RouterTech

RouterTech is a third-party Linux-based firmware for ADSL modem/routers based on the Texas Instruments AR7 (mips32) chipset. The firmware supports both wireless routers (AR7WRD and variants) using the TNETW1130 (ACX100) and TNETW1350A wifi chips, and non-wireless (AR7RD and variants) routers. The routers must have either the Adam2 or Pspboot bootloader.
The firmware is based on MontaVista Linux (kernel 2.4.17_mvl21-malta-mips_fp_le), uClibc (0.9.19), BusyBox (1.x), and other Linux networking libraries. This is mostly for IPV4.
The Texas Instruments AR7 system boards feature a choice of Ethernet switches (e.g., the Marvell 88E6060, Realtek RTL305SC, IC Plus IP175C, Infineon ADM6996 switches) allowing the router to provide Local area network facilities to multiple users. These are supported to a greater or lesser extent in the firmware. Similarly, AMD, Intel, and ATMEL flash chips are supported.
The development of the RouterTech firmwares was greatly assisted in the first instance by the release of fully compilable GPL source code by Acorp Russia in 2006/2007, after unsuccessful attempts to secure GPL code releases from some other manufacturers. The RouterTech firmware has long moved on from there, and features a new web interface and a significant number of enhancements. Both AnnexA and AnnexB are supported.
In order to compile the GPL sources of the RouterTech firmware, a gcc cross-compiler toolchain targeting the mipsel-uclibc platform is required. A useful tool for building cross-compilers is buildroot.
Supported routers
The RouterTech firmware supports a large number of AR7* routers. The list is too vast to reproduce in full (RouterTech has a software tool (the RUC) that will interrogate an AR7 router's hardware and firmware and report whether it is supported, and, if so, which firmware image to use). Below is a selection from the list of supported routers:
* DLink DSL G604T/G624T/G664T/G684T/500T/502T/504T/524T/564T/300T/320T series (note that the Dlink 2640T is not supported)
* Solwise/Aztech 600E/600ER/600EW/605E/605ER/605EW series and their clones
* Safecom SART2-4112, SART2-4115, SWAMR/SWART2 54108/54125 series and their clones
* Acorp LAN120M/LAN122, LAN420M/LAN422, W400G/W422G
* Roper FLYNET ADSL2/2+
* Linksys ADSL2MUE
* ASUS AAM6020VI-T4
* Castlenet ASW800
* Netcomm NB5PLUS4W
* Addon SOHOSpeed/GWAR3000
* Inca IM-204W
* Cnet CAR-854 Wireless-G 4-Port ADSL 2/2+
* PTI-8505G
* Pluscom AWR-7200
* Sphairon AR860E1-B V2
* ASMAX AR-804gu
* Ntech AWR54-A
* and a very long list of others.
Features
The RouterTech firmware offers features in addition to features often found on standard manufacturer firmware, such as:
* User-selectable DSP and tiatm drivers
* User-selectable LED configuration files
* Mounting network shares via SMBFS and ftpfs mount points
* Writeable and persistent minix partitions
* Defragmenting the router's environment via embedded commands
* SNTP
* DDNS
* UPnP
* IP Account
* dnsmasq
* Detailed system diagnostics
* Memory optimisation
* Setting up cron jobs
* Auto-execution of commands upon bootup
* Bandwidth monitoring
* Traffic shaping via netshaper or rshaper
* SCP
* SSH server (Dropbear)
* Half bridge
* WDS (wireless routers with the TNETW1350A chipset only)
* ftp client
* WAN IP local NAT Loopback
* A fully featured text editor
* Darkstat
* Siproxd
* Mjproxy
* Openvpn
* Relaying multicast UDP traffic to a client's TCP (HTTP) connection (unicast) through udpxy
* Ad blocking
* port forwarding
* Up-to-date Busybox (always the latest stable busybox version preceding each firmware release)
* QoS
* DHCP services
* Wakelan
* Wol_forward
* Sendmail
Specifically for wireless routers, wireless encryption via:
* WEP
* WPA
* For routers with the TNETW1350A chip, WPA2
Note: because of size and space constraints on routers with 2MB flash chips, some of these features are only available for wireless routers and non-wireless routers with 4MB flash.
The RouterTech firmwares are normally released in the combined firmware image format. If a router requires separate images (config + kernel + filesystem) for upgrading, the RouterTech Firmware Tool can be used (among other things) to extract the kernel and filesystem images from the single image.

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