This is an old revision of the document!
Q: Does FreshTomato support only old devices or newer ones too?
A: FreshTomato supports both old devices and modern ones. See the 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).
Note that unless Broadcom releases the source code to their wireless drivers, it will not likely be possible to create new releases for 802.11ax or newer WiFi standards. Broadcom's wireless driver source code is an industry secret.
Q: What is FreshTomato's default IP(v4) address?
Q: What are FreshTomato's default login credentials?
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:
Build Name Term | Description |
FreshTomato | The Tomato mod name. This is always FreshTomato, as currently it's the only fork in development. |
Hardware model | Specifies the router or access point model number. |
ARM | Specifies the build is intended for devices with 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 builds were called “NG” (“New Generation”) driver builds. RT-N indicates the build's driver supports 802.11n. RT-AC indicates the build's driver supports 802.11ac. |
Release name | e.g. 2021.3 Note: this does NOT indicate the 3rd month of 2021! |
Build Type | e.g. (Mini / AIO / VPN) - indicates the features included in the build. See Feature Matrix to learn more. |
NVRAM size | (32K / 64K / 128K) - Optional. For models with multiple hardware revisions where each revision may include more or less NVRAM. |
NOSMP | (Optional) - This is a build for SMP-capable hardware, but for which SMP is disabled. |
Custom | (Optional) - identifies a build which includes or excludes a certain feature (set). |
Reserved for future use | |
Reserved for future use |
For example, we can know the following features from the ARM build with filename:
freshtomato-RT-AC3200-ARM-2021.3-AIO-128K.zip_no_media_server
For more help choosing a build, see the Installing Tomato page in the HOWTOs section.
When browsing through firmware folders on the website, a subfolder named “K26” indicates that the build includes Linux kernel 2.6.x . These folders generally contain generic builds for MIPSR1 and MIPSR2 routers. Generally, only very old models use the MIPSR1 architecture. Modern routers will use MIPSR2 or ARM architectures.
The other subfolders such as K26RT-AC and K26RT-N contain dedicated builds, meant for specific router models. Unless you're experienced, It's recommended you start by installing specific hardware builds. If no specific builds exist for your model, select a generic build in the K26 folder. Think carefully before deciding if it should be a MIPSR1 or MIPSR2 build.
MD5SUM files are available in each website folder containing firmware. It's strongly recommended that you run a hash program against the .zip file of the build you downloaded. Then, compare the value in that program with the hash value listed for that build in the MD5SUM file. If the two don't match, your download may be corrupt, and you shouldn't flash with that file, or you could damage your router. Try downloading it and performing the hash check again.
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 and then make your changes, if you decide you messed things up, just restore the backed-up configuration. NOTE that configuration backup files do not work across different releases of FreshTomato.
Q: What are the common device names used to represent router interfaces/components?
A:
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 external or remote storage (via USB or CIFS share).
Logs are erased between boots, unless permanent storage is configured.1)
Q: What is BusyBox?
A: BusyBox provides the Linux commands used in FreshTomato.
(See https://busybox.net/)
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 equivalents.
Read more at: https://www.commandlinux.com/man-page/man1/busybox.1.html