You Can Root Google WiFi with GaleForce to Customize its Software

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People have been using WiFi networks for years but these can sometimes be difficult to setup for your average customer. Even switching older WiFi routers into bridge mode can require a technologically savvy user to do some research about it online. These are big factors as to why we’re seeing an increase in popularity for these mesh style WiFi devices such as Google WiFi. They’re easy to setup and even easier to mesh together to expand your current WiFi network.

However, a big disadvantage of the Google WiFi’s ease of use is how much customization has been stripped away. It literally is just a set it and forget it type of device and some would argue that Google doesn’t need to be this restrictive in order to make the product as easy as it is to setup. Still, Google WiFi is a great solution for those who don’t want to tinker with their WiFi network and still have a reliable connection no matter where they are in their house.

For those of us who want more levels of customization though, we now have a tool that will let us root Google WiFi units. It’s open source and it is called GaleForce. You can either download a pre-built image, or you can build it yourself directly from source. The developers do warn you that if you plan on building it yourself, be sure to check out all of the commits. This is because not every commit has been tested on the router itself so you should be aware of what you’re building.

Once you have the image ready though, you just toss it onto a USB stick, enable developer mode on the Google WiFi device and then install it by following some simple instructions (which are all detailed on the GitHub page down below). Once completed, Galeforce lets you obtain root SSH access on your Google WiFi device and then setup some additional features such as a VPN server, dynamic DNS client, or a custom gateway IP address.