

echo "dropbear" >> /usr/local/sbin/post-boot

You can start dropbear manually to try it out, but we have to reboot anyway:

dropbear

Save changes in flash and reboot:

flashfs save && flashfs commit && flashfs enable && reboot

Extend RAM to 32MB
After flashing Oleg's FW on your box, it has by default 16MB RAM, but on the PCB are 32MB. By changing some NVRAM variables you can make the hole 32MB RAM accessable.

Attention! This just works with Premium boxes! Use this section on your own risk! It can damage your box! You shouldn't change the nvram variables with a Premium V2!!!

nvram set sdram_init=0x0009
nvram set sdram_ncdl=0
nvram commit
reboot

You can check the success by typing

free

Prepare USB-HDD
If you want to connect a USB-HDD to you box and make it accessible by network you have to partition your HDD and create a linux-accassible filesystem (ext3). For that matter we can create a swap-partition.
О made the decision to create one big primary partition for data and one little partition at the end of the disk for swap.
Run the partition program by typing

fdisk /dev/discs/disc0/disc

Fdisk is self-explaining, type m to view the help-page. When you are finished, don't forget to save changes with the w-command before you exit fdisk.
After partition your disk, it's time to create filesystems

mke2fs -j /dev/discs/disc0/part1
mkswap /dev/discs/disc0/part2

We already created the post-boot scriptfile, now we can create several others too.

touch /usr/local/sbin/post-firewall 
touch /usr/local/sbin/post-mount
touch /usr/local/sbin/pre-shutdown
chmod +x /usr/local/sbin/*

Netx we will modify the post-boot-script with the vi-editor. I wouldn't say it's self-explaining but with a few commands you can use it. With "i" you get into editor-modus, with [ESC] you leave it. With ":wq!" you quit the editor by saving your file. For further information about vi visit http://lug.boulder.co.us/docs/vi_vim_howto.html

vi /usr/local/sbin/post-boot

Add the following lines to post-boot file:

#Wait for /opt to mount
mount /dev/discs/disc0/part1 /opt
i=0
while [ $i -le 30 ]
do
if [ -d /opt/etc ]
then
break
fi
sleep 1
i=`expr $i + 1`
done

# Activate swap
swapon /dev/discs/disc0/part2

# Run all active services - active means starts with S
/opt/etc/init.d/rc.unslung

Save changes in flash and reboot.

flashfs save && flashfs commit && flashfs enable && reboot

Initiate ipkg and install nano, screen, midnight commander
With ipkg there exists a package-system which enables you to easily install additional software-packages. Available packages und information about them you can find here: http://ipkg.nslu2-linux.org/feeds/unslung/wl500g/, http://ipkgfind.nslu2-linux.org/
So, make the necessary dirs and install and update ipkg:

mkdir /opt/tmp 
mkdir /opt/tmp/ipkg 
ipkg.sh update 
ipkg.sh install ipkg
ipkg update

Now you are able install useful software, for examle nano, a nice, easy to use editor:

ipkg install nano

Install the terminal-multiplexer screen, a nice tool to handle several terminal-sessions:

ipkg install screen

Some useful commands for screen are:

C-a c		create
C-a n		next
C-a p		previous
C-a #		#=number of screen beginning with 0
C-a A		give a name
C-a " 		list
C-a K		kill
C-a d 		detatch
screen -r 	reattach
C-a S		split horizontally
C-a X		kill 2nd region

In which e.g. "C-a" means to press [ctrl] and [a] at the same time. For further information see: http://www.slac.stanford.edu/comp/unix/package/epics/extensions/iocConsole/screen.1.html

Install midnight commander, THE file-browser:

ipkg install mc

Midnight commander won't rum without a few lines in the post-boot script:

nano /usr/local/sbin/post-boot

So add to post-boot-file:

#to let midnight commander run on terminals, make alias for colored mc
echo "export TERMINFO=/opt/share/terminfo">>/etc/profile
echo "alias mc=\"mc -c\"">>/etc/profile

Install cron, a daemon to run scripts by scheduler:

ipkg install cron

With cron it is possible to let script-files periodically run, accordingly to its directory in which it is saved.

mkdir /opt/etc/cron.5mins
mkdir /opt/etc/cron.hourly
mkdir /opt/etc/cron.daily
mkdir /opt/etc/cron.weekly
mkdir /opt/etc/cron.monthly

Now you have to edit the crontab-file:

nano /opt/etc/crontab

and add the following lines:

SHELL=/bin/sh
PATH=/sbin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/opt/bin:/opt/sbin:/opt/usr/bin:/opt/usr/sbin
MAILTO=""
HOME=/
# ---------- ---------- Default is Empty ---------- ---------- #
# Syntax for lines is : minute hour day month dayofweek command #
*/5 * * * * admin run-parts /opt/etc/cron.5mins
0 * * * * admin run-parts /opt/etc/cron.hourly
0 0 * * * admin run-parts /opt/etc/cron.daily
0 0 * * 0 admin run-parts /opt/etc/cron.weekly
0 0 1 * * admin run-parts /opt/etc/cron.monthly

It's just an example. To understand how cron works, search for a cron-howto. I didn't used it copious, but I think it works (note: you need cron for the torrent-package). As you can see in the run-parts-script, I have this from macsat, but I modified the crontab-file.

So, we have to create the run-parts-script:

nano /opt/bin/run-parts

Fill it with the following lines:

#!/bin/sh
#
# runparts.sh by macsat@macsat.com
# intended for use with cron
#
# based on rc.unslung by unslung guys :-)
#
if [ -z "$1" ]
then
echo "Usage : $0 "
fi

RUNDIR=$1"/*"

for i in $RUNDIR ;do

# Ignore dangling symlinks (if any).
[ ! -f "$i" ] && continue

case "$i" in
*.sh)
# Source shell script for speed.
(
trap - INT QUIT TSTP
set start
. $i
)
;;
*)
# No sh extension, so fork subprocess.
$i start
;;
esac
done

And make the script executable:

chmod +x /opt/bin/run-parts

Save changes in flash and reboot:

flashfs save && flashfs commit && flashfs enable && reboot

[edit@20060725] typos..
[edit@20080827] nvram variables with Premium V2

[marcnesium]

Samba
So, you have a HDD connected to your box, now you want to access this disk over network connection. For this we need to configure the samba-daemon.

Create samba-directory:

mkdir /opt/etc/samba

Create samba-config-file with nano or vi:

nano /opt/etc/samba/smb.conf

Content of /opt/etc/samba/smb.conf:

 
[global]
workgroup = YOURWORKGROUPNAME
guest account = nobody
security = share
browseable = yes
guest ok = yes
guest only = no
log level = 1
max log size = 100
encrypt passwords = no
dns proxy = no

[smbshare]
path=/opt/share
writeable = yes
browseable = yes
force user = admin

[otherdir]
path=/opt/share/otherdir
writeable = yes
browseable = yes
force user = admin

This is just an example, too. It makes the "share"-directory accessible over network under the name "smbshare" and its subdir "otherdir" under the name "otherdir". You can modify that like you want. Under Windows you can connect to this dirs with \\192.168.1.1\smbshare and \\192.168.1.1\otherdir.

Create samba-Init-file:

nano /opt/etc/init.d/S97Samba

Content of /opt/etc/init.d/S97Samba:

#!/bin/sh
/usr/sbin/smbd -D -l /opt/var/log/smbd.log -s /opt/etc/samba/smb.conf
/usr/sbin/nmbd -D -n myasus -o -l /tmp -s /opt/etc/samba/smb.conf

Mark init-file as executable:

chmod 755 /opt/etc/init.d/S97Samba

Save changes in flash and reboot:

flashfs save && flashfs commit && flashfs enable && reboot

Install (c)torrent
There are two ipkg-packages, which make it possible to download files over bittorrent-protocol with your box. The downloaded files are stored on USB-HDD. This download-solution is not compatible with the Asus download master. But it works very well, I never used Asus dm at all. To control and supervise the downloads oleo wrote a cgi-script, which enables you to control your downloads with browser/webinterface. Thanks to oleo.

ipkg install ctorrent
ipkg install torrent

The following directories are necessary:

mkdir /opt/share/torrent
mkdir /opt/share/torrent/source
mkdir /opt/share/torrent/work
mkdir /opt/share/torrent/target

To get the cgi-script run you have to edit the httpd configuration-file:

nano /usr/local/root/httpd.conf

Content of /usr/local/root/httpd.conf

 
A:*
/cgi-bin:admin:admin
.au:audio/basic
.asp:text/html

You have to start the http daemon in one of the start-scripts:

nano /usr/local/sbin/post-mount

Add following line to /usr/local/sbin/post-mount

#!/bin/sh
/usr/sbin/busybox_httpd -p 8008 -h /opt/share/www

Now you can edit the torrent configuration file:

nano /opt/etc/torrent.conf

Mine looks like this:

##########
#   Configuration
#   NOTE: no spaces around the = sign
#   the config will be sourced (eg. . torrent.conf)

SOURCE=/opt/share/torrent/source
WORK=/opt/share/torrent/work
TARGET=/opt/share/torrent/target
MAILTO=
MAILFROM=
# default MAILER is mini_sendmail
#MAILOPT="-sblackhole.dyndns.org -f"
USER=admin
GROUP=root
DATE_FORMAT="%d %h %H:%M"

# btget port range environment
BTLIB_MINPORT=52846
export BTLIB_MINPORT
BTLIB_MAXPORT=52846
export BTLIB_MAXPORT
#time between logs
LOG_TIME=59

# Seed torrent after completition (YES or NO)
AUTOSEED="YES"

#Colors for command line. # comment out if not needed
GREEN="\033[32;1m"
#NC="\033[0m"
#BACK_UP="\033[1K\033[0G"
NORMAL="\033[0m"
WARN="\033[33;1m"
BAD="\033[31;1m"
BOLD="\033[1m"
GOOD="\033[32;1m"

Now you can put a torrent-file into the source-dir and control it with the cgi-script http://192.168.1.1:8008/cgi-bin/torrent.cgi. That's it.

Install nload
A nice tool to watch the traffic on the network interfaces of the box is nload:

ipkg install nload

You can use it for example like this:

nload -t 200 -s 7 -i 2048 -o 256 -u H eth1

-t: time until refresh in ms
-s: smoothness [1-9], 1 means average over litte, 9 over long time
-i: sets scale for incoming traffic, in kBit/s
-o: sets scale for outgoing traffic, in kBit/s
-u: sets units, see helppage -h for more details

In order to make this command more easier to use, you can create an alias in /usr/local/sbin/post-boot:

nano /usr/local/sbin/post-boot

Add the following line to post-boot file

echo "alias nld=\"nload -t 200 -s 7 -i 2048 -o 256 -u H eth1\"">>/etc/profile

The Wondershaper-issue
I must admit, that's one thing, that doesn't work well, yet. Wondershaper is a script which provides QoS, but I can't get it run very well.
I tried to start the script with:

/init/wshaper start "eth1" 1990 190 " " " " "54321" "54321"

But except of some experiments I don't use it, cause it don't work very well for me. For own experiments use nload to watch effects of wshaper.
In my opinion thy syntax is quite complicated. For further information read the following:
- http://wiki.wl500g.info/index.php/PackageWondershaper
- Wondershaper QoS discussion on AsusForum
- http://www.docum.org/docum.org/docs/BB/BB.php
- http://lartc.org/lartc.html

That's it. Preliminary. I hope it helped you a bit. This here are all steps I've done on my box and it's running since a week or two without any problem (except wshaper)...

As I wrote above: Any corrections, comments, improvements or suggestions are welcome! You can help to correct and complete this.

[edit@20060728]: typos
[edit@20060822-Styno]: typo

[timbo.nl]

great tutorial!!!

everything works almost fine, one thing i have troubles with.

[admin@paco sbin]$ post-mount

that command i must manually start, when i reboot the router i must login with ssh and run that command before the web interface for the torrent is working.

do you have any suggest/idea?

[marcnesium]

Perhaps the script is not marked as executable...
To check type:

ls -all

correct return is:

[admin@horst sbin]$ ls -all
drwxr-xr-x    1 admin    root            0 Jul 16 19:24 .
drwxr-xr-x    1 admin    root            0 Jan  1  2000 ..
-rwxr-xr-x    1 admin    root          712 Jul 24 13:11 post-boot
-rwxr-xr-x    1 admin    root           64 Jul 24 12:24 post-firewall
-rwxr-xr-x    1 admin    root           60 Jul 24 13:12 post-mount

If one file is not executable, change this with

chmod +x post-mount

Helpful?

[timbo.nl]

Thx, but did is not the problem, i checked it by myself before.

[admin@paco sbin]$ ls -all
drwxr-xr-x    1 admin    root            0 Jul 24 15:33 .
drwxr-xr-x    1 admin    root            0 Jan  1  2000 ..
-rwxr-xr-x    1 admin    root          465 Jul 24 16:11 post-boot
-rwxr-xr-x    1 admin    root            0 Jul 24 16:05 post-firewall
-rwxr-xr-x    1 admin    root           60 Jul 24 16:26 post-mount
-rwxr-xr-x    1 admin    root            0 Jul 24 16:05 pre-shutdown
[admin@paco sbin]$

Looks fine to me

[elbling]

Is your tutorial also useable for the wl-500gx? i have to set one up tomorrow.
Is the memeoty trick also possible?

Thanks

elbling

[marcnesium]

To my knowledge the Deluxe version has only 16MB RAM on PCB, so DO NOT change this NVRAM-variables!! It can damage your box!!

The rest of the howto should be transferable to the deluxe-box. Spontaneous I can't think of any problems (expect of the RAM!!) - but I never owned a deluxe box - so I never tried Let me know...

Ciao Marc.

[marcnesium]

No reason for this problem found. Perhaps an individual case? Anyone with same problem? Workaround: start http daemon in one of the other post-~-scripts...

Ciao Marc.

[AnyOne]

Сообщение от marcnesium

No reason for this problem found. Perhaps an individual case? Anyone with same problem? Workaround: start http daemon in one of the other post-~-scripts...

Ciao Marc.

the post-mount is not running automaticly for me too.. i need to do it everytime i restart the router

I aint able also to acess samba or even ftp any ideas what may be causing this?

[olli84]

Fdisk is self-explaining, type m to view the help-page. When you are finished, don't forget to save changes with the w-command before you exit fdisk.
After partition your disk, it's time to create filesystems

mke2fs -j /dev/discs/disc0/part1
mkswap /dev/discs/disc0/part2

pls help me, mke2fs works good, but when i try "mkswap /dev/discs/disc0/part2" putty says :

[admin@(none) root]$ mkswap /dev/discs/disc0/part2
mkswap: /dev/discs/disc0/part2: No such file or directory
[admin@(none) root]$

any ideas?


EDIT: FOUND MY PROBLEM
forgot to make a swap partition with fdisk - damn
sorry, im a linux newbie

[psi]

Thanks for this very good tutorial!!

I also followed the (c)torrent install part but I am having some problems. It seems like everything is installed correctly but the torrents does just not download.

I can upload the torrent file and I can see that it is recognized with the cgi-script. I do not know if I control the torrent downloads correctly but the torrents does not download.

I have tried to a few different ports in the torrent.conf. One of the ports I have tried is the one that my Aazerues on my laptop uses, which downloads just fine.

Can someone help me debug this issue? Perhaps to check if everything is installed correctly. If I need to control the torrent download by doing something more than just upload the torrent file. Or to check the see if it is a firewall issue.

Any suggestions are welcome.

[willy132fr]

'am a newbies and i'll would install CTORRENT with oleg's firmware 1.9.2.7-7f-pre3 because Download master don't work fine.
what is the method?

a fat32 HDD is ok for CTORRENT?

(sorry for my english)

thank you for help

[willy132fr]

Сообщение от willy132fr

'am a newbies and i'll would install CTORRENT with oleg's firmware 1.9.2.7-7f-pre3 because Download master don't work fine.
what is the method?

a fat32 HDD is ok for CTORRENT?

(sorry for my english)

thank you for help

recently, i try the HOW TO but system (with putty) says me:

"can't write" when i try <echo "#!/bin/sh" >> /usr/local/sbin/post-boot> , have you an idea?

[Houston]

Hi, i have also some small problems to get all this nice stuff working.

I proceeded all this tutorial and some problems was mentioned here...

I updated to WL500gp-1.9.2.7-7f-pre4.trx today my WL500gP.
Restart and all settings about memory is well.

Post-boot doesn't work to me automaticky. So when i want ctorrent get working i have to start this sctipt after reboot.
I didn't find any mistake in my way.
When I'll do post-boot manualy, I can access to Torrent admin but links source, work and target is not accesible in browser. May be some link is written wrong but I don't know where .
May by it's relate with other problem... samba seems to have problem. I cannot connect to router by win sharing by lan. I tried also settings by r0kanon.

May be somebody can send list of all installed files with adjusted rights?
It should be helpful but I think I have it wll .

Thank You.

[Houston]

Сообщение от willy132fr

recently, i try the HOW TO but system (with putty) says me:

"can't write" when i try <echo "#!/bin/sh" >> /usr/local/sbin/post-boot> , have you an idea?

Try to write it with nano... or other editor directly into post-boot file.
Or may be you have wrong rights to write into this file.