Tomato Firmware with USB support [Archive]

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teddy_bear

09-02-2009, 05:42

Recently I made a custom Tomato firmware mod with included basic USB and NAS support. Although this forum is mostly dedicated to Oleg's and Asus official firmware, I finally decided to register and post here since most USB-enabled routers are now made by Asus, and my mod will provide another alternative to Asus owners. Hopefully it's not inappropriate to post it here.

First of all I would like to thank Oleg, lly and other developers who are working on a new firmware here (http://wl500g.googlecode.com/) for making this project open source. I've been looking around for good solutions and fixes, and using some of your patches and code really helped me a lot in making my mod better.

For those unfamiliar with Tomato firmware, the official Tomato homepage is http://www.polarcloud.com/tomato. My USB mod and related discussion can be found on the Linksysinfo forums (http://www.linksysinfo.org/forums/showthread.php?t=60185).

Of course, even with USB additions, Tomato doesn't include many of the features available in Oleg's firmware. There's no SNMP, no support for USB serial devices, webcams, modems etc. With my USB mod I'm only focusing on printing and storage support. On the other hand, Tomato has nicier GUI, and arguably the best QoS implementation among all the available open source firmwares with very good graphs to go along with it. Depending on your needs and preferences you can choose one or the other - but I believe it's always better to have more choices :)...

If you want to ask questions it may be better to post them on the existing thread (http://www.linksysinfo.org/forums/showthread.php?t=60185) on Linksysinfo forum rather than here - I'm visiting it more often, and there's already a whole subforum dedicated to Tomato there.

theMIROn

09-02-2009, 07:28

First of all I would like to thank Oleg, lly and other developers who are working on a new firmware here (http://wl500g.googlecode.com/) for making this project open source. I've been looking around for good solutions and fixes, and using some of your patches and code really helped me a lot in making my mod better.That's nice. We've been looking around too, and recently lly did some backports from Tomato SpeedMod. It looks like you have better implementation with new kernel (you're using 2.4.35, right?) Could you help us to integrate your patches into 1.9.2.7 (http://repo.or.cz/w/tomato.git?a=commit;h=b951a8f31dcea83578974168b96b ed00c3244add, http://repo.or.cz/w/tomato.git?a=commit;h=7b670a669a26f13c6cefa96ab2d6 c06091c06655, etc)?

Lesiuk

09-02-2009, 07:39

Yeah, that is good idea.

lly

09-02-2009, 08:00

theMIROn
Pointed commisets are already present in 2.4.37 kernel. So, they exists in 1.9.2.7-d firmware too.

theMIROn

09-02-2009, 08:04

theMIROn
Pointed commisets are already present in 2.4.37 kernel. So, they exists in 1.9.2.7-d firmware too.
Oh, i see, had a quick look.
Anyway there's good QoS implementation

teddy_bear

09-02-2009, 08:10

It looks like you have better implementation with new kernel (you're using 2.4.35, right?)
No, unfortunately Tomato is based on 2.4.20 kernel. The "Speedmod" though includes a lot of backports from 2.4.35, but since you're already at ver. 2.4.37 you don't need all of that. I looked at your implementatoin, and it seems that you've done all what's needed. You also used different values for some constants - do they give better results than the original Rodney's values? Rodney (the original speedmod author) has a blog here (http://touristinparadise.blogspot.com/2008/04/linksys-wrt54gl-routers-improving.html) - if you want to discuss it with him.

By the way I wish Tomato author updates the kernel too - in order to make USB to work relatively stable I had to port the whole USB driver back from 2.4.35, and almost all FAT/Ext2/Ext3 support code too :(.

msj33

09-02-2009, 13:13

Will Tomato work with existing guides on this forum?

For example:
Samba
Rtorrent
Vsftp
Cron
etc.

What about perfomance? On my WL500 G Deluxe i have speed issues due the the low CPU performance. Will this be slightly increased with Tomato?

I'll will only change to Tomato if I have the same stability, features and hopefully a better CPU performance on Torrent files, and FTP transfers.

/Morten

teddy_bear

09-02-2009, 14:34

I'll will only change to Tomato if I have the same stability, features and hopefully a better performance
You don't have to :) ! I can't guarantee you anything, and I don't know if Tomato will work better for you or not. Read the Tomato official site and the other thread (links are in the 1st post) for overview of features included, and try it if you want. You can always go back to whatever firmware you're using now.

cMcd01

10-02-2009, 15:27

I've been using Tomato on my primary router (and WDS client router) for over a year and I am very happy. When I recently acquired the Asus WL-500W I added it as an AP and loaded Oleg, because Tomato doesn't support draft N wi-fi. I'm currently in the process of learning Oleg f/w - I've attached a USB hard drive with Samba and I'm exploring adding ftp, http, and possibly media servers.

When teddy_bear added USB support to Tomato, I was very interested but decided to go Oleg given the N support. But Tomato is great and remains on my primary router (Internet gateway).

direction

24-03-2009, 23:16

Does this firmware work on other routers of ASUS?
like WL-500W?

teddy_bear

25-03-2009, 15:41

direction,
Tomato doesn't officially support N-routers. However, it works on wl-500w in g-mode. Check this post (http://www.linksysinfo.org/forums/showthread.php?p=339873&highlight=500w#post339873) and the following 2 for details.

direction

26-03-2009, 00:08

thanks teddy_bear,
I have read some infromation in the linksys forum.
It seems there is no open source firmware support 802.11n?
and can I use the asus webUI to upgrade for this firmware?

maurer

11-06-2009, 08:06

Can I put this firmware on a wl-500gx (deluxe) ?

kapkap

11-09-2009, 00:23

teddy_bear,

I am already using a modified version of Tomato (with VPN) (http://tomatovpn.keithmoyer.com/) on my ASUS 500g V2. I was looking into the possibility of connecting a Drobo (http://www.drobo.com/) to my router instead of buying the $200 DroboShare.

I'm not very linux savvy, but is it possible to add the USB functionality without flashing the entire firmware?

teddy_bear

11-09-2009, 01:39

kapkap,
No, you have to flash the entire firmware to gain additional functionality. I have also released a variation of USB Tomato mod merged with Keith' VPN mod - go to the thread on Linksysinfo forum (http://www.linksysinfo.org/forums/showthread.php?t=60185) for download links for the latest build (34).

weixing

11-09-2009, 12:57

I've been testing with latest teddy bear's tomato mod and Oleg mod to and for. I like the tomato mod for the following:

1) easier to support Chinese filenames (codepage 936) for Samba
2) more stable support of USB devices
3) better and easier to use/understand interface
4) support of wireless ethernet bridge mode

However, the tomato does not fuse.o and hence ntfs-3g. the current ntfs driver comes with tomato cannot display ntfs partitions properly.

the oleg is good for it's support for twonkymedia and ntfs-3g.

theMIROn

11-09-2009, 14:25

byzhang

16-12-2009, 07:12

I noticed there are 437, 850, 852, and 866 by default. But no 936. How to install it?

Which mod do you install?

Thanks,
B

I've been testing with latest teddy bear's tomato mod and Oleg mod to and for. I like the tomato mod for the following:

1) easier to support Chinese filenames (codepage 936) for Samba
2) more stable support of USB devices
3) better and easier to use/understand interface
4) support of wireless ethernet bridge mode

However, the tomato does not fuse.o and hence ntfs-3g. the current ntfs driver comes with tomato cannot display ntfs partitions properly.

the oleg is good for it's support for twonkymedia and ntfs-3g.

teddy_bear

17-12-2009, 08:55

byzhang,
Download samba_extra_codepages.tar.gz file from here (http://www.mediafire.com/tomatousb), and follow instructions in the included readme document to install additional Samba codepages.

byzhang

20-12-2009, 07:33

I tried to follow your readme, however it seems /jffs is readonly?

I tried to mkdir a partition in my USB disk, but how can I let it auto-mount as /opt?
The web interface seems only mount under /tmp?

byzhang,
Download samba_extra_codepages.tar.gz file from here (http://www.mediafire.com/tomatousb), and follow instructions in the included readme document to install additional Samba codepages.

byzhang

20-12-2009, 21:03

Solved!

Thanks,
B

I tried to follow your readme, however it seems /jffs is readonly?

I tried to mkdir a partition in my USB disk, but how can I let it auto-mount as /opt?
The web interface seems only mount under /tmp?

Matrix11229

19-04-2010, 01:38

Thanks for the usb mod teddy_bear !

I have an asus 520gu and win xp sp3.
Connected printer to router usb port and the printer name appeared in tomato usb section.
However when I try to print, windows tells me "the printer is offline" or "document failed to print" .

Any suggestions to make it work ?

Thanks!

movingincircles

06-05-2010, 03:23

does anyone have links to teddy bear's mod for the 520gu tomato firmware? the linksys forum is down and I don't know where to get it.

teddy_bear

06-05-2010, 04:36

http://sourceforge.net/projects/tomatousb

movingincircles

06-05-2010, 05:17

thanks teddy bear!
which firmware do i download for my asus 520gu? Broadcom BCM5354 chip rev 3

movingincircles

06-05-2010, 06:36

nevermind, got it. installed the mipsr1 lite

teddy bear: what happened to the file sharing settings? all i see is the FTP option.

teddy_bear

06-05-2010, 08:16

movingincircles,
You installed kernel 2.6 -based build. Because of a kernel size, the Lite version (which doesn't include Samba) is the only one that will fit on 4MB flash.

To get full file sharing support, install "Ext" or "VPN" build based on kernel 2.4.37 from http://sourceforge.net/projects/tomatousb/files/K24 folder.

movingincircles

06-05-2010, 08:52

dajabon

06-05-2010, 22:46

teddy_bear said: "You installed kernel 2.6 -based build. Because of a kernel size, the Lite version (which doesn't include Samba) is the only one that will fit on 4MB flash.

To get full file sharing support, install "Ext" or "VPN" build based on kernel 2.4.37 from http://sourceforge.net/projects/tomatousb/files/K24 folder."

Does this mean that all future releases, or at least, all releases using the 2.6 kernel will no longer support USB file sharing on routers with only 4 MB?

I am the proud owner of a new ASUS WL-520GU that I bought specifically because of Tomato's QoS and teddy_bear's USB support. They should be sending you a percentage of their earnings.

By the way, THANK YOU teddy_bear!

teddy_bear

07-05-2010, 18:07

Does this mean that all releases using the 2.6 kernel will no longer support USB file sharing on routers with only 4 MB?
Yes, 4MB is not enough for everything -(... No space for Samba.
If you really want Linux 2.6 on your 4MB router for any reason, use Lite build - you can install Optware Samba on your USB drive if needed. Otherwise stick with kernel 2.4-based builds - they are not going away...

bupkus

11-09-2010, 23:14

Before reading through the posts in this thread I installed dd-wrt.v24_mini_asus.trx using ASUS's restoration utility for my 520gU. Everything seemed ok so I tried upgrading to tomato-NDUSB-1.28.8748-Lite.trx after changing the file type to .bin. I couldn't even see the customary tomato UI without a logon which I couldn't do. I restored to dd-wrt. That was days ago. I tried following the directions to telnet into dd-wrt using the cmd in Windows 7 and trying to telnet >telnet 192.168.1.1. I even tried using the command window in dd-wrt. It would appear Windows 7 doesn't offer telnet atleast by that name.
I then updated dd-wrt again to tomato-NDUSB-1.28.8748-Lite.bin but this time I was/am in the tomato program. I then logged out but couldn't guess the logon combo of id and pw. I could, oddly enough, backspace the browser back into the UI of tomato. Now what? Well, I found there's a new tomato which I then used the existing tomato to another upgrade. The new tomato's file name is tomato-NDUSB-1.28.8750-Lite.bin. I'm afraid to log out. I mean, last time with the ***8748-Lite version I changed the pw to admin but couldn't log back in when I tried. I don't know if cascading the install to the ***8750-Lite version is a fix or compounding the problem. I'll post this before I try and come back for an update.

Update: So it seems it took the "admin" id and the pw I installed in 8748. So either I don't know how to log out or I successfully completed the upgrade. Till next time where I connect a printer to the USB port... the whole point of buying the router and installing this version of tomato. Fingers crossed.