I'm curious what my firmware options are for the WNR3500L based on these things since I just ordered one:
Set up my router as a VPN server so I can securely connect to my home network from work and other places without leaving my computer on. I'm assuming I can wake-on-lan it over the VPN just as I do when I'm on my local network.
Attach a HP USB printer to the router and print from it.
If I can also attach a drive through a usb hub, it would be nice, but more optional than the printer. I'm assuming it does a Samba share for attached drives?
I know almost nothing about DLNA, but see it advertised on new equipment which I might get sometime soon-ish. It would be nice if it also supported this, though it's not exactly clear to me what this buys me, so maybe it's not a big deal.
Are there firmwares that do OpenVPN Server, Print server, usb hub, samba sharing, and DLNA? I notice the kong mod looks like it's either OpenVPN or DLNA. Does this mean it's either OpenVPN or DLNA, but not both?
If no firmwares do all these things, then what are my choices for firmwares that make it act as the VPN server and work the printer at least?
Thanks for any help since I'm a bit confused about all the options out there and want to get this puppy working tonight if I can while my house mate is away so he doesn't whine about the network being down while I monkey with it.
You should be able to do all you want by using the latest Tomato firmware.
# NAS support: external USB storage, with file sharing on LAN and WAN (supports FAT/FAT32, EXT2/EXT3 and NTFS)
# Print server: access USB printer from LAN
# VPN support (through OpenVPN, both client and server mode)
# Media server DLNA
Cool, thank you. I picked up my router and played with it before seeing this reply. I put on the Kong dd-wrt mod which seemed to work ok, though I think it doesn't have DLNA as part of the vpn package I installed.
I'll do a flash to tomato this weekend to see which I like better. Seems like I just have to reset and flash the firmware directly since I'm already running a version of dd-wrt.
I'm assuming if I decide I want to go back to dd-wrt later I'll have to flash back to the netgear firmware first and then do the two dd-wrt flashes?
Yes just flash the Tomato firmware directly, and perform a 30-30-30 after. By security, grab before flashing the root password from dd-wrt, if the default Tomato password doesn't work (but a hard reset usually solves this, erasing the nvram).
To revert to dd-wrt just reflash directly also.