Advanced Usage
One of the under-touted features of this unit is the presence of a microSD port inside the router. Once the microSD card is installed, one can use it as the download manager target or as FTP storage. It’s a great way to have hidden storage!
When installing the download manager to the microSD card, and perhaps also to a USB drive, a package called asusware
is written to it. It appears to be a collection of UNIXy utilities, most notably ipkg
. Assuming that it’s not an ASUS-specific configuration, it’s likely possible to install anything from Optware.
Don’t take our word for it, but installing the microSD does not appear to break the warranty. At least, I didn’t break through any warranty labels, like I’d expected.
If you’re interested in what chips are in the router, check out the ASUS RT-N66U article at WikiDevi. Notably, it has a 600 MHz Broadcom processor with a 32 MB Flash ROM and 256 MB of RAM. Both DD-WRT and TomatoUSB support the device.
I also really like its support for IPv6. I’m a proponent of IPv6 adoption and I think having a router with 6to4 support built-in is ideal in this transition period for the next few years. However, the online help for the feature is focused on ISP-provided IPv6 addressing and offers no advice on how to use 6to4 or 6in4 modes.