DD-WRT was originally designed for the Linksys WRT54G series, but now runs on a variety of routers.

DD-WRT is Linux-based firmware for wireless routers and access points. Originally designed for the Linksys WRT54G series, it now runs on a wide variety of models. DD-WRT is one of a handful of third-party firmware projects designed to replace manufacturer's original firmware with custom firmware offering additional features or functionality.

Sebastian Gottschall, a.k.a. "BrainSlayer", is the founder and primary maintainer of the DD-WRT project. The letters "DD" in the project name are the German license-plate letters for vehicles from Dresden, where the development team lived. The remainder of the name was taken from the Linksys WRT54G model router, a home router popular in 2002–2004. WRT is assumed to be a reference to 'wireless router'.

Buffalo Technology and other companies have shipped routers with factory-installed, customized versions of DD-WRT. In January 2016, Linksys started to offer DD-WRT firmware for their routers.

Features

Among the of DD-WRT are

Version-specific features
FeatureMicro (2 MB)Mini (4 MB)Nokaid (4 MB)Standard (4 MB)VOIP (4 MB)VPN (4 MB)Mega (8 MB)
ChilliSpot
Web management over HTTPS
IPv6
JFFS2
XLink Kai daemon
MMC & SD card support
NoCat
OpenVPN
PPTP client
radvd
RFlow (traffic information)
Samba/CIFS client
Milkfish SIP router
SNMP
Secure Shell daemon
Wiviz

It is also possible to build a bespoke firmware package.

Version history

VersionRelease dateChangesRefs
1622 January 2005Initial release. Created as a branch of Sveasoft Alchemy, which, in turn, is based on the Linksys WRT54G firmware
2225 July 2005?
2325 December 2005Replaced the Alchemy kernel with the OpenWrt kernel
23 SP 116 May 2006In this service pack, much of the code was overhauled and rewritten during the development of this release; many new features were added.
23 SP 214 September 2006The interface was overhauled, and some new features were added. Some additional router models are supported.
2418 May 2008Allows up to 16 virtual interfaces with different SSIDs and encryption protocols. It can run on some PowerPC, IXP425-based router boards, Atheros WiSOC, and X86-based systems. It can also run to some extent on routers with low flash memory (ex. WRT54Gv8 or WRT54GSv7)
24 SP 126 July 2008Critical DNS security fix for an issue in dnsmasq, site survey security fixes, longer passwords, and flexible OpenVPN configurations. It can also run on additional hardware, including WRT300 v1.1, WRT310N, WRT600N, Tonze AP42X Pronghorn SBC, Ubiquiti LSX and Netgear, Belkin, and USR devices.
3.0 betarollingSince 2010, the DD-WRT developers have frequently published beta builds for various routers. In January 2018 WireGuard was made available for routers with 8 MB or more flash and has been updated regularly by BrainSlayer. Due to inevitable security improvements in the Linux kernel and other packages, over such a long time, the 3.0 beta releases are now considered more stable than 24SP1 version.

Router hardware supported

DD-WRT supports many different router models, both new and obsolete. The project maintains a full list of currently supported models and known incompatible devices.

See also

External links