“End of Life” Routers any way to spring new life into them?

[WesTooLoose]

So I have two end of life routers the c5400 and the c2300

both no longer receive Canadian firmware updates, but do have a final us update and until I can get a newer router I would still like to have it safely updated for security 

what can be done with end of life routers?

is it safe to update using a improper country firmware or different versions of that same router?

c5400 is v1 (discontinued in 2017, end of life 2017 for v1)

c2300 is v2 (discontinued in 2016, end of life 2017 for product)

any help or idea greatly appreciated 

[WhitetailAni]

9 minutes ago, WesTooLoose said:

So I have two end of life routers the c5400 and the c2300

both no longer receive Canadian firmware updates, but do have a final us update and until I can get a newer router I would still like to have it safely updated for security 

what can be done with end of life routers?

is it safe to update using a improper country firmware or different versions of that same router?

c5400 is v1 (discontinued in 2017, end of life 2017 for v1)

c2300 is v2 (discontinued in 2016, end of life 2017 for product)

any help or idea greatly appreciated 

I just repurpose them as network switches.

[Alex Atkin UK]

3 hours ago, WesTooLoose said:

So I have two end of life routers the c5400 and the c2300

both no longer receive Canadian firmware updates, but do have a final us update and until I can get a newer router I would still like to have it safely updated for security 

what can be done with end of life routers?

is it safe to update using a improper country firmware or different versions of that same router?

c5400 is v1 (discontinued in 2017, end of life 2017 for v1)

c2300 is v2 (discontinued in 2016, end of life 2017 for product)

any help or idea greatly appreciated 

Different countries sometimes use completely different hardware for the same model name, so can be risky.

Generally I'd look to see if OpenWRT supports them and if not, just use them for something where it doesn't matter if they use old firmware.  (anything on the LAN side only with DHCP disabled is reasonably safe)

[WesTooLoose]

3 hours ago, Alex Atkin UK said:

Different countries sometimes use completely different hardware for the same model name, so can be risky.

Generally I'd look to see if OpenWRT supports them and if not, just use them for something where it doesn't matter if they use old firmware.  (anything on the LAN side only with DHCP disabled is reasonably safe)

That I didn’t know thank you for letting me know about open wrt though!

if it can help spring some new life into my routers while saving up for a new one it would be awesome

for routers and internet safety best practice is to buy new? Or would a still being updated used router (in good shape obviously) be a good option as long as it’s getting support from the company 

 

[WereCatf]

1 hour ago, WesTooLoose said:

That I didn’t know thank you for letting me know about open wrt though!

if it can help spring some new life into my routers while saving up for a new one it would be awesome

for routers and internet safety best practice is to buy new? Or would a still being updated used router (in good shape obviously) be a good option as long as it’s getting support from the company

In general, OpenWRT is the far more secure and functionally better option than any consumer-grade manufacturer's stuff, so OpenWRT would be "best practice" in this case. Otherwise, it doesn't make any difference whether you buy a new router or use one that's still getting updates from the manufacturer -- the hardware is extremely rarely the vulnerable part, it's practically always the firmware that is.

[WesTooLoose]

4 hours ago, WereCatf said:

In general, OpenWRT is the far more secure and functionally better option than any consumer-grade manufacturer's stuff, so OpenWRT would be "best practice" in this case. Otherwise, it doesn't make any difference whether you buy a new router or use one that's still getting updates from the manufacturer -- the hardware is extremely rarely the vulnerable part, it's practically always the firmware that is.

Thank you for the information:)

[Alex Atkin UK]

13 hours ago, WereCatf said:

In general, OpenWRT is the far more secure and functionally better option than any consumer-grade manufacturer's stuff, so OpenWRT would be "best practice" in this case. Otherwise, it doesn't make any difference whether you buy a new router or use one that's still getting updates from the manufacturer -- the hardware is extremely rarely the vulnerable part, it's practically always the firmware that is.

What really winds me up is when a router vendor uses OpenWRT as their base OS then completely locked it down, includes very little functionality and makes it almost impossible to actually install stock OpenWRT on it.  Or in many cases, huge chunks of the OS will be third-party licensed binaries (looking at you Broadcom) so legally you CAN'T build OpenWRT for it.

Its why I eventually got fed up and used x86 for my router, only using locked-down hardware for my WiFi access point.

[Darren]

+1 for OpenWRT if your router is supported by it.