Gargoyle - Good Family Network Solution

Soldato
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I do need an ADSL router as well indeed since my Sky **** cannot be put into bridge mode. Found a TP-Link TD8616 on another popular competitive sale site. The 834 and that are around ~£12, surely no real difference between them?
 
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You need an adsl modem not an adsl router (unless as you say you bridge an adsl router). Personally go for the 834 then you switch it as a modem and it's really painless or if that doesn't work it can act as a router (bridged). Otherwise if you are getting one get a pure adsl modem. When it's a modem (as per my link) it really is - no authentication etc just works as a modem

Bridging I haven't tried - not sure if it adds any latency to the connection etc over modem, more complex to set up etc - really don't know tbh.
 
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You can kick me if the 834 doesn't work aka modem mode, but rereading that modem post it says all 834's and I have an 834N which must be the top end of the 834 range - as I said I like the solution so much that I have now purchased a second one. Does mean if you ever get any issues you change it back to an adsl router and then can test/compare line speeds etc,
 
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Should say I got mine for £9 all incl second hand, but I wasn't in a hurry as it's a backup and I found a poorly worded ebay ad - always a winner :)
 
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Yeah, there is one ending now for about £10 see what happens, there seems to be an auction nding every few hours, so one is bound to go cheap! I'm in no particular rush!

I searched for 834 and then hooked into the one with the worst description/details :)
 
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There's one that's collection only :D Although it's 330miles away, probably not worth my while. Lets be honest i've just spent around 90 notes on a router, is 9,10 or 12 squidoo's going to make a huge difference now...?
 
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There's one that's collection only :D Although it's 330miles away, probably not worth my while. Lets be honest i've just spent around 90 notes on a router, is 9,10 or 12 squidoo's going to make a huge difference now...?

Agreed, tbh I got so excited about it I would have easily put down £20 to just get it going :) Amazon I believe have some for sub 20.
 
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How are you getting on with it, all in place yet?

As an appendum to my story the 834 duly arrived lacking power supply and stand, not a huge deal as I got it at such a steal but the price works out closer to £20 so I should have just gone for those when I had the chance and kept it simple
 
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This article by the Gargoyle developer of QOS maybe of interest

http://www.gargoyle-router.com/wiki/doku.php?id=qos

The QOS in this router has literally changed my networks ability to have voip and gaming lag free, because I have set it so each persons devices are grouped then if one person streams then it only affects them all other devices are ok - I could get even better by seperating the actual streaming but this a fairer solution.
 
Associate
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This article by the Gargoyle developer of QOS maybe of interest

http://www.gargoyle-router.com/wiki/doku.php?id=qos

The QOS in this router has literally changed my networks ability to have voip and gaming lag free, because I have set it so each persons devices are grouped then if one person streams then it only affects them all other devices are ok - I could get even better by seperating the actual streaming but this a fairer solution.

Agreed.

Its even better with the new version thats out today as you can prioritize pings now :cool:
 
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Wow! Well spotted totally missed that. Because it is such a great release - notes posted here

New in 1.5.4:
Bumps OpenWrt version to latest Backfire version for latest wireless fixes and support of multiple switch models in Buffalo WZR-HP-G300NH routers
New improved version of Active Congestion Controller. Paul has done OUTSTANDING work on this, and there is now fairly comprehensive QoS documentation on the wiki!
Implements ability to configure router as a Tor Relay/Bridge including ability to configure an Obfsproxy bridge (for routers that support Tor)
Implements ability to connect to Tor bridge (including Obfsproxy bridge) instead of directly to a relay (for routers that support Tor)
Allows monitoring of total Tor Bandwidth usage (for routers that support Tor)
Allows access to Tor hidden service addresses from all hosts (toggled and untoggled) when Tor is active and separately toggled for each host (for routers that support Tor)
Allows monitoring of bandwidth to/from router itself, which was before included in the "Total" categories, but not recorded seperately
Option to attempt to save configuration when upgrading. Some versions may still be incompatible.
Fixes monitoring of web history/searches for ranges of IPs
Some fixes for mounting/formatting of USB drives
Fixes security issue -- bandwidth.csv is no longer visible if not logged in
Adds two new optional date formats: dd.mm.yy and yyyy-mm-dd
Enable ps wide output in busybox -- allows more accurate listing of running processes when logged in via SSH
Sets cron loglevel to 9 so syslog doesn't show every time a cronjob runs (which can quickly clutter up the system log)

http://www.gargoyle-router.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=2461

Going to try it now :)
 
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Right i've just fell upon this whilst trying to work out how to QoS after many failing with flatmates etc... I think i might jump and give it a try. Is it possible to just enable QoS at certain times? I don't want to be doing this all the time, but "peak" hours the internet MUST be shared, which is what some people don't understand at all... :rolleyes:.

It's been a while since I last posted, solution still has been working marvels and family remains sane. Tbh the qos works so well and unlike other qos solutions if the bandwidth doesn't require qos it doesn't use it and further I have 5 groups (classes) in the network splitting the bandwidth 20% for each class which represents each family member. If however only my daughter and I are on then the. It is clever enough to split the proportion 50% each as it proportionally sets it. If we weren't maxing it though it wouldn't be active.

That said should you want todo what you requested it is theoretically possible with the latest patch! You now have the ability to set quotas and a quota when kicking in can do one of 2 things it can either disable Internet if breached or it can push the machines effected to specific qos classes. On top of this you can have the quota disabled at certain times so basically you'd shove everyone to one class and set a very low quota so when active each device would go to a set class, I have no idea if it would work but it should do :) but due to how qos works on the gargoyle it wouldn't actually be necessary.

On an additional thing I have added, I now have plugged a USB drive into he back of the router and have this act as a simple nas drive for the family through gargoyle firmware - even pushed my sons iTunes folder to it last night as his laptop was struggling on capacity

On another note, if people are looking at this there is now a 3700 which is v3 so make sure you only get a v1 or v2 or one of the other atheros routers listed in the supported routers section, more memory and flash memory is good - which it lists in that section on the gargoyle supported routers section. The atheros AR71xx routers personally I would go for as you can use the standard provided router web page to push gargoyle onto the - no fancy tricks etc
 
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Soldato
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I'm keen to get Gargoyle on my WZR-HP-G300NH that is currently running DD-WRT 19342. However, I'm not that confident over the use of Telnet to install it...

I found a post on the Gargoyle forum and Wiki that should simplify things, but I'm not sure if the instructions would be exactly the same for the latest 1.5.7 build. Here's my question:

Should I replace the code in the wiki (please examine the full URLs where they have been shortened):

cd /tmp

wget http://www.gargoyle-router.com/down...-ar71xx-wzr-hp-g300nh-squashfs-sysupgrade.bin

Then

mtd -e linux -r write gargoyle_1.3.14-ar71xx-wzr-hp-g300nh-squashfs-sysupgrade.bin linux

with this?

cd /tmp

wget http://www.gargoyle-router.com/down...generic-wzr-hp-g300nh-squashfs-sysupgrade.bin

Then

mtd -e linux -r write gargoyle_1.5.7-ar71xx-generic-wzr-hp-g300nh-squashfs-sysupgrade.bin linux
 
Soldato
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OK so I went ahead and did it anyway, and apart from Putty not seeming to recognise any keystrokes when inputting the DD-WRT password for the router when logging in via Telnet (which it actually does), everything is up and running and seems to be fine so far...
 
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Soldato
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Anyone know if there's a virtualbox image of this ?.

Think I want to run it as a VM as opposed to running it on physical.

Home network will be vlan'd off or tagged with the kids going through gargoyle and the rest of us using the main route
 
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Anyone know if there's a virtualbox image of this ?.

Think I want to run it as a VM as opposed to running it on physical.

Home network will be vlan'd off or tagged with the kids going through gargoyle and the rest of us using the main route

I'd post on their forums re this. My solution of the Netgear 3700 is probably the easiest to implement as you literally just patch it and it just works! Love the ability to lock out the children when I need to (homework etc). QOS has not let me down since implementing it - I never have an issue with anyone not getting enough bandwidth and playing games at the same time.
 
Soldato
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I'm pretty pleased with Gargoyle so far. I've not set up QoS yet. Things seem to be working OK with my flatmates.

Performance seems to be comparable to DD-WRT, although I've not tested specific network transfer rates yet.
 
Soldato
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OK depending on your download speeds I would highly recommend you enable QOS, the default rules should be sufficient for you to at least gain from them - particularly with gaming/streaming. Very easy to do, in the web management->Firewall ->QOS Download-> Tick Enable QOS. In total Download badwidth put your speed of connection and enable active congestion. That way it will set the best speed for QOS to work. On the Upload I can't remember if there are default rules, if there are then enable QOS Upload and set the connection speed as recommended on the page.

Looking forward I create classes based on family members (4 in the family) then allocated ips to the family and then split it 20% between each of us (20% catch all). If say 2 members are on this means they still split 50:50 so nice and fair and it only kicks in if it needs to, it is a very nice system. But the default should mean the line speed remains a better experience for all as a start.

If your connection <10mb I would say it was a must to set this, over your call - its a major feature of Gargoyle so seems a shame not to take advantage of it. Over 20mb you'll see a degradation in performance due to QOS - doesn't kill the line but it will reduce download speeds.

I love my router, still need to update to the latest but it just works!
 
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