USB on ASUS WL500GPV2

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</pre> </pre>
Note: ''If you get ipkg update errors, reboot the router once more and try again. While this may seem like a poor troubleshooting step, it has solved this problem every time I have encountered it'' Note: ''If you get ipkg update errors, reboot the router once more and try again. While this may seem like a poor troubleshooting step, it has solved this problem every time I have encountered it''
 +*Install the Print Server package to your JFFS2 partition
 +<pre>ipkg -d root install p910nd</pre>
 +Note: Many guides recommend installing to a Samba partition, USB flash/hard disk, or some other place aside from J''FFS2. While at first observation it makes sense to keep software off of the small flash partition internal to the router, there are several advantages. For one, the JFFS2 partition always mounts. I assure that there will be reboot where your SD card, Samba share, etc. does not mount properly. Which means everything else will break. With this guide, we are adding about 400K to the JFFS2 partition and after today it will receive almost 0 writes. Save your SD cards and external hard disks for user data, swap space, or large packages like samba, python, cups, etc.''
 +

Revision as of 22:34, 20 October 2008

Contents

Introduction

This short how to is intended to walk someone through configuring a USB printer and a USB storage device on their ASUS WL-500G Premium V2 router. While there are great USB how to articles on the dd-wrt wiki and even some specific to this router, I found that no single guide worked for me. Ultimately it was a combination of guides and some trial and error. I figure if this guide helps anyone, it's worth keeping.

Firmware

Flash either the latest dd-wrt MEGA firmware or the eko-provided build that includes full USB support in a mini package. Why bother with a mini when we have 8MB flash? Well there are several advantages. The mini is a fraction of the size, yet provides probably 80% of the functionality of the Mega build. For this small sacrifice, you get a much more lean and efficient setup.

  • A nearly 5.0MB JFFS2 partition
  • Nearly 90% free memory on a fully configured system
  • Full USB support
  • Faster, leaner and more stable all around

download

dd-wrt.v24-101037_NEWD_mini_usb.bin

dd-wrt.v24_mega_generic.bin

Initial Prep

  1. Complete your standard WAN, LAN, DHCP configuration so that your router has working Internet access
    This guide will not explain these details, since they are very well documented elsewhere
  2. Under Services, enable:
    Secure Shell (SSHd)
    Telnet (optional, select this if you have no idea what SSH and have no idea how to connect to an SSH server)
    All USB modules (Core USB support, UHCI, OHCI, USB 2.0, USB Storage, ext2/ext3, FAT, USB Printing)
  3. Save Settings
  4. Under Administration > Management:
    Enable JFFS2 Support
    Select Clean JFFS2
  5. Save Settings and then Reboot Router

Command Line Configuration

Now that the SSH Server is up, we will SSH into the router and perform the core of the configuration

  • SSH to your router's internal IP address, by default this is the 192.168.1.1 address and login with the web admin credentials (default is root/admin)
    alternatively, if you enabled Telnet you can connect via the Windows built-in telnet client
  • verify that the JFFS2 partition is mounted
root@DD-WRT:/jffs# mount | grep -i jffs
/dev/mtdblock/4 on /jffs type jffs2 (rw)
  • Update the ipkg package list
ipkg update

The last line of the output should be similar to this

Updated list of available packages in /jffs/usr/lib/ipkg/lists/backports

Note: If you get ipkg update errors, reboot the router once more and try again. While this may seem like a poor troubleshooting step, it has solved this problem every time I have encountered it

  • Install the Print Server package to your JFFS2 partition
ipkg -d root install p910nd

Note: Many guides recommend installing to a Samba partition, USB flash/hard disk, or some other place aside from JFFS2. While at first observation it makes sense to keep software off of the small flash partition internal to the router, there are several advantages. For one, the JFFS2 partition always mounts. I assure that there will be reboot where your SD card, Samba share, etc. does not mount properly. Which means everything else will break. With this guide, we are adding about 400K to the JFFS2 partition and after today it will receive almost 0 writes. Save your SD cards and external hard disks for user data, swap space, or large packages like samba, python, cups, etc.



WIP - will be finishing up in the next 24 - 72 hours