DD-WRTToday I managed to get vpnc running on my WRT54GL Revision 2, which is not a hard thing to do. The device of course runs DD-WRT, but in order to use vpnc you have to flash it with a release-candidate (rc-version) of the software, as the stable release does not include it (stable is v23 atm). So I used dd-wrt.v24_vpn_generic.bin to flash my device and it worked like a charm. After that, head to this page for a way to get vpnc working (with auto-reconnect as well). Unfortunately there is no GUI for the vpnc yet, but when the next stable release is made available I’m sure there will be. And now the best part: When using vpnc I did a speed-test and it maxed out at 200kB/sec, which is pretty impressive and more than enough for most cases. Of course I won’t be using vpnc on this device when I download stuff, since my DSL goes up to 600kB/sec, but for the occasional browsing it is sufficient. And if you want to download something, just start vpnc on your own machine to bypass the nat-stuff on the device.

A few remaining thoughts:

  • I flashed v23 first, before flashing it with the rc5-version
  • The script linked above checks for a dead connection by pinging a keepalive host. Unfortunately this is not an option here, since there is a fallback for when the vpn does not work…
  • I haven’t tested the performance with any fancy services on the device. It’s basically still at factory default.
  • Not surprising: When using the device via LAN rather than WPA2 wireless, I managed to get some 30kB/sec more out of it.
  • There is an option to overclock the CPU from 200Mhz to 250Mhz. Haven’t tried it, and not sure I if will neither.
  • The new firmware does have some other cool features as well ;)