OpenWRT on Asus WL-500gP: Installation Guide

1. Access Asus router via web browser from PC. Programmed WAN IP address and network information.

2. Powered off the Asus router.

3. Downloaded openwrt-brcm-2.4-squashfs.trx and saved to my PC local disk.

4. Disabled all NIC's on the PC except for the one connected to the Asus.

5. Held in black "restore" button on back of router while powering it on. Waiting until power light (orange broken circle with line in top) stopped flashing.

6. Ran ASUS "Firmware Restoration" utility. Selected the file "openwrt-brcm-2.4-squashfs.trx" and submit. Waiting until status bar went across screen, then watched router reboot. Waiting another five minutes for good measure.

instructions on using firmware restoration:

• Disable all but one network interfaces on your PC. This is nessesary because the firmware restoration tool is not very intelligent in finding the correct interface to use for communicating with the router.
• Configure Windows TCP/IP networking to have static IP address 192.168.1.10 as shown in this image.
• Disconnect the power cable.
• Press the reset button on the back of the router.
• Keep pressing the reset button while inserting the power cable again.
• Keep pressing the reset button until the power LED starts flashing every second.
• Start the firmware restoration tool on your PC (You can find this tool on the CD or download it from the Asus website).
• This tool should find the Asus router -> select it.
• Select the correct firmware file you want to upload. Double check again if it's the correct one!
• Press upload.

7. Using a web browser on the PC accessed the router on 192.168.1.1 and set a root password.

8. Using SSH accessed the router as 'root' and the new password and checked everything out.

br0       Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:18:F3:70:5D:E4  
          inet addr:192.168.31.1  Bcast:192.168.31.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:264 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:186 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:0 
          RX bytes:25278 (24.6 KiB)  TX bytes:46890 (45.7 KiB)

eth0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:18:F3:70:5D:E4  
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING PROMISC MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:260 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:1783 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 
          RX bytes:30678 (29.9 KiB)  TX bytes:161902 (158.1 KiB)
          Interrupt:4 

eth2      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:18:F3:70:5D:E4  
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING ALLMULTI MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:3263
          TX packets:1696 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 
          RX bytes:0 (0.0 B)  TX bytes:107811 (105.2 KiB)
          Interrupt:2 Base address:0x2000 

lo        Link encap:Local Loopback  
          inet addr:127.0.0.1  Mask:255.0.0.0
          UP LOOPBACK RUNNING  MTU:16436  Metric:1
          RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:0 
          RX bytes:0 (0.0 B)  TX bytes:0 (0.0 B)

vlan0     Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:18:F3:70:5D:E4  
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING ALLMULTI MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:264 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:1781 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:0 
          RX bytes:26334 (25.7 KiB)  TX bytes:149714 (146.2 KiB)

vlan1     Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:18:F3:70:5D:E4  
          inet addr:64.21.204.250  Bcast:64.21.204.255  Mask:255.255.255.248
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:0 
          RX bytes:0 (0.0 B)  TX bytes:0 (0.0 B)