Airport alternative

[Jann Eike Kruse]

On 14/07/14 17:33, Paul Hänsch wrote:
> Allan Irving <allanirving at allanirving.co.uk>, Sun, 13 Jul 2014 18:06:54
>> I need something to do what it does, similarly but cannot think of a
>> simple solution off the top of my head. Simply a router to work on an
>> existing set up that can connect via Wifi and therefore extend the
>> network and allow me to have a private sub network with a hard drive
>> and printer attached to the Airport alternative, allowing me to have
>> my own private network drive and printer on a  university network.
> 
> Hi Allan,
> 
> the features you describe do not sound unique at all. The German market
> for wireless routers for example is largely covered by the AVM FritzBox,
> which supports complex network setups and can provide access to
> printers, storage devices, and some scanner models connected via USB. I
> believe it can even operate LTE modems on the USB port to provide
> internet access.
> 
> Because parts of the firmware are under GPL there is a small hacker
> community around the AVM devices (keyword: Freetz).
> 
> Most of the FritzBox models contain a DSL modem for German DSL
> connections which are different from those in the rest of the world. I
> believe recently they started to produce for the wider European market.
> In any case the devices can also work as simple wireless routers.
> 
> Beyond that some LinkSys and TP-Link routers are famous for their
> hackability. At least in the case of Linksys this is hugely due to the
> work of the GPL violations project which forced the company to release
> the firmware used on their WRT routers. I don't know which models of
> those routers come with native printer support. However there is a
> number of small Linux distributions specially made for them.
> 
> Only few of the router models run entirely with free software.
> 


Hi Allan,

You might want to also look into OpenWRT.org.
It's a GNU/Linux distribution optimized for embedded (wireless) router
devices. It can run on a number of low-end consumer devices and it runs
excellently on some higher-grade (wireless) routers. There's support for
usb and for printers. Personally, I have not used it for the purpose you
describe, but GNU/Linux (and therefore OpenWRT) is highly configurable,
so I believe it can do it. There's a lot of documentation out there. You
might start here:

 http://wiki.openwrt.org/doc/howto/cups.server

Best,
Jann


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