What is this site about?

Hello. The goal of this site is share my adventures exploring libreCMC, a free software router firmware. I’m also hoping that, in the process, I’ll be able to drum up some consulting or programming work.

What is libreCMC?

libreCMC is a set of fully free embedded Operating Systems for general purpose computers.

— librecmc.org

More substantially, libreCMC is a fork of the OpenWRT/LEDE project, which provides firmware for Wi-Fi routers. libreCMC, however, focuses on user freedom by keeping all proprietary (non-free) components out of the source tree and documentation.

The word Systems (plural) is used because there is a secretive part of the project aiming to build a new OS. No details have been released on that so far as I can tell.

Why do I like libreCMC?

• I’m a free-software enthusiast.
• It seems really easy to track changes in libreCMC and to build my own firmware. I like that as a reason in-and-of-itself; however, an added benefit is I can get security fixes really fast.
• The operating system and OS tools seems fairly simple and easy to understand.
• It seems like libreCMC has a lot of potential to be used for a lot of interesting applications in computer networking.

What hardware do I use?

So far I have used libreCMC with…

• The TPE-R1100 from ThinkPenguin. A low power, Wireless N router no external antenna. It is RYF (Respect Your Freedom) certified by the Free Software Foundation.
• The GL-AR150 from GL-Inet. Similar to the TPE-R1100, but is not RYF certified. Has an external antenna.
• The GL-AR300M. Similar to the GL-AR150, but has two external antennas and four times as much RAM.

What projects have I used libreCMC for so far?

• I use libreCMC as the gateway router for my home network.
• I use libreCMC for Wi-Fi access at work.
• At work, I sell Wi-Fi routers running libreCMC as well as routers running another firmware called Gargoyle.
• I am currently working on a project to provide easy off-site VPN access to my work LAN, by using two libreCMC units as OpenVPN endpoints, in a Layer 2 VPN configuration.

How am I related to the libreCMC project?

I am not officially a project member or anything quite like that, though I have contributed some documentation to the project. I also frequently ask annoying questions in the #librecmc IRC chat room, trying to accomplish things that are either unsupported, or nobody in the project has gotten around to trying yet.

What is my background?

• My professional background is mostly in computer networking.
• I also like to do computer programming in Lisp (Guile Scheme, to be more precise.)
• I run Debian Gnu/Linux (main repository) as my desktop.
• My favorite operating sys…, err, development environment is Gnu Emacs.