End of GaTi Firmware for DG834GT

My DG834GT gone bad after a power surge. This marks the end of GaTi firmware. I will be moving to a separate DSL modem & wireless router setup, as most of the integrated ones suffer from problems and not on par with features of wireless routers. Current candidates are following, if you have suggestions please do drop a comment.

• Actiontec GT701D Ethernet DSL Modem
• Netgear WNDR3800
  

GaTi - V0.8 Beta1

GaTi V0.8 Beta1 brings following changes

• Based on DG834GT Firmware v1.03.23
  
• BusyBox has been updated to v1.17.1 with useful tools
• Cyassl updated to v1.5.6
  
• Rest of all previous features included

• Image - GaTi-V0.8-Beta1.img

Problems/Feedback please leave them in the Forum

HOWTO: Coustom DNS Settings with GaTi V0.6 Beta1

Netgear firmware 1.02.19 has a problem that you can not set coustom DNS settings. If you miss this feature with GaTi firmware use following procedure to set the settings (OpenDNS servers are used in the example)

1) Enable Telnet in the left side menu (UberGT->Telnet settings) then reboot the router
2) Telnet to the router i.e telnet 192.168.0.1
3) Login using your web admin password and user as root
4) You will have shell prompt
5) Now set DNS first server IP address issuing following command
nvram set wan_dns1=208.67.222.222
6) Now set DNS second server IP address by issuing following command
nvram set wan_dns2=208.67.220.220
7) Now enable custom DNS settings by issuing the following command
nvram set wan_fix_dns=1
8) Now reboot your router and verify that your DNS settings working or not

GaTi - V0.6 Beta1

GaTi V0.6 Beta1 brings following changes

• Based on DG834GT Firmware v1.02.19 (VPN)
  
• BusyBox has been updated to v1.13.4 with useful tools
• Cyassl updated to v1.0.3
  
• Rest of all previous features included

• Image - GaTi-V0.6-Beta1.img

I am looking for VPN testers, if you are able to use VPN with 1.02.19 firmware and willing to test next beta of GaTi which will have updates for IPSec solution (openswan) of VPN for improved stability and security please leave a note in the forum.

Problems/Feedback please leave them in the Forum

GaTi V0.5 Beta 1

GaTi V0.5 Beta1 brings following changes

• Based on DG834GT Firmware v1.02.16
  
• BusyBox has been updated to v1.13.2 with useful tools
• Now WOL uses busybox's ether-wake tool
  
• Now udhcpd & udhcpc uses busybox's udhcpc & udhcpd with static leases fix for GT
• Rest of all previous features included
• Version jumped from 0.3 to 0.5 as 0.4 was not released
  

• Image - GaTi-V0.5-Beta1.img
• Source - GaTi-V0.5-Beta1-Src.tar.bz2
  

Problems/Feedback please leave them in the Forum

GaTi - V0.3 Beta1

GaTi V0.3 Beta1 brings following changes

• Updated udhcpd to support static leases, which never worked in original DG834GT firmware
  
• New SSL/TLS library CyaSSL incorporated
• Dynamic DNS support modified to update DNS-O-MATIC instead of DynDNS
• You can configure DNS-O-MATIC to update multiple services
• Updates are done using HTTPS, thanks to CyaSSL
• Helps in setting up OpenDNS update and exploit its features
  

• GaTi-V0.3-Beta1.img

Problems/Feedback please leave them in the Forum

GaTi - V0.2 Beta2

GaTi V0.2 Beta2 brings following changes

• UberGT is updated to 1.06 beta4
• rc startup binary script is reverted to V1.02.04
• Allows the firewall scripts to function which are open
• Site Blocking works

• NAT Look Back works
• Only tested to the extent of verifying the firewall rules

• WOL (comes as part of UberGT)
  

• GaTi-V0.2-Beta2.img

• GaTi-V0.2-Beta2-Src.tar.bz2

Problems/Feedback please leave them in the Forum

Update 08/10/2007: There is a problem with WOL interface with Beta2, which is now fixed. Re-download the image from above links for the fix.

GaTi - V0.2 Beta1

This is a kind of bug fix release to V0.1, some of the ADSL configuration parameters used by the official firmware are used in this release. This might improve the ADSL line stability and resolve issues some people have with V0.1. This is the only change from V0.1

Note that there is no reason for you to try this firmware unless you have ADSL stability problems with V0.1.

Future Beta releases to V0.2 will bring in new changes (features).

• GaTi-V0.2-Beta1.img
• GaTi-V0.2-Beta1-Src.tar.bz2

Problems/Feedback please leave them in the Forum

GaTi - DG834GT Custom Firmware

I have give a name to the custom firmware I am producing for Netgear DG834GT. This helps in managing things. I am going call my custom firmware as GaTi (means speed). This is going to be GaTi-V0.1 release which is basically a bug fix release to the earlier.

• GaTi-V0.1
• Based on official V1.02.09 firmware
• Includes UberGT ADSL Mod
• Uses Squashfs 3.2r2 for the root file system (with ZLIB compression)
• Only English web interface
• Fixes in web interface for wrong Time Zone configuration
• GMT+05:30
• GMT-03:30
• Usual DISCLAIMERS apply i.e use it on your own risk

• GaTi-V0.1 Source
• Source i.e tools, rootfs folder & kernel patch

UberGT mod has been tested on my modem so if in case it doesn't work for you let me know.

Update 9/6/2007: Use this Forum for comments
Update 10/4/2008: Check New Releases here

Netgear DG834GT Hacking

Some time back I have replace my ADSL modem provided by BSNL with Netgear DG834GT There are several reasons for this

• BSNL provided Huawei SmartX MT880 is a poor performer
• Has got a laptop which needs wireless access which MT880 does not provide

DG834GT is a good performer however it suffers from poor firmware provided by the Netgear. The firmaware is based on opensource software so it provides opportunity to hack around things yourself to fix problems improves performance.

Bracco has done excellent job with providing ADSL parameters control interface with a stable older firmware version V1.01.32 (which he calls Ubergt) which was not officially release by Netgear Support.

I have been using this firmware for some time now and able tune to extract very good speeds from my DataOne connection. BSNL making all home plans to up to 2Mbps I could reach maximum download rate of 260 KBPS (Kilo Bytes Per Second).

Recently Netgear has release new firmware V1.02.09 which claims improved ADSL line stability and performance, which also been confirmed by several users in various forums.

I have been playing with V1.02.04 firmware source for some time but couldn't make much use of it as it seems to be broke (Linux kernel image never gets compiled properly). With new release out and people saying stability improved I wanted to see whether the new source is any good. I tried to build the kernel and re-created the image which seems to work fine. Now I wanted to do few things which are planed for long time

1. Enable Squashfs with LZMA compression as root file system - Currently Netgear firmware uses only Cramfs with ZLIB compression and Squashfs is superior to Cramfs in performance & Compressed size. This should give more room on the Flash to put more useful applications.
2. Fix a bug I found for my time zone GMT +5.30, i.e time is always off with this time zone setting.
3. Modify the DynDNS client to support SSL to communicate with OpenDNS and other services which require SSL, probably by replacing the existing old client ez-ipupdate with ndyndns (I have not evaluated it yet).
4. More things to come!

As a first step I wanted to import Bracco's changes to this firmware (I believe Bracco is already working on that with more improvements) and then try to putting latest version of Squashfs with only ZLIB compression (i.e Squashfs 3.2-r2) . This experiment has been successful and I have the new firamware and its source (patch) for you to try out. Currently I am using this firmware and max download rate reached with this is 350KBPS (Kilo Bytes Per Second), with a good server (ex: www.kernel.org) it hovers around 230-270KBPS.

• DG834GT_V1.02.09_squash3.2_ubergt.img
• Base is V1.02.09 firmware
• Only English web interface
• Includes Ubergt changes
• Uses Squashfs 3.2r2 for the root filesystem (with ZLIB compression)
  
• Usual DISCLAIMERS apply i.e use it on your own risk

• DG834GT_V1.02.09_squash3.2_ubergt_src.tar.bz2
• Source i.e tools, rootfs folder & kernel patch
• Instructions are present in the file README-SQUASH-UBERGT
  
• Usual DISCLAIMERS apply i.e use it on your own risk
• Next to follow
• Squashfs 3.2r2 with LZMA compression

If you have any comments, feedback etc. please do let me know.

Update 8/24/2007:
As nick (see comments) observed the UberGT settings are not taking effect after reboot also, I could find the reason I will be releasing the updated firmware soon.

Update 8/26/2007:
Updated firmware is available now which fixes UberGT mod issue.

Update 10/4/2008:
Check New Releases here