[CentOS] Problem with WRT54GL router

Wed Sep 17 17:49:32 UTC 2014
Timothy Murphy <gayleard at alice.it>

I have a curious problem with an old WRT54GL router,
which I use as a WiFi access point on my LAN:

  Internet->ADSL modem->CentOS-7 computer->WRT54GL router

The router has always had a slight problem
of losing connection every so often -
it used to be every couple of days,
but recently it has become much more often.

My cure was always to disconnect the power from the router
for 10 seconds or so, and then re-connect it.

Recently I discovered that running the following script
on the CentOS computer seems to solve the problem (for a while)

  sudo systemctl restart dhcpd
  sudo systemctl restart network
  sudo systemctl restart shorewall

(I suspect the first, dhcpd, is irrelevant.)

Incidentally, I am able to ping laptops on the LAN
(but not the other way round)
even when the router is in its "bad" state.

I wonder if anyone has had a similar experience,
and can offer advice?

I don't like to examine the internals of the router,
in case it stops working altogether.
I'm planning on getting another router (N protocol),
so it is not a very serious matter -
I'm just puzzled by it.


- 
Timothy Murphy  
e-mail: gayleard /at/ eircom.net
School of Mathematics, Trinity College, Dublin 2, Ireland