Free wireless routers software for linux

DD-WRT is an alternative firmware for the Linksys WRT54G/GS/GL and the Asus WL-500 deluxe 802.11g wireless routers.

DD-WRT was originally based on the Alchemy Firmware from Sveasoft Inc., which is in turn based on the original GPLd Linksys Firmware and a number of other open source projects.

It offers many advanced features not found in the original Linksys firmware, or even the firmware available for purchase from Sveasoft. It is also free of the product activation or tracking found in the Sveasoft firmware.

Tomato Firmware is a small, lean, simple replacement firmware for Linksys WRT54G/GL/GS and Buffalo WHR-G54S/WHR-HP-G54 routers.

It features a new easy to use GUI, a new bandwidth usage monitor, more advanced QOS and access restrictions, enables new wireless features such as WDS and wireless client modes.

It raises the limits on maximum connections for P2P, allows you to run your custom scripts or telnet/ssh in and do all sorts of things like re-program the SES/AOSS button, adds wireless site survey to see your wifi neighbors, and more.

Snmpstat shows router interface information and statistics through web interface using SNMP protocol.

Tested on Linux/Apache for CISCO routers, Route Lynx RL-2000 routers.

Lintrack is a small, easy to configure and highly integrated GNU/Linux distribution for routers, firewalls, network access servers, content filters and more. Lintrack is targetted especially to small and medium-sized wireless Internet service providers. Lintrack comes with many outstanding features.
Main features:
- wireless router
- network access server
- PPPoE concentrator
- HotSpot concentrator
- VPN server/client
- firewall
- traffic shaper
- HTTP content filter
- OSPF router
- PIMv2 (multicast) router
- and more
What makes Lintrack unique is that it is highly integrated and automated by the Flatconf configuration system. Lintrack is mainly administered using an interactive CLI tool, fcc, which makes system configuration easy and fast.
While giving the end user a powerful, high-level interface, Lintrack has still all the posibilities of traditional Linux administration. Whats more, some functionality may be managed by fcc, and some by die-hard Unix tools, eg. vim.

Gnome Wireless PC Lock is a Gnome applet that locks your desktop when you walk away from your desk.

A small gnome program that locks your desktop when you walk away from your desk. It is tested with a Sitecom cn-129 Wireless PC Lock.

aek-wifi is a WiFi monitor SuperKaramba theme.
Main features:
- Wireless interface Output
- Wireless ESSID Output
- IP Address Output
- Wireless Network Traffic Monitor
- Noise and Level Output

The Linux Wireless Extension and the Wireless Tools are an Open Source project sponsored by Hewlett Packard (through my contribution) since 1996, and build with the contribution of many Linux users all over the world.

The Wireless Extension (WE) is a generic API allowing a driver to expose to the user space configuration and statistics specific to common Wireless LANs. The beauty of it is that a single set of tool can support all the variations of Wireless LANs, regardless of their type (as long as the driver support Wireless Extension).

Another advantage is these parameters may be changed on the fly without restarting the driver (or Linux).

The Wireless Tools (WT) is a set of tools allowing to manipulate the Wireless Extensions. They use a textual interface and are rather crude, but aim to support the full Wireless Extension. There are many other tools you can use with Wireless Extensions, however Wireless Tools is the reference implementation.

iwconfig manipulate the basic wireless parameters
iwlist allow to initiate scanning and list frequencies, bit-rates, encryption keys...
iwspy allow to get per node link quality
iwpriv allow to manipulate the Wireless Extensions specific to a driver (private)
ifrename allow to name interfaces based on various static criteria

Most Linux distributions also have integrated Wireless Extensions support in their networking initialisation scripts, for easier boot-time configuration of wireless interfaces. They also include Wireless Tools as part of their standard packages.
Wireless configuration can also be done using the Hotplug scripts and distribution specific support, this enable the proper support of any removable wireless interface (Pcmcia, CardBus, USB...).

Any versions of the Pcmcia package offer the possibility to do wireless configuration of Pcmcia and Cardbus card through thefile wireless.opts. This allow to fully integrate wireless settings in the Pcmcia scheme mechansism. However, this method is now deprecated in favor of distribution specific methods.

Please note that the Wireless Tools (starting with version 19) supports fully IEEE 802.11 parameters and devices, support older style of devices and most proprietary protocols, and are prepared to handle HiperLan as well. More recent versions of course adds more 802.11 support.

But, unfortunately not all drivers support all these features...