AC3200 Port Forwarding Disappearing

[Stach]

Does anybody else have the following problems with Port Forwarding on rmerlin 378.52.2 (running on an RT-AC3200)?

1) Port Forwarding under WAN shows "No Data In Table", even though I have configured it and my configuration still shows up the System Log -=> Port Forwarding section (as shown in attachments).

2) Sometimes the included FTP port forward shows up, even though I have that feature turned off

3) After a while, port forwarding just stops working until I reboot the router

Please let me know if these are known issues or others are experiencing them as well and thanks in advance for your help.
Stach

 

[Stach]

I just rebooted and lost more configuration information in another area (DDNS). The Network Map still shows DDNS: all.dnsomatic.com, but the WAN-DDNS page is blank, but still enabled.

Any suggestions?
Stach

 

[RMerlin]

I just rebooted and lost more configuration information in another area (DDNS). The Network Map still shows DDNS: all.dnsomatic.com, but the WAN-DDNS page is blank, but still enabled.

Any suggestions?
Stach

Check the amount of free nvram under Tools -> Sysinfo.

 

[Stach]

I'm sure that would be the issue (usage shown below), what can be done about it?

Here areI put about 30 manually assigned addresses into the DHCP table, I only have 5 Port Forwarding rules, 2 OpenVPN servers (each with certs and keys for local connectivity and safely browsing thru home network), but nothing much else advanced turned on. Is there a way to store some of the configs elsewhere? Any other tuning thoughts to free up NVRAM?

Internal Storage
NVRAM usage 64246 / 65536 bytes
JFFS 1.85 / 64.00 MB

Thanks in advance for your help.
Stach

 

[john9527]

Take a look at this wiki entry for how to move your OpenVPN cert/keys to jffs....
https://github.com/RMerl/asuswrt-merlin/wiki/reducing-nvram-for-openvpn-certs

 

[RMerlin]

I mentionned to Asus the fact that 64 KB isn't enough for the RT-AC3200 (as it also has to store the settings for a third radio). Hopefully they will look into increasing that to 128 KB in the future.

If you ask me, it's pretty shortsighted of Broadcom not to default their SDK to 128 or 256 KB today. Their platform offers 128 MB of flash space to play with, and routers all have at least 128 MB of RAM - plenty of space for all of this.

Same way they still officially limit the nvram variable content to something as silly as 100 or 200 characters. While userspace can be upgraded (Asus did), the CFE is still hardcoded at a smaller buffer size, so doing an "nvram show" over the CFE will cause the router to crash. Same reason why the RT-AC56U loses the ability of configuring its LAN ports while in the CFE, preventing recovery from working if you store large values in nvram.

I guess that goes with the rest of Broadcom's design mentality, sticking with kernel 2.6.36 even with last year's SDK7.

 

[Stach]

John9527, thanks for the link and I will definitely be moving my certs over to the JFFS partition to save that space. I have a N66U with basically the same config (but running on Tomato Shibby) and I have never had an NVRAM space issue, so I am somewhat surprised that I am running into the NVRAM space issues with the AC3200.

I first noticed some strange issues (I wrote it off on early Asus firmware at the time) as I was adding my 30 manually assigned IP addresses (used for tracking my devices and easily finding rogues), so are there any suggestions to minimize the space used for these entries? Also, is there any way to easily add manually assigned IP addresses via the CLI instead of the slower GUI way after flashing new firmware or clearing NVRAM?

Thanks in advance for your help, it is much appreciated!
Stach

 

[john9527]

[

John9527, thanks for the link and I will definitely be moving my certs over to the JFFS partition to save that space. I have a N66U with basically the same config (but running on Tomato Shibby) and I have never had an NVRAM space issue, so I am somewhat surprised that I am running into the NVRAM space issues with the AC3200.

The third radio of the AC3200 takes up between 5K and 6K of nvram space for its support.

I first noticed some strange issues (I wrote it off on early Asus firmware at the time) as I was adding my 30 manually assigned IP addresses (used for tracking my devices and easily finding rogues), so are there any suggestions to minimize the space used for these entries? Also, is there any way to easily add manually assigned IP addresses via the CLI instead of the slower GUI way after flashing new firmware or clearing NVRAM?

You may want to check out my 'User NVRAM Save/Restore Utility'
http://www.snbforums.com/threads/user-nvram-save-restore-utility.19521/

 

[bbunge]

This seems to be one of the more common problems with Asus routers. Since I have used the Merlin firmware for a year now I do not know if the "stock" firmware suffers from this problem. I have taken measures with two AC68U's running networks for not-for-profits to daily delete areas of NVRAM (nmp_client_list=, client_info_tmp=, webdav_smb_pc=) and have moved the OpenVPN certs to JFFS. These steps are a Band-Aid but not a fix!

What can be done to put this issue on the top of someone's list? Merlin, this is not your problem but if you know of a better fix or need us to "encourage" Asus tell us who to contact!!!

Thanks, Bill

 

[Stach]

So, I'm finally back from a work trip and have had time to reload and use my RT-AC3200 again. Starting from scratch, and after using the wizard to define the 3 wireless radios I have already burned through 50550 bytes.

50550 / 65536 bytes

After doing the following configurations, I'm now at 54101 bytes used. When I was having my issues I was around 60000 bytes used, is there a magic number that I don't want to go above? When I enabled SSH I useed about 2300 bytes, but after I disabled it (and not changing anything back) I actually burned 1 more byte instead of getting my 2300 bytes back, any thoughts on that?

Will turning on the advanced functions (Traffic Analyzer, AiProtections, Adaptive QOS) burn ever more NVRAM? If so, how do they expect you to actually use these features with such limited NVRAM? I know, I'm probably preaching to the choir, but I'm just trying to fully understand what can and can't be done. Thanks in advance for your help! -Stach

NVRAM Usage Description
50550 / 65536 bytes Initial Merlin Load with 3 wireless radios config'd
50669 / 65536 bytes Disable WAN - NAT Passthroughs (PPTP, L2TP, IPSec and SIP)
50810 / 65536 bytes Configure WAN - DDNS (DNS-O-Matic)
50812 / 65536 bytes Disable WAN - Internet Connection - UPnP
50932 / 65536 bytes Configure WAN - Port Forwarding (FTP, WWW, BT, Tonido, VOIP)
53235 / 65536 bytes Configure Administration - System - Enable SSH
53236 / 65536 bytes Transfer OpenVPN Keys to JFFS and Disable SSH
53653 / 65536 bytes Configure VPN - OpenVPN Server 1 in JFFS
53606 / 65536 bytes Added 1st MAC Addr (Obi)
53804 / 65536 bytes Added 2nd MAC Addr (Stach-EVGA)
53859 / 65536 bytes Added 3rd MAC Addr (Printer)
53898 / 65536 bytes Added 4th MAC Addr (Cubox)
53898 / 65536 bytes Changed 2.4Ghz to Channel 1 from Auto
53945 / 65536 bytes Added 5th MAC Addr (Nest)
53987 / 65536 bytes Added 6th MAC Addr (iCamKeep1)
54026 / 65536 bytes Added 7th MAC Addr (2 SageTV)
54067 / 65536 bytes Added 9th MAC Addr (iSmAlarm)
54101 / 65536 bytes Added 10th MAC Addr (Sage-Ply)

 

[Jwagner010]

Did you ever come up with some magic to solve this?

Having port forward rules disappear every day or so now. Doesn't sound like there is a real solution here. If not any suggestion who to contact to get a refund as I need to move on from this router.

 

[Knightro]

I'm having the same problem with my RT-AC68U.