New Project: making a "gaming" router on the cheap.

On the forums you may have saw this thread.
http://2old2play.com/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&p=153636

Ive been thinking about doing something like this for some time.  The thing is I dont just want to make a QoS router, I want to schedule the QoS.  QoS is a feature on routers that prioritizes network traffic.  About 5 years ago I worked for a company who specialized in this when QoS was a new thing that many companies didnt use yet.  What it means to prioritize your network, depending ont he implementation, you can give a higher prioirty to certain types of internet traffic, like gaming or file downloading.

Have you ever had this happen.   You are playing your xbox or 360 online and a spouse or child starts downloading something off the internet on the family computer.  You then experience horrible lag.  With QoS you can guarantee your xbox gets a certain, if not all, of the bandwidth so that lag wont occur.

Like I said, I want to do this, but have it scheduled.  I want in the evenings that all traffic from my xbox 360 gets at least 90-95% priority.  But every other time my copmuters can get 90% priority.  Even with the new downloading features of the dashboard I want to be able to queue up downloads and let them happen over night on the 360.  But I usually have something more important downloading on my PC if it is downloading something (like a torrent of the latest 4.7Gig LiveDVD linux distrobution).  Most routers dont have a scheduling feature with their default firmware if they support QoS. 

One thing you have to understand aobut QoS is it isnt enforced unless your bandwidth is full.  That sounds logical but people will think if they set some app, like ftp, to 15% that it will only ever use 15% of the bandwidth.  This isnt true.  It will only get 15% when your bandwidth is full.  It isnt QoSs resposibility to regulate bandwidth usage when bandwidth isnt full.  Youd need some other service to limit ftp to only use 15% all the time if that is what you want.

For most people here i suspect something like D-Links GameFuel routers will suffice.  But for my situation I need something that I have complete control over.  That option would be using OpenWRT.  Now, that article talks about DD-WRT.  That will work, however, I am going to be geeky and do many of the mods to the Linksys WRT series routers that are available.  I need OpenWRT to do that.  Note:  to use OpenWRT you dont need a Linksys WRT series router, the project just started on that series.  It will work with many routers that use the same or simular CPU.  The projects website has a compatibility table.

I will be getting a Linksys WRT54G v2.2 from ebay.  Linksys makes several variations.  I am getting the G (ends in G).  Other popular variations for OpenWRT are the GS and GL.  These are pretty much the same as the G with minor differences.  GSs generally have more power and memory than the G.  GL is a GS but using linux instead of VxWorks int he firmware.  Note: OpenWRT is a linux based firmware.

I originally wanted a GL since it was linux (so there would be many simple mods) and they generally have the more memory and ram than the other models.  However, I found out there is a MMC/SD card hack for these to add memory.  Since memory isn;t an issue i might as well get the cheapest of the models. 

You do have to beware when buying a WRT.  There are many models and many versions of those models.  See the OpenWRT compatibility table to know what to look for.  Also the Wikipedia site for WRT54G has a table of how to determine the version of your router based on serial number.  You will see form these tables that there were different CPU and memory sized for different versions.  And you will noticed the latest version on most models is not supported, so buying from a store is going to be tough.  I am not sure if there is a way to determine version on the outside of the box.

I ended up getting the router off ebay for about half the retail cost of the current version.  Not bad :)  I did notice that most of the hacks out there use version 2 with notes on how to modify for version 2.2 and 3.0.  For version 4.0 you need to read the forums to figure out the changes needed as one of the I/O pins used for the V2-3 hacks can not be found so you need to compile the firmware yourself with the changes.

So now I have to wait for my router to be shipped before I can tell you any more about it :)

Some things to that I will note on from ym research about this.  The CPU is overclockable.  Most of the models the CPU is at 200Mhz.  WRT54G v3.1 was purposely overclocked to 216Mhz from Linksys to fix a sync bug.  Since it is the same CPU most people will overclock it to 216Mhz.  Though I dont think you will see that much of a difference with that jump.  The earlier models, like mine, can be overclocked to 300Mhz.  It seems 240Mhz is pretty stable with just a heatsink added, 300 is possible with proper cooling.  Unless I see a need for overclocking I am not going to do it.  The main advantage for overclocking it that much is if you do the MMC/SD hack, it will give fast transfer times.  Other than that it shouldnt affect network speed.

I plan on doing two mods.  The MMC/SD mod so there is anough room to play around with all the different mod packages.  And the serial port mod.  That mod is good incase you screw something up with your routing and you cant access the firmware via ethernet.

Since I dont stream content from a computer to my 360 I plan on laying out my network as such.  Port 4 on the router will be dedicated DMZ and the 360 will use that.  Yes, when you have complete control over your router you can set a port as DMZ instead of just an IP.  Everything else will be the same.  This is subject to change as I learn more about the feature and what I can do :)  But that is my current plan of attack.

I hope it is easy to schedule QoS and I dont have to write my own mod.  I assume, if all else fails, it is done with cron, changing a config file, and restarting a service.