TomatoUSB

Hi,

First of all, big thanks to everyone who works on these firmwares. Really cool that we are able to download this kind of thing for free, and with such good support!

My question is about reliability/stability.

I'm setting up a Negear WNR-3500L for work, and we only have basic routing, DHCP, QOS, and wireless N requirements. The router will be installed in a remote office and my only access to the router is via the Remote Access GUI. This means I can't upgrade the firmware, unplug it, do a hard-reboot, etc. The employees there won't be capable of helping either. So…the thing has to just work despite power outages, unfriendly wifi clients, p2p, ISP changes, etc.

Is there any specific build, or builder, which would provide the best overall *probability* of stability? I'm just looking for a starting point for further research.

Thank you,
Keith

If you want stability and not features just stick with the almost year old tomatousb. It is the RHEL of aftermarket router firmware, stable but old.

You could also download the "most recent" TomatoUSB by Fedor from git, customise that makefile to compile a lean mean routing machine that has nothing else in the firmware.

I use my routers in the same way that you are proposing, but mostly with apartment blocks with more than 100 users. They have to be reliable, and access over the web has to work. The monitoring facilities are also extremely important to me, so that I am able to pinpoint the cause of any problems at the remote site.

Having said that, you will find just about any of the modders builds are reliable. They are all based on the same code but with minor variations, so you should choose whichever suits your needs best. The "latest" TomatoUSB build 54 is now rather old and it's well worth you trying a few newer builds before you decide.

A good guide to "which build" is to use the smallest that contains the things you need. For your router I would use TomatoUSB Lite or EXT build.

Do put your remote router on a UPS because there are occasions when loss of power/restart/loss of power in quick succession will cause corrupted NVRAM settings and that is something you don't need :-)