6 ms·

Tomato64: A port of Tomato Firmware to x86_64

131 points by ls65536 2y ago

EvanAnderson 2y ago
This makes sense. Years ago I used OpenWRT as a lightweight "network utility" VM in a number of Customer sites. The UI was comprehensible to the in-house IT staff (i.e. it didn't "look like Linux") and there's a ton of functionality. I could definitely see it being useful on bare metal devices.
- rzzzt 2y ago
  I did the same for a virtual lab for experimenting. OpenWRT ran as the router VM with two network interfaces and the rest of the instances connected to a VirtualBox internal network that was configured as its LAN side.
mysteria 2y ago
How is Tomato compared to the typical x86 choices PfSense or Opnsense?
- slipheen 2y ago
  Having used both at home, Tomato is much easier for doing standard home WiFi things. You can change wireless power levels, setup guest networks, etc easily within the UI. Pfsense/opensense is easier when you have complicated routing needs, like multiple vlans with various split tunnels, etc. It’s not 100% accurate, but imo if you want a short-hand you could say tomato is WiFi focused with routing support, and opensense is routing focused with WiFi support.
- ComputerGuru 2y ago
  It’s first and foremost a WiFi router OS and it’s aimed at home users. PfSense is very much a “big guns” solution and is typically not installed directly on WiFi routers, rather it is the gateway that everything runs through.
- tracker1 2y ago
  It's pretty great for home router/wifi usage or SOHO... not as advanced/flexible as pfsense/opnsense though. I miss Tomato a lot myself, but switched to separate router/ap a few years ago, and haven't had a device that could run tomato in close to a decade now.
sulandor 2y ago
what is the rationale behind this effort? are wifi-ap's moving towards x86? ime a usb wifi stick in a desktop computer will work as wifi-ap, but is somewhat janky because of the metal case (which is needed because em-interference from bus-clocks) and the wifi hardware having suboptimal provisions for ap-mode. UPDATE: "because we can" (was a stupid question) no hard feelings; last used tomato ~20y ago on a wrt54gl
- colechristensen 2y ago
  Use case would normally be a small form factor x86_64 machine which can be price competitive with high end AP hardware and you don't have to play the game of finding compatible hardware (squatting in the aisle in a walmart looking at the hardware revisions of all of the APs they have in stock finding out that they have the AP you were looking for but the hardware revision was incompatible) Being able to buy a "normal" computer and install tomato on it is a more attractive prospect for a lot of reasons.
- ssl-3 2y ago
  Tomato is just a Linux-ey system that routes packets and which features an approachable GUI, and an access point is just a system that bridges wireless networks to wired networks. These functions are normally wrapped up in one box in the consumer space, but they're still very different functions. And maybe I'm not doing it right, but I myself haven't used a combined router+wireless box in a fair number of years at home or at the shop. I keep the wired networking+routing back end in one spot where it makes sense, and I keep the wireless access points where they make sense to provide good coverage where I need it. My router just routes, and my wireless access points just provide wireless access. --- So to answer your first question directly: This system lets people use the friendly Tomato system on any old (or new, or whatever) x86 hardware they have. It brings it out of the world of hacks[0] on cheap low-performance embedded Wal-Mart routers and lets a person use it for routing on a much more performant machine. [0]: Not that those things aren't fun. I still have the first standalone router I ever bought -- a Linksys WRT54GS, with Tomato installed, and with an SD card hacked in using a card-edge connector from an old floppy drive cable for expanded storage.
- tencentshill 2y ago
752963e64 2y ago
[dead]
vaporary 2y ago
I've been enjoying FreshTomato on my home router for a number of years now. Sometimes, though, there are network environments I'd like to implement which are difficult to configure through the webUI, but which would be relatively trivial from a Linux CLI. For example, I'd like to create an ESSID which is bridged to a tagged VLAN, but on which the router has no layer3 presence. Or, maybe I'd like to setup a wireguard link, but only send selective traffic down it using firewall marks and policy routing. What I'd really like is a way to use the webUI to setup my initial base configuration, and then flip a switch to turn off the webUI, and implement further changes myself by editing configuration files on the device and calling out to shell scripts when needed to run "ip" and "brctl" commands. Does anyone know if such a thing is possible with FreshTomato, OpenWRT, or something similar? Am I just thinking about this wrong?
- RiverCrochet 2y ago
  I think in OpenWRT you can disable uhttpd in the Startup tab to prevent the Web UI from running.
  - snvzz 2y ago
    Better do it from elsewhere than the web ui. It ensures you don't get locked out.
- ssl-3 2y ago
  It has been many years since I've run any version of Tomato on anything, so I won't guess about the present state of that. But I think I can answer your question. These days, at least at home, I run OpenWRT on a Pi 4 (because it was cheap at the time). I use its web interface for the usual mundane poking and prodding. And when I want something special, I just add a simple startup script like I would have done on any other Linux box back when init systems were plain and dumb. This same thing should also work on any other OpenWRT installation that has a writeable filesystem (instead of, eg, SquashFS). And no, I don't think you are thinking of this wrong as a concept. It's a home network and not enterprise, and at the end of the day these things are all just Linux machines with a nice GUI. I think it is totally cromulent to mold them to your will.
9front 2y ago
Tomato ain't got nothin on OpenWRT!
tracker1 2y ago
Currently running OpnSense on an N100 MiniPC... while this wouldn't meet my needs, I know a lot of people it would work for in a SOHO / Forbidden Router configuration on a MiniPC.
faebi 2y ago
Is it realistic to get 10gbits networking?
- snvzz 2y ago
  Not really. Broadcom is generally best avoided. I'd look at openwrt and opnsense tables of supported hardware for 2.5/5/10gbps.
tredre3 2y ago
I really like Tomato's UI, it's very intuitive. Especially how easy it is to create virtual SSIDs and isolate them on their own VLAN. It's two clicks. It will create the bridge and the VLAN and the DNS for you. Comparatively, in LuCI you have to do all those steps separately in different pages and somehow know how to make it all work.
- 7j67nm6nm6 2y ago
  Having used Tomato, DD-WRT and currently OpenWRT/LuCI I rank Tomato with having the best UI. DD-WRT a distant second and OpenWRT/LuCI much further down the list.
- lhamil64 2y ago
  I use Tomato on my AP (my old router). I eventually picked up a used Sophos device and installed Opnsense mainly to play around with it. Opnsense/pfsense definitely have a learning curve whereas Tomato was super easy to setup. My one gripe with Tomato is, unless I missed something, upgrading your firmware is kind of a pain. You have to go out to the website, find the image for the latest version for your specific model of router, download it and then go into the UI and flash it. They even suggest wiping NVRAM which clears all your settings (I never bothered with that and it worked fine for me). It would be nice if they just had a "click here to update" button, especially since keeping your firewall/router up to date is pretty important for security.
- Abishek_Muthian 2y ago
  Is WiFi security open by default in Tomato still? Several years ago I had Tomato in one of my routers with WiFi disabled, it reset itself one day and since WiFi security was open by default anyone could have got into my network; Thankfully I had the antennas removed that time so I assume no one did. Could be a bug in Tomato or nvram issue within router although I didn't have this issue with other firmware.
whydoyouasking 2y ago
[dead]
rcarmo 2y ago
This is pretty nice. Sometimes I wish Tomato was as popular as OpenWRT in the SBC space.
qwertox 2y ago
Those were hard times when flashing these firmwares (Tomato/DD-WRT) on hardware like Buffalo routers with the extremely limited hardware resources they had, around 2010. I love my Mikrotik devices so much that I'll never look back.
- devilbunny 2y ago
  I haven’t used it in ages, but I still have my WHR-HP-G54. I’m pretty sure some version of Tomato is on it.
fransje26 2y ago
I failed to find on the website (or understand from the docs) which devices this would be compatible with. Is it that common for consumer routers to run x86_64 processors nowadays? Or is this meant to be run from a normal PC?
lancethepants 2y ago
I was wondering why my project had a sudden spike of stars on github. Looks like this was it. Hi, I'm the creator of Tomato64. Feel free to ask me anything and I'll watch this space. Discussion and collaboration for the project takes place at https://www.linksysinfo.org/index.php?forums/tomato-firmware-for-x86_64.82/ https://www.linksysinfo.org/index.php?forums/tomato-firmware... I'll also mention I'm currently working on a port of Tomato64 to the gl.inet flint2 (gl-mt6000). Something I haven't announced anywhere yet, though if you've checked out my repo you'll see it there.

131 points by ls65536 2y ago

This makes sense. Years ago I used OpenWRT as a lightweight "network utility" VM in a number of Customer sites. The UI was comprehensible to the in-house IT staff (i.e. it didn't "look like Linux") and there's a ton of functionality. I could definitely see it being useful on bare metal devices.

rzzzt 2y ago
I did the same for a virtual lab for experimenting. OpenWRT ran as the router VM with two network interfaces and the rest of the instances connected to a VirtualBox internal network that was configured as its LAN side.

mysteria 2y ago

How is Tomato compared to the typical x86 choices PfSense or Opnsense?

slipheen 2y ago
Having used both at home, Tomato is much easier for doing standard home WiFi things. You can change wireless power levels, setup guest networks, etc easily within the UI. Pfsense/opensense is easier when you have complicated routing needs, like multiple vlans with various split tunnels, etc. It’s not 100% accurate, but imo if you want a short-hand you could say tomato is WiFi focused with routing support, and opensense is routing focused with WiFi support.
ComputerGuru 2y ago
It’s first and foremost a WiFi router OS and it’s aimed at home users. PfSense is very much a “big guns” solution and is typically not installed directly on WiFi routers, rather it is the gateway that everything runs through.
tracker1 2y ago
It's pretty great for home router/wifi usage or SOHO... not as advanced/flexible as pfsense/opnsense though. I miss Tomato a lot myself, but switched to separate router/ap a few years ago, and haven't had a device that could run tomato in close to a decade now.

sulandor 2y ago

what is the rationale behind this effort? are wifi-ap's moving towards x86? ime a usb wifi stick in a desktop computer will work as wifi-ap, but is somewhat janky because of the metal case (which is needed because em-interference from bus-clocks) and the wifi hardware having suboptimal provisions for ap-mode. UPDATE: "because we can" (was a stupid question) no hard feelings; last used tomato ~20y ago on a wrt54gl

colechristensen 2y ago
Use case would normally be a small form factor x86_64 machine which can be price competitive with high end AP hardware and you don't have to play the game of finding compatible hardware (squatting in the aisle in a walmart looking at the hardware revisions of all of the APs they have in stock finding out that they have the AP you were looking for but the hardware revision was incompatible) Being able to buy a "normal" computer and install tomato on it is a more attractive prospect for a lot of reasons.
ssl-3 2y ago
Tomato is just a Linux-ey system that routes packets and which features an approachable GUI, and an access point is just a system that bridges wireless networks to wired networks. These functions are normally wrapped up in one box in the consumer space, but they're still very different functions. And maybe I'm not doing it right, but I myself haven't used a combined router+wireless box in a fair number of years at home or at the shop. I keep the wired networking+routing back end in one spot where it makes sense, and I keep the wireless access points where they make sense to provide good coverage where I need it. My router just routes, and my wireless access points just provide wireless access. --- So to answer your first question directly: This system lets people use the friendly Tomato system on any old (or new, or whatever) x86 hardware they have. It brings it out of the world of hacks[0] on cheap low-performance embedded Wal-Mart routers and lets a person use it for routing on a much more performant machine. [0]: Not that those things aren't fun. I still have the first standalone router I ever bought -- a Linksys WRT54GS, with Tomato installed, and with an SD card hacked in using a card-edge connector from an old floppy drive cable for expanded storage.
tencentshill 2y ago

752963e64 2y ago

[dead]

vaporary 2y ago

I've been enjoying FreshTomato on my home router for a number of years now. Sometimes, though, there are network environments I'd like to implement which are difficult to configure through the webUI, but which would be relatively trivial from a Linux CLI. For example, I'd like to create an ESSID which is bridged to a tagged VLAN, but on which the router has no layer3 presence. Or, maybe I'd like to setup a wireguard link, but only send selective traffic down it using firewall marks and policy routing. What I'd really like is a way to use the webUI to setup my initial base configuration, and then flip a switch to turn off the webUI, and implement further changes myself by editing configuration files on the device and calling out to shell scripts when needed to run "ip" and "brctl" commands. Does anyone know if such a thing is possible with FreshTomato, OpenWRT, or something similar? Am I just thinking about this wrong?

RiverCrochet 2y ago
I think in OpenWRT you can disable uhttpd in the Startup tab to prevent the Web UI from running.
- snvzz 2y ago
  Better do it from elsewhere than the web ui. It ensures you don't get locked out.
ssl-3 2y ago
It has been many years since I've run any version of Tomato on anything, so I won't guess about the present state of that. But I think I can answer your question. These days, at least at home, I run OpenWRT on a Pi 4 (because it was cheap at the time). I use its web interface for the usual mundane poking and prodding. And when I want something special, I just add a simple startup script like I would have done on any other Linux box back when init systems were plain and dumb. This same thing should also work on any other OpenWRT installation that has a writeable filesystem (instead of, eg, SquashFS). And no, I don't think you are thinking of this wrong as a concept. It's a home network and not enterprise, and at the end of the day these things are all just Linux machines with a nice GUI. I think it is totally cromulent to mold them to your will.

9front 2y ago

Tomato ain't got nothin on OpenWRT!

tracker1 2y ago

Currently running OpnSense on an N100 MiniPC... while this wouldn't meet my needs, I know a lot of people it would work for in a SOHO / Forbidden Router configuration on a MiniPC.

faebi 2y ago

Is it realistic to get 10gbits networking?

snvzz 2y ago
Not really. Broadcom is generally best avoided. I'd look at openwrt and opnsense tables of supported hardware for 2.5/5/10gbps.

tredre3 2y ago

I really like Tomato's UI, it's very intuitive. Especially how easy it is to create virtual SSIDs and isolate them on their own VLAN. It's two clicks. It will create the bridge and the VLAN and the DNS for you. Comparatively, in LuCI you have to do all those steps separately in different pages and somehow know how to make it all work.

7j67nm6nm6 2y ago
Having used Tomato, DD-WRT and currently OpenWRT/LuCI I rank Tomato with having the best UI. DD-WRT a distant second and OpenWRT/LuCI much further down the list.
lhamil64 2y ago
I use Tomato on my AP (my old router). I eventually picked up a used Sophos device and installed Opnsense mainly to play around with it. Opnsense/pfsense definitely have a learning curve whereas Tomato was super easy to setup. My one gripe with Tomato is, unless I missed something, upgrading your firmware is kind of a pain. You have to go out to the website, find the image for the latest version for your specific model of router, download it and then go into the UI and flash it. They even suggest wiping NVRAM which clears all your settings (I never bothered with that and it worked fine for me). It would be nice if they just had a "click here to update" button, especially since keeping your firewall/router up to date is pretty important for security.
Abishek_Muthian 2y ago
Is WiFi security open by default in Tomato still? Several years ago I had Tomato in one of my routers with WiFi disabled, it reset itself one day and since WiFi security was open by default anyone could have got into my network; Thankfully I had the antennas removed that time so I assume no one did. Could be a bug in Tomato or nvram issue within router although I didn't have this issue with other firmware.

whydoyouasking 2y ago

[dead]

rcarmo 2y ago

This is pretty nice. Sometimes I wish Tomato was as popular as OpenWRT in the SBC space.

qwertox 2y ago

Those were hard times when flashing these firmwares (Tomato/DD-WRT) on hardware like Buffalo routers with the extremely limited hardware resources they had, around 2010. I love my Mikrotik devices so much that I'll never look back.

devilbunny 2y ago
I haven’t used it in ages, but I still have my WHR-HP-G54. I’m pretty sure some version of Tomato is on it.

fransje26 2y ago

I failed to find on the website (or understand from the docs) which devices this would be compatible with. Is it that common for consumer routers to run x86_64 processors nowadays? Or is this meant to be run from a normal PC?

lancethepants 2y ago

I was wondering why my project had a sudden spike of stars on github. Looks like this was it. Hi, I'm the creator of Tomato64. Feel free to ask me anything and I'll watch this space. Discussion and collaboration for the project takes place at https://www.linksysinfo.org/index.php?forums/tomato-firmware-for-x86_64.82/ https://www.linksysinfo.org/index.php?forums/tomato-firmware... I'll also mention I'm currently working on a port of Tomato64 to the gl.inet flint2 (gl-mt6000). Something I haven't announced anywhere yet, though if you've checked out my repo you'll see it there.