[Harrumph]

Hello everyone,

I have been working hard to develop sufficient understanding of both linux and DD-WRT in particular in order to realize a specific ideal. I will describe my ideal, then explain what I have done thus far, then respectfully request any and all advice that may be offered.

I want to route all WiFi traffic to and from the router through the Tor network. In other words, anyone authenticating to the Belkin's WiFi with the appropriate WPA2 credentials will automatically be routed through Tor.

I have investigated several ways to do this including the fantastic work of Kyle Williams Martin Peck with JanusVM. I have tried installing several GuruPlug Plus plugs as Tor AP routers, but my gross and embarrassing lack of linux skills have inhibited my success.

I have decided that perhaps DD-WRT will be the easiest way to accomplish what I want, since it is specifically geared toward being a router/AP. I am looking at doing this with either the Belkin or the Globalscape Guruplug Plus. Since I have DD-WRT already installed on the Belkin, I'll focus on that in this post.

I have a Belkin N600 HD router with a 16 gig SanDisk Cruiser Blade stuck into the first USB port. The dd-wrt System Information identifies the Router Model as Router Model
Belkin Play Max F7D4301 v1.

Version of dd-wrt is DD-WRT v24-sp2 (10/07/10) mega
(SVN revision 15396M NEWD-2 K2.6 Eko)


I connected to this Belkin via telnet and downloaded tor-0.2.1.26.tar.gz from the downloads.openwrt site. It downloaded correctly to my root home directory at /tmp/root. A gzip -d ./tor-0.2.1.26.tar.gz turned the file into tor-0.2.1.26.tar. Past this I cannot install. I have found several other .ipk files mentioned on various forums, but I do not understand how these work. When I attempt an "ipkg install ./uclibc_0.9.27-9_mipsel.ipk" for example, I am rewarded with "ERROR: File not found: /jffs/usr/lib/ipkg/lists/whiterussian
You probably want to run `ipkg update'
ERROR: File not found: /jffs/usr/lib/ipkg/lists/non-free
You probably want to run `ipkg update'
ERROR: File not found: /jffs/usr/lib/ipkg/lists/backports
You probably want to run `ipkg update'
"

The bottom line seems to be that I don't have write access to the part of the router that I am trying to write to, even though wget did seem to download and save files there.

Is there any way that anyone might be willing to point me to a tutorial that I haven't already tried, or even to help me more directly to accomplish my goal? I want to dedicate this Belkin hardware specifically to providing a Tor-tunneled WPA2 protected WiFi network.

Despite this somewhat rambling post, I like to consider myself reasonably resourceful, and I will proactively (and gleefully) participate in any discussion or experimentation that anyone might want to work through with me to accomplish this.

Thanks in advance for any thoughts, and thank you for listening.

[wunderkind]

I would recommend installing optware and install Tor using ipkg. Then you can use iptables rules to route traffic through Tor once it is up and running.

[Harrumph]

Thank you very kindly wunderkind, I will do that.

I have been following the instructions at

http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Optware#Optware_on_CIFS_-_Partition_in_a_file

for installing Optware and hit a glitch at this point:

root@WiFi:~# insmod /jffs/lib/modules/2.6.24.111/ext2.ko
root@WiFi:~# dd if=/dev/zero of=/tmp/smbshare/opt.ext2 bs=1 count=1 seek=10M
1+0 records in
1+0 records out
root@WiFi:~# echo y | mke2fs -L optware /tmp/smbshare/opt.ext2
-sh: mke2fs: not found
root@WiFi:~#

Do I not have something installed that is required?

Thanks,

[wunderkind]

did you do insmod on loop.ko before the ext2.ko?

[Harrumph]

Probably not. I have been following a few "How-To" walkthroughs and have thoroughly confused myself. I'm ready to use re-flash with a new fresh DD-WRT and try to go from there.

Is there a fairly direct way to get Optware installed from DD-WRT or is Optware available as a stand-along .bin file?

Thanks for your help,

[wunderkind]

There is no standlone single bin file and there are many vaiations on the install. I used http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Optware%2C_the_Right_Way but that is only for broadcom based devices.

[Harrumph]

According to the table on this great site here, my Belkin N600HD is a F7D4301 or F7D8301

v1 "Play Max" K7SF7D4301V1 Broadcom BCM4718@480 64 8 BCM 43224 a/b/g/n - 1 1 v24 SP2 K2.6 15030

I just tried flashing dd-wrt.v24-17115_NEWD-2_K2.6_big.bin but that bin was unable to get an IP address from my cable modem (Roadrunner). That problem seemed to be common with this release. For posterity I will mention that I did NOT reset my settings nor did I bother doing the 30/30/30 when upgrading to 17115 and this may have contributed to its failure.

Anyway thank you again for the link, I will read about the Broadcom procedure and get Optware installed.

[Harrumph]

When it gets to this point, it fails:

Check if /opt is symlinked to /share/MD0_DATA/optware/opt (or /share/HDA_DATA/optware/opt)

# cd /
# ls -la


You should see :

opt -> /share/MD0_DATA/optware/opt/

or

opt -> /share/HDA_DATA/optware/opt/


There is an opt directory, but it is empty.

drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 3 Oct 7 2010 opt


From there I cannot cd /share/MD0_DATA/big-disk:

since /share doesn't exist.

I think a very signicifant part of my problem is described in the statement below:

"root@WiFi:/tmp# ipkg list
ERROR: File not found: /jffs/usr/lib/ipkg/lists/whiterussian
You probably want to run `ipkg update'
ERROR: File not found: /jffs/usr/lib/ipkg/lists/non-free
You probably want to run `ipkg update'
ERROR: File not found: /jffs/usr/lib/ipkg/lists/backports
You probably want to run `ipkg update'
root@WiFi:/tmp#"

Is there an obvious fix for this?

Thanks a million for any thoughts,

[wunderkind]

The filesystem is mounted read only and you need to have the opt folder symlinked to somewhere you can write to. I am using a usb flashdrive. From your earlier posts it seems you were using a CIFS mount so you need to make sure that is working first and the opt folder is writeable.

[Harrumph]

I do have a SanDisk Cruiser Blade stuck in the first of the two USB ports, but I am not grasping how to set up a CIFS mount to the USB stick so that I have a +w area to use.

I tinkered further with dd-wrt.v24-17115_NEWD-2_K2.6_big and tried installing it with reset configuration, but to the same end, no WAN connection.

Would you happen to know how I can mount and use the USB stick that is in the back of the router? I do notice a /dev/usb device if that helps...

In the Disk Info section, I now see:

"--- /dev/discs/disc0/disc
Block device, size 15.63 GiB (16777216000 bytes)
DOS/MBR partition map
Partition 1: 15.62 GiB (16767151616 bytes, 32748343 sectors from 8192)
Type 0x0C (Win95 FAT32 (LBA))
FAT32 file system (hints score 4 of 5)
Volume size 15.61 GiB (16762929152 bytes, 511564 clusters of 32 KiB)
Status: Mounted on /opt "

EDIT: Ah ha, now I can cd /opt and see the contents of the USB stick, progress is being made...

[Harrumph]

I have a cablemodem with a single LAN port which is connected to the WAN port of a Belkin N600 (aka a F7d8302.

Currently the Belkin is running Firmware: DD-WRT v24-sp2 (10/07/10) mega.

My primary concern with this particular device is to connect a WAN port to an internet pipe and broadcast a TORrified WiFi signal.

After experimenting with several different models of routers as well as plug computers, I'm at my wit's end.

My understanding is that the Optware is the way I want to go, but I am at a loss as to installing it. Is Optware software, is it a firmware, wtf is the darned thing? I am not sure what version to use or how to go about it, but it is important to me personally, and I am grateful for any nudges in the right direction.

Thanks!

[wunderkind]

1. From what you describe the router has already detected the presence of the USB stick and mounted it. I cant tell from your post if you have it prepared the right way to install optware.
   
2. I am not sure why you decided to go with the CIFS method as it is one of the mroe complicated ways to install optware and just stalling it is already considered a task for someone with advanced knowledge of dd-wrt/linux. I considered myself quite knowledgeabble about linux, had been using dd-wrt for more than four years and my first optware install took over a week to get right.
   
3. You could possibly use the optware the right way article I posted the link for earlier but you must determine if the router is broadcom based. I suggest you start with the instructions you used to flash dd-wrt to it or the fw file you used.
   
4. As for the nature of optware. It is software, a collection of several packages or pieces of software to extend the functionality of dd=wrt if that helps. I use it to add capabilities to my router I used to have my linux server doing.
   

[Harrumph]

I didn't intentionally decide to go with any particular method, I'd rather just do whatever is easiest.

I'm going to try to do this again from scratch and follow the Optware the Right Way link you posted. Thanks for all the direction, mate, I really appreciate it.

My Belkin N600 is Broadcom-based, specifically DD-WRT reports it as a Broadcom BCM4716 chip rev 1.

[wunderkind]

Good luck but I believe it should work as that is the same chip as is in my Asus N16

*edited to add: you may want to look into this as well
http://www.dd-wrt.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=617346

[Harrumph]

Okay, thanks to you I am now the proud owner of a router that looks like this:

root@TheGate:~# df -h
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
rootfs 6.3M 6.3M 0 100% /
/dev/root 6.3M 6.3M 0 100% /
/dev/discs/disc0/part1
504M 231M 248M 49% /opt
/dev/sda3 3.0G 69M 2.8G 3% /mnt

and the service command gives me a nice list of options.

I will now try to familiarize myself with what Optware can do for me and how I can realize my ultimate goal for this project: A WPA secured 802.11 AP that fully Torrifies all connections. Not a unique or original idea so the gee wiz value is mediocre at best, but it will be utilitarian as all hell.

Thanks also for the new link, I will examine it for any information that will help me get where I want to go.

I have been using unix (AIX primarily) for twenty years, but the last half of that have been spent primarily in management, delegating responsibilities to people with *actual* knowledge. When I get a bug to do a project like this, it makes me question my decisions, because I miss being the one doing the explaining. I'm not entirely clueless, but I appreciate you being patient and helpful. I remember when the entire Internet was primarily folks like you - then idiots like Delphi and AOL opened the floodgates...