d-link

D-Link vs TP-Link

Dave Farquhar Servers and Networking , , , ,
D-Link vs TP-Link

If you’re looking for the pros and cons of D-Link vs TP-Link, I have experience with both and I’m glad to share it.

D-Link is a well established brand. Founded in 1986, it started doing business as D-Link in 1994. It’s been around a long time. If you’ve been involved with computers for any length of time, you’ve probably heard of it.

I don’t blame you if you’ve never heard of TP-Link. They were founded in 1996 but if you were buying their stuff before 2005, you’re well ahead of me.

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DD-WRT compatible routers

Dave Farquhar DD-WRT , , ,

It’s not as easy to find DD-WRT compatible routers as it should be. Or maybe I should say it’s not as easy to find out if a particular router is compatible with DD-WRT as it could be. Here’s the trick.

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Cyber security podcasts I listen to

Dave Farquhar security , , , , ,

Yesterday, after reading a post in which I cautioned about a popular security podcast, someone asked me what cyber security podcasts I do listen to. I wrote this up a long time ago and never posted it for some reason, so now I’m correcting the oversight. Here’s my collection of the best of the best security podcasts.

These are the security podcasts I’ve been listening to for several years now and continue to recommend. Security podcasts are a good way to keep in touch with current issues, and also a good way to get continuing education.

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When DD-WRT doesn’t work with Charter

Dave Farquhar DD-WRT, Servers and Networking , , , ,
When DD-WRT doesn’t work with Charter

I set up a DD-WRT router on Charter’s Spectrum broadband, and had a hard time getting it to work. It wouldn’t pull an IP address on the WAN side, or it would pull a 192.168 address rather than a Charter public address.

Here’s what I had to do to fix it.

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TP-Link TL-WR840n vs TL-WR841n

Dave Farquhar Servers and Networking , , ,
TP-Link TL-WR840n vs TL-WR841n

If you need an inexpensive DD-WRT compatible router, TP-Link is probably your best choice. But there are some big differences when you compare the TL-WR840n vs the TL-WR841n.

I’ve been running the TL-WR841n for more than two years, so I’m familiar with it. I’ve considered supplementing it with a secondary router, and the TL-WR840n was one I looked at.

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What to do when your router isn’t in the DD-WRT router database

Dave Farquhar DD-WRT, Servers and Networking , , ,

If you have a router and want to run DD-WRT on it, but can’t find the router in the router database, you may have learned the hard way that the router database is a couple of years out of date.

But not all hope is lost. Here’s how to find a build, if one exists.

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How to open a D-Link GDS-2205 5-port gigabit switch

Dave Farquhar Hardware , , , ,

I have a D-Link GDS-2205 switch that I picked up cheaply. It turned out it was cheap because it didn’t work. But I thought I’d try to open it and look for bulging capacitors, since that’s a common problem with low-end network equipment.

Opening these boxes is tricky, but not impossible.

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Another day, another router backdoor

Dave Farquhar security , , , , , , ,

Bad news everyone: There’s a backdoor in Linksys and Netgear (and possibly other) routers. The exploit works on a weird port, so it’s not remotely exploitable, nor is someone going to drop it with some crafty Javascript like the recent D-Link backdoor, but it’s not out of the question at all for malware to do a pivot attack. Here’s how it would work: Once a computer is infected, it could attack the router and infect it too, so that once someone disinfects their computer, the router could re-infect the computer at a later date. A router is a great place to hide, because nobody looks at it, and they have ample storage on them to exploit..

What can you do about it? Read more

A quick security improvement: Change your IP range

Dave Farquhar security, Servers and Networking ,

As you may know, lots of D-Link routers have serious vulnerabilities. Some are patched, some aren’t, and many are being exploited by Javascript on web pages. (See, routers don’t make you invincible.)

The right thing to do is patch. But most exploits will assume that your router lives in the 192.168.0.x or 192.168.1.x space, whatever the factory default is. So you can get a degree of protection even against future vulnerabilities by moving your IP space somewhere else. Read more

Upgrading a D-Link DIR-615 to DD-WRT

Dave Farquhar DD-WRT, Hardware, security, Servers and Networking , , , , , , , ,

Last year I bought my mother in law a D-Link router, an oddball DIR-615 revision E1 that was only sold at a few stores. It was supposed to be a Fry’s exclusive, but I bought hers at Micro Center. It worked for a while, then gave her trouble, so this year I was working with it again, and when I was setting it up, I noticed it had some security vulnerabilities–remote code execution, UPnP vulnerabilities, and who knows what else.  So that got me some practice upgrading a D-Link DIR-615 to DD-WRT.

DD-WRT’s track record and attitude towards security research could be better, but I’d rather trust my mother in law to DD-WRT’s B+ security than D-Link’s F.

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