Q: Can you build a low budget media center and packet sniffer using a Linksys WT54G-TM in 20 minutes or less?
A: Yes!
Outside the hardware hacks, I'll show you what firmware and packages are needed and get everything operational in less than 20 minutes. It starts with laying the framework by flashing a stock WRT54G-TM and then loading OpenWRT. To finish, I then install and configure the correct packages to auto-mount a 16 Gig SDHC memory chip. We will also get that SDHC card shared on the network for remote access, so we can map a drive to the WRT file system. For even more storage, we will auto mount a network share on the WRT. The final addition will be darkstat installation and configuration for packet sniffing, logging and graphing the network traffic from all the interfaces on the WRT, yes even wireless!