DD-WRT on R7000

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Recommended DD-WRT builds

The recommended builds for the R7000 are <Kong>'s development builds, available from <Kong>'s website, rather than the builds available on the main DD-WRT download page. In short, this is because the mainline builds are generic and cover dozens of architectures, whilst <Kong> is developing, testing and optimising for the R7000 in particular. Please do read the Changelog at the above link, it is informative.

Performance

As of 2014, the Netgear R7000 is one of the fastest (in CPU terms) consumer-grade routers available with support for DD-WRT; the firmware is stable and there is a growing user base. As a replacement for older/smaller builds of DD-WRT on older/slower hardware, it performs very well and offers a good set of features over and above the standard DD-WRT offering. The dual core CPU is useful if you're running additional services on the router.

Whilst the router is fast, potential users should be aware that IPv4 NAT routing throughput tops out at 450Mbit on latest Netgear stock firmware, and at 360Mbit on DD-WRT with default configuration (no overclocking), or 425Mbit with a 20% overclock.

Users with 500Mbit or 1Gbit connections (yes, Romania, this means you) should be aware that the R7000 will not give you the full line speed you'll get from your modem, at least not with IPv4 and NAT. It works well for 100Mbit - 300Mbit connections (and this is the typical use case for it); below about 50Mbit or above about 500Mbit, it will offer poor value and may not be the best router for those requirements.

The difference in throughput between DD-WRT and the Netgear firmware is that the latter uses hardware acceleration for simple NAT, which is proprietary and therefore unavailable in DD-WRT. DD-WRT performs the same and better functionality in software, but with a speed penalty. This can be partially mitigated by overclocking and/or by using IPv6 and doing away with NAT, but, the bottom line is that whilst this is a powerful router, there are already some consumer Internet connections that it cannot fully utilise.

Features

  • kernel 3.10.25
  • supports CPU overclocking (1200MHz and 1400MHz possible)
  • OpenVPN and PPTP VPN server support
  • ad blocking with Privoxy
  • lighttpd + php

Documentation

There really isn't very much, which is why this Wiki category was born (see the category link, bottom of the page). Some of the generic DD-WRT documentation is also applicable to the R7000, but much of it is long out of date, and almost none of it refers to <Kong>'s K3-AC-ARM builds or indeed to the arm architecture in general. Please do consider contributing to the documentation if you put your R7000 to any unusual or interesting uses.

<Kong> has written some documentation specifically relevant to his builds, including

How to install

See the Readme file, but in short, if you're starting from the Netgear firmware, then download and flash the appropriate .chk file from the Initial directory using the Netgear web interface. Once it is installed, if there is a newer release than your .chk file, then download the appropriate .bin file, visit your newly installed DD-WRT router, head on over to its Firmware Update section and flash the .bin file, also selecting the option to reset to defaults. After that, you're on newest firmware, and good to go. Hint: if you're new to DD-WRT, the default IP address of your router after flashing or reset to defaults is 192.168.1.1.