I have just acqutired a LinkSys RV082 VPN router and I want to put custom firmware on it. I love the custom firmwares for the LinkSys WRT54G (e.g. OpenWrt, DD-WRT) but they don’t run on the RV082. After much searching on the internet, I found a project which might eventually lead to custom firmware. The project is OpenIXP. Currently, it’s targetted at the LinkSys WRV54G but the goal stated on the homepage is “to produce a Linux based open environment for the Intel IXP4xx processors”. The project leader also has some great background information on his other site.

Anyway, I was talking to the project leader and he said that in order to port OpenIXP to the RV082 (and possibly RV042?) the first step is to open up the box and figure out what hardware it has. So, I did that. Below is a summary of how I opened the box and what I found inside. …Continue reading » Under the Hood of the LinkSys RV082 VPN Router