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Can Gargoyle work as a wifi access point?

Posted: Wed Jan 11, 2012 2:35 pm
by ris
Hi there,

I need to buy a WiFi access point for a friend who currently has an ADSL modem/router he borrowed from his ISP but which lacks WiFi. The idea is to let him connect to the Internet with his new Android phone and possibly allow his mother to connect at the same time on her laptop (I've been told that this was a totally secondary concern, no need to wonder why).

The modem/router is an old model of the Freebox handed out by the French ISP Free. I'm not familiar with OpenWrt (I've been happily using a wired Netgear router so far) therefore all I need to know is whether I can plug Gargoyle and have magically WiFi around, while keeping the wired connection for the main puter so that the ping isn't reduced for online games (I'm talking about a teenager whose online life seems to be important for his... well social standing). To summarize, the Freebox would handle the modem and router parts and Gargoyle would be a wifi access point only.

If it can work that way, I'd rather support a free software project instead of buying some standard stuff. There are a couple of additional details I can think of but they should be easy to manage.
- UI language. If it's in English only I (think I) can set it up.
- Power plug. Gargoyle seems to come with adapters that can handle 240v or 120v AC current so I'll just need a power plug adapter.

Sorry for this newbie question and thanks in advance for your help.

Re: Can Gargoyle work as a wifi access point?

Posted: Wed Jan 11, 2012 2:42 pm
by hnl_dk
Yes, Gargoyle is able to work as an AP, in both directions.
You can find supported routers here: http://wiki.openwrt.org/toh/start

Re: Can Gargoyle work as a wifi access point?

Posted: Wed Jan 11, 2012 3:16 pm
by ispyisail

Re: Can Gargoyle work as a wifi access point?

Posted: Wed Jan 11, 2012 3:51 pm
by hnl_dk
ispyisail wrote:or here

http://www.gargoyle-router.com/shop
Yes, but then he will need to pay import taxes and VAT in France (I would at least need to do that here in Denmark).
It would possibly be better if it would be possible for us foreigners (at least us from the EU) to pay through Paypal for support ;)

Re: Can Gargoyle work as a wifi access point?

Posted: Wed Jan 11, 2012 4:20 pm
by DoesItMatter
Don't forget the Donate page!

http://www.gargoyle-router.com/donate.php

You can always Donate via Paypal to Eric and send him a PM

Re: Can Gargoyle work as a wifi access point?

Posted: Wed Jan 11, 2012 4:24 pm
by hnl_dk
DoesItMatter wrote:Don't forget the Donate page!

http://www.gargoyle-router.com/donate.php

You can always Donate via Paypal to Eric and send him a PM
I had not found that page.

Re: Can Gargoyle work as a wifi access point?

Posted: Fri Jan 20, 2012 7:43 pm
by ris
Thanks for your advice guys. I dropped a word to Eric, and it seems that the problem lays with certification paperwork (which costs money). Even if I pay the taxes, the router sold on the online shop isn't certified to work properly in Europe (It does work properly, but you need to pay to get a certification nevertheless) so it gets confiscated by the customs.

Looks like I'm out of luck.

Re: Can Gargoyle work as a wifi access point?

Posted: Fri Jan 20, 2012 7:52 pm
by hnl_dk
ris wrote:Thanks for your advice guys. I dropped a word to Eric, and it seems that the problem lays with certification paperwork (which costs money). Even if I pay the taxes, the router sold on the online shop isn't certified to work properly in Europe (It does work properly, but you need to pay to get a certification nevertheless) so it gets confiscated by the customs.

Looks like I'm out of luck.
Where do you come from?
You are able to find supported routers everywhere.

Re: Can Gargoyle work as a wifi access point?

Posted: Fri Jan 20, 2012 8:04 pm
by hnl_dk
hnl_dk wrote:
ris wrote:Thanks for your advice guys. I dropped a word to Eric, and it seems that the problem lays with certification paperwork (which costs money). Even if I pay the taxes, the router sold on the online shop isn't certified to work properly in Europe (It does work properly, but you need to pay to get a certification nevertheless) so it gets confiscated by the customs.

Looks like I'm out of luck.
Where do you come from?
You are able to find supported routers everywhere.
I can see that you are from France.
This is the router that I use. I have one as a router and one as an access point: http://www.amazon.fr/dp/B002YETVTQ/ref= ... 002YETVTQ6
http://www.redcoon.fr/B278700-TP-LINK-T ... Fi_Routeur

Re: Can Gargoyle work as a wifi access point?

Posted: Tue May 01, 2012 3:24 pm
by ris
hnl_dk wrote:I can see that you are from France.
This is the router that I use. I have one as a router and one as an access point: http://www.amazon.fr/dp/B002YETVTQ/ref= ... 002YETVTQ6
http://www.redcoon.fr/B278700-TP-LINK-T ... Fi_Routeur
It took a while but I finally bought a TL-WR1043ND, thank you for your advice. I played with the original firmware for a couple of days and then installed Gargoyle 1.4.7. The installation was very straightforward, I was worried a bit when I couldn't connect to the Internet after the router reboot, but after a couple of minutes (and rebooting the modem, the router and the computer), voilĂ ! There's a new router with Gargoyle running happily somewhere in France.

My overall impression is that it's complete and at the same time simple to use, thanks for making OpenWrt so accessible to newbies. Everything worked as expected, the Android phone has now wifi access. And when I connected via SSH to the router and saw everything I could install with opkg, that was the omfg moment. So I think I will play a little bit with the remote access :)

Also, if I may, I've already got a feature request: displaying the list of applications which use UPnP at a given moment would be useful because some of them do not tell if they're firewalled. That's a feature the original firmware had but it seems to be missing in Gargoyle.

So thanks again everybody. If you'd be interested in a French and/or Turkish translation for Gargoyle's UI, feel free to ping me. I'd be happy to give back something in return.