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Frequently Asked Questions

Device Support

Q: Does FreshTomato support only old devices or also more recent ones?

FreshTomato supports both old devices and modern ones. See the Hardware compatibility page for more details. Keep a close eye on CPU speed, Ethernet port speed and Wi-Fi speed (with 802.11ac currently supporting the fastest Wi-Fi speed).

Default Login Credentials / IP Address


Q: What is FreshTomato's default IP(v4) address?

  • Default IPv4 address: 192.168.1.1
  • Netmask: 255.255.255.0


Q: What are FreshTomato's default login credentials?

  • Username: root
  • Password: admin

How do I choose which Firmware Build I should use (build naming scheme)?

Q: What do those cryptic filenames mean? How do I choose the right build for my router?

A: The naming scheme for ARM-based models (with some exceptions) is roughly as follows:

  • FreshTomato - The Tomato mod name/fork name. This is always FreshTomato,
    as currently it's the only fork in development. FreshTomato is added to reduce
    confusion for people who may also have other Tomato forks on their PCs or routers.
  • Hardware model - Specifies the router or access point model number.
  • ARM - This build is intended for devices with the ARM CPU architecture.
  • Wireless Driver (optional) NG - Indicates whether the New Generation Broadcom
    binary wireless driver is in the build. Broadcom never released the driver
    source code, so developers rely on binary drivers. Builds for newer hardware
    required the newer wireless driver and a newer software development kit (SDK).
    These were called “NG” (“New Generation”) drivers.
    RT indicates TBD.
    RT-N indicates this build's driver supports 802.11n.
    RT-AC indicates this build's driver supports 802.11ac.
    In general, newer drivers/builds also support all older 802.11 protocols.
  • Release name (e.g. 2021.3)
  • Edition (Mini / AIO / VPN) - indicates which features are included in this build.
    (See Feature matrix to understand more).
  • NVRAM size (32K / 64K / 128K) - This is optional, for models which have multiple
    hardware revisions and each revision may include more or less NVRAM.
  • NOSMP (optional) - Specifies this a build for SMP-capable hardware,
    but for which SMP is disabled.
  • Custom (optional). - This identifies a build which includes or excludes a certain
    feature (set).

For example, we can tell that the ARM build with filename:

freshtomato-RT-AC3200-ARM-2021.3-AIO-128K.zip_no_media_server

has the following features:

Mod (fork) name: FreshTomato.
Hardware Model: built for the Asus RT-AC3200 router.
ARM: (for models with an ARM CPU architecture).
Release name: 2021.3 (The third release of 2021.) This ISN'T necessarily from the third month.
Edition: AIO (All-in-one). This edition includes most all features
NVRAM size: 128K (for routers with 128K of NVRAM space)
no_media_server: This build doesn't include the Media Server

MD5SUM files are available in each website folder containing firmware builds. It is strongly recommended that you run a hash program against the .zip file of the build you downloaded. Then, you should compare the value reported in that program with the hash value listed for that build in the MD5SUM file. If the two don't match, your firmware download may be corrupt, and you should avoid flashing your router with that file, or you could brick your router.

Make Settings Temporary

Q: How can I make temporary changes to FreshTomato's settings that aren't saved unless I want them to be?

A: In the Administration/Debugging menu, enable the “Avoid commiting to NVRAM” setting. If you don't want to keep the settings changes, just reboot FreshTomato and settings will return to what they were before you made them. If you later decide you want to save the changes, uncheck the Avoid performing an NVRAM commit button. This make experimentation fun and safe.

Another option while debugging is to make a backup configuration. Make your changes, if you decide you messed things up more than fixed them you can restore the backed-up configuration.

Device Name Defaults

Q: What are the common device names used to represent router interfaces/components?

  • vlan0: Wired (Ethernet) LAN ports
  • eth1: Wireless LAN
  • br0: Internal LAN bridge (configurable) for wired LAN and Wireless LAN
  • eth0: internal interface between CPU and the 6-port switch

Log Location Default

Q: Where is FreshTomato System log file located? How are logs stored?

A: * The logfile is located in /var/log/messages.

The only exception occurs if you configure permanent, external storage, (via USB or CIFS share).
Logs are erased between boots, unless permanent storage is configured.1)

BusyBox

Q: What is BusyBox?

BusyBox, The Swiss Army Knife of Embedded Linux2) - provides the Linux commands used in FreshTomato.

BusyBox combines tiny versions of many common UNIX/Linux utilities into a single small executable. It provides minimalist replacements for most of the utilities you usually find in GNU coreutils, util-linux, etc. The utilities in BusyBox generally have fewer options than their full-featured GNU cousins; however, the options that are included provide the expected functionality and behave very much like their GNU counterparts.

Read more at: https://www.commandlinux.com/man-page/man1/busybox.1.html

1)
If you enabled Log To Remote System your logs are obviously retained on the remote server as well.
faq.1635696449.txt.gz · Last modified: 2021/10/31 16:07 by hogwild