Five things you should [but probably will not] do after installing Tomato firmware

You've installed Tomato firmware on your Linux-based router/AP and tried out all the "sexy" features. Maybe you've been obsessing over your bandwidth statistics? Or used the SSH daemon to surf the web with encryption at public WiFi spots? Or perhaps found the best channel to use for your wireless network with the wireless survey tool? Chances are, you've got your Tomato configuration features customized to maximize your situation.

And I'm sure you remembered to back your router configuration up too, right?

Yeah, me neither. ;) Don't worry-- I'm not writing this entry to "look down my nose" at people. It's easy to get carried away and overlook the mundane basics when a free download adds so much utility to your residential networking gear. Now that my initial infatuation period has passed, I'm hoping to create a basic checklist of configuration tasks to help me stay more focused and disciplined during future Tomato installation/configuration opportunities. Hopefully someone else will benefit from my oversights.

1. STAY CURRENT WITH NEW FIRMWARE: Many people download and install the Tomato firmware on their router, only to forget about it after a few weeks of experimentation and customizing. It's human nature-- if something works well, we take it for granted and focus our attention elsewhere. A few months pass, and suddenly we're missing out on great new features that would make our network situations even better. Or, in a worst case scenario, we continue using an older version of the firmware that turns out to have a security exploit in it.

You don't have to check Polarcloud's website religiously every day to see if a new firmware version is available. You can sign up for their email alert service (for the "traditional" crowd) or their RSS feed (for the "cool kids" and their aggregators).

2. TELL TOMATO WHERE TO KEEP YOUR BANDWIDTH MONITORING DATA: I don't personally understand the appeal, but people like Tomato's bandwidth monitoring feature. I guess if you have an Internet Service Provider that charges for bandwidth used instead of a flat fee that it could help settle a dispute and "keep folks honest." Unfortunately, Tomato keeps your bandwidth history in temporary memory by default. This means your historical bandwidth data disappears if your router reboots for any reason (brief power outage, configuration change that required a restart, etc.)

If you need to hang on to that data, you need to tell Tomato to keep it in a less volatile place (Administration -> Bandwidth Monitoring). I personally have Tomato saving my data into NVRAM on the router itself once per week, but then I don't have an serious need for that information. If you do, you might consider using CIFS to copy the information to a computer on your network instead and saving more often.

3. USE OPENDNS: This tip isn't Tomato specific, per se, but I think it's worth mentioning anyway. You should, at a minimum, seriously consider changing your router's DNS server settings to those provided by Open DNS. Although many people talk about the improved speed they've seen since making this change, my reason for recommending them is more security-based. Thanks to a collaborative relationship with their sister-site, Phishtank, people who use Open DNS are automatically protected from blacklisted phishing sites. By using Open DNS servers in your router's settings, any computer or device that accesses the Internet via your network enjoys that same protection.

If you like that nifty little trick, signing up for a free account with Open DNS gives you even more features and control. You will want to set up Open DNS as one of your two Dynamic DNS options in Tomato (Basic -> DDNS) to keep the service informed of any IP address changes.

4. BACKUP YOUR ROUTER CONFIGURATION: You've invested time and energy learning Linux esoterics to customize your configuration precisely how you want it. The sense of accomplishment you're feeling now won't be there when you attempt recreating that configuration from scratch because "something happened and you didn't make a backup."

Save yourself the frustration by making a backup copy of your masterpiece (Administration -> Configuration) before "something happens."

5. NOW IT'S YOUR TURN! I am sure there are more than just five "essential" configuration tasks to the Tomato Firmware. Share your "sadder, but wiser" configuration story as a comment, so everyone can learn from it.