Linksys BEFW11S4 died

Oct 29, 2006 14 Replies
Linksys BEFW11S4 died open original image

I've had a Linksys BEFW11S4 for years, yesterday it died. No lights on the unit at all. I picked up a Linksys WRT54G and it seems to be working will. I only have B wireless.. The one thing is on the old router you could send the incoming and outgoing logs to a pc. This unit has a log function but I don'e see a way to send them to a pc. Did they change this on newer units???



Thanks


Yes, it's changed. I don't know the specifics but the newer units use something different for storing and communicating logs. I was using Sven's Log Viewer with my old BEFW11S4 and had to switch over to Wall Watcher when I got a WRT54GS:

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Lance

*****

gene martinez thought carefully and wrote on 10/29/2006 09:41 AM:

Thanks for the info. I'll have a look at wallwatcher..

Thanks

Lance wrote:

Hi, Your power adapter may have died. Maybe the router itself is still good.

Lance hath wroth:

Yep. Totally different manufacturers with different feature sets.

I also use Log Viewer:

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the BEFW11S4. Log Viewer requires that the router send SNMP traps whenever something interesting happens in the router. The Linksys routers that support SNMP traps send one every time a new web page is viewed making this useful for snooping on what users are doing.

I'm fairly sure I can convince DD-WRT version of WRT54G SNMP to send similar traps. I just haven't bothered to work out the details.

Meanwhile, if you install DD-WRT firmware, you can use Wall Watcher or RFlow:

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You can also enable syslogd and use any of the various syslog data collectors.
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Jeff Liebermann hath wroth:

There's also Linklogger ($50) which directly supports DD-WRT and other alternative firmware for the WRT54G.

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uses syslogd instead of SNMP, so the various Linksys Log Viewer programs will not work.

If all you want is traffic monitoring, there's PRTG ($100):

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free version of PRTG will monitor 3 SNMP OID's which are sufficient for traffic in, traffic out, and user count.

I prefer MRTG (free) which does the same thing with SNMP, but requires some expertise to setup.

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You can get an idea what's available with DD-WRT SNMP by starting SNMP and connecting with telnet to the WRT54G: cat /proc/net/snmp An edited partial dump looks something like this: Ip: Forwarding DefaultTTL InReceives InHdrErrors InAddrErrors (etc..) Ip: 1 64 4267605 0 0 4006946 0 1411 245820 236129 855 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 Match up the OID name in the first line, with the corresponding value in the 2nd line. For example, the number of receive packets (InReceives) is 4267605.

I'm still trying to figure out how to convince DD-WRT to send NET-SNMP traps. Looks like some binaries are missing.

Thanks I'll have a look. Just did the ebay thing and have a new BEFW11S4 in the mail right now.. :)

Thanks again Jeff for all the great information. I'll have a look..

Did you have a hard time setting up WallWatcher to work with the WRT54G? I'm now doing/configuring something right.

snipped-for-privacy@eclipse.net (gene martinez) hath wroth:

Mistake. I used a BEFW11S4 v4 for a few years (after a customer demanded I take it back). It would hang erratically and lockup on streaming content. It would also refuse to reconnect one client machines, even though the others were working. It failed two of the online router exploit tests. I eventually had to install a lamp timer on the AC power line to power cycle it twice per day to keep it up. The only thing good I can say about the BEFW11S4 v4 is that the radio section seemed better than average (I didn't measure anything).

I would have purchased something else as a replacement wireless router.

The one thing I like about the BEFW11S4 is the log, incoming and outgoing being able to be sent to a pc to look at. Do you know what other routers do this also???

Thanks

snipped-for-privacy@eclipse.net (gene martinez) hath wroth:

Yes. BEFSR11, BEFW11S4, BEFSR41, BEFSX41, BEFSR81, BEFVP41, WAG54G, Linksys/Vonage RT31P2 etc... Basically anything that forwards log file entries using SNMP traps.

See:

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my favorite logger.

For your entertainment:

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I think mine has the same problem. I've had to power cycle it twice in

2 or 3 weeks. It doesn't let you connect to it or the internet. Power off/on and all is well again. Can you up-grade or change to a different ios on this unit?? Thanks again..

snipped-for-privacy@eclipse.net (gene martinez) hath wroth:

Nope. Usually only the Linux based routers have alternative firmware available.

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