Peter Piekarczyk

Installing & Securing dd-wrt

I recently upgraded my TP-Link Archer c9 version 1 router to use dd-wrt. It’s powerful as it is but the additional settings I can add are fantastic.

Navigate to your router default homepage http://192.168.1.1/

  • Change Password

Setup Tab

Assume if a field isn’t listed, you don’t have to change it!

Optional Settings

  • Router Name
    • Change to whatever you’d like

./router-name.png

Router IP

  • Local IP Address: Change this! This’ll help prevent malware from spreading:
    • 192.168.7.4 or 192.168.3.6 - just don’t keep it the default 192.168.1.1

./router-ip.png

Network Settings

  • Make sure DNSMasq for DNS and DHCP-Authoritive are checked

./network-settings.png

Time Settings

  • Time zone - check the right timezone

Click Save, then Apply Settings

  • Open up your computer’s Network Settings (System Prefs → Network)
  • Ethernet / WiFi click “Advanced”
  • Click RENEW DHCP Lease
  • You can also toggle your WiFI on/off or unplug your ethernet cable back in

Go back to

Basic Wireless Settings

./wireless-settings.png

Wireless Security

./wireless-security.png

Security

** I have WAN requests ping enabled for line quality tests on dsl reports

./security.png

Adminstration Keep Alive

./admin-1.png

./admin-2.png

./admin-3.png

Commands

In startup script, I have these 3 settings. This is the “Transmit Queue Length”. I have a very small length set from the traditional 1500 to help improve ping times.

ifconfig eth0 txqueuelen 2
ifconfig eth1 txqueuelen 2
sleep 10

Pi-hole settings

Pi-hole is a network adblocker that runs on the raspberry pi:

These settings live under Services > DNSMasq.

dhcp-option=6,192.168.XXX.XXX
domain-needed
bogus-priv
no-resolv
server=192.168.XXX.XXX
expand-hosts

Resources

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