ANNOUNCEMENT: Asuswrt-Merlin support underway for 3 Wifi 7 routers

[raven-au]

Could this feature be added later, maybe? Hoped for it, because of some pretty old Oppo players I have... no way to make them work without SMBv1 or NFS.

I don't know yet. It's unlikely, as it would require finding alternatives to busybox's mount.nfs and nfs-utils that would be compatible with the toolchain used by this platform. A quick look didn't find anything when I was troubleshooting the issue.

What were the problems with nfs-utils?
Was it the removal of the RPC code from glibc (that did cause a bit of pain a while ago now)?
nfs-utils migrated to use libtirpc, in fact the nfs-utils maintainer also did the libtirpc work and is the upstream maintainer of libtirpc.

 

[RMerlin]

Was it the removal of the RPC code from glibc

Yes, same thing with Busybox's NFS support for mount.

A newer nfs-utils would require adding new dependencies, and at the time it was a very low priority for me to dig any deeper than that so I stopped investigating and moved on to other priorities.

 

[raven-au]

Yes, same thing with Busybox's NFS support for mount.

A newer nfs-utils would require adding new dependencies, and at the time it was a very low priority for me to dig any deeper than that so I stopped investigating and moved on to other priorities.

I'm familiar with libtirpc and to some extent nfs-utils, busybox less so.
Switching to libtirpc was a little painful, depending on how low level the rpc code you have is, but in this case it should be already done in nfs-utils.
I'll try and find some time to have a look around and see if I can work out what's needed.

 

[sl4fko]

I am re-evaluating whether or not to continue offering ROG UI variant for the GT models. I haven't touched any of the ROG UI yet for 3006. If I find out I need to do a lot of extra work specifically for the ROG UI, then there's a good chance I might drop its support and only support the regular grey UI.

I think (and I am sure there are many more thinking like me...) you do not have to bother with it. Default UI is clearer than ROG and that is actually all it is aboat (never used it for my GT-AX6000)... It does not have to be colorful for us advanced users... We are going to be VERY thankful just for the development for these routers and your dedication to ASUS-Merlin project.

Thank you Merlin already in advance...

 

[Poul Bak]

The GT-BE98 cannot be sold in North America for regulatory reasons, any shipped device sample might get rejected at the border. That's why Gnuton is taking care of it since he lives in Europe.


First screenshot.

Does that mean that if we (in Europe) install the 'official' Merlin firmware from this site, then we won't get 6 Ghx bands?

 

[RMerlin]

Does that mean that if we (in Europe) install the 'official' Merlin firmware from this site, then we won't get 6 Ghx bands?

Firmwares are model specific. The GT-BE98_PRO firmware is only for that specific model, and the GT-BE98 will have its own specific firmware. The firmware has nothing to do with which channels are available, these are specific to the device itself, and these are two different devices.

 

[rexet]

I have just received my BE98 (non-pro) to replace my AXE16000 and I'm already sick of the ROG gaming GUI. Just for that I can't wait for the Gnuton official release.

 

[ExtremeFiretop]

I decided I will be dropping support for the ROG UI with 3006. Having seen that the ROG UI for the GT-98_PRO had issues, I didn't feel like debugging these on top of the rest of the UI work already required for the regular 3006 UI.

Thanks RMerlin for the FYI.
I'll be doing a quick MerlinAU update so the ROG choices/options stay in the 3004 world.

 

[VladDBA]

First off: Thank you for the awesome firmware! I've been using it on my RT-AC86U for the past 5+ years.
Second: any chance of RT-BE88U eventually being supported?

Thank you!

 

[bennor]

Second: any chance of RT-BE88U eventually being supported?

Note what RMerlin stated in the very first post to kick off this thread...

Just to reiterate: don't ask for any ETA on availability, or for support for other models. 3006.102.1 will only support these three models, and we will re-evaluate things after that realease is finalized on any other potential device to support. These must be picked in collaboration with Asus as GPL code and device samples (in the case of new devices) are necessary for each individual model.

 

[Broken Hope]

Looks like the GT-98 is being sold as the GT-BE25000 in the US so perhaps Merlin could get hold of one from Asus so he could support both versions?

They also just announced the GT-BE19000 which seems to be similar to the RT-BE96 but with the 2.5Gb ports of the GT-98 series.

No idea why Asus are releasing so many similar routers which I'm guessing are running off the same SOC.

 

[visortgw]

No idea why Asus are releasing so many similar routers which I'm guessing are running off the same SOC.

Asus does that all the time!

 

[RMerlin]

After almost a week of development time wasted on trying to figure out why my git tree would constantly corrupt itself on a random basis while just doing simple "git switch" commands, I should finally be back up and running.

Some Github changes with branches. While diagnosing my git issues, I ended up recreating the entire 3006 branch from the ground up. Turns out it wasn't the cause of my problems, but I decided that I liked the cleaner branch (there were a few broken commits in the previous one), so I decided to keep it. Here are the formal branches as of now:

master: will contain "main" development that applies to multiple branches (like updated components)
3004.388: will be the main branch for devices on the 3004.388.x code
3006.102: will be the main branch for devices on the 3006.102.x code
386_x: no change there, still holds the legacy 386 devices

Devs should be able to simply pull the updated repo, as there was no history rewrite done on the public repo (3006.102 being a brand new branch).

Development-wise, the latest couple of weeks were basically spent on implementing a completely new VPN killswitch method (this new method also made it possible to implement it for WireGuard), more 3006 re-implementation (pptp/l2tp were broken), new LED control code (that lets most of it be handled by Asus' own code now instead of me manually re-implementing it for each new model, should also be more AiMesh-friendly).

I also went ahead and removed the old SDK6/7/HND5.02 from both master and 3004.388/3006.102. Fewer files to checkout when switching branches or rsync'ing to my build trees, and less disk space wasted on checked out files.

Before anyone asks, yes, the plan is to backport the new killswitch to 388 at some point in the future.

Things are progressing, despite a week wasted on dealing with broken git stuff. I'll have to cleanup my todo list to see what's next on the menu.

 

[bozo29]

Hi Merlin,
First of all, I would like to thank you for all the work well done so far.
Is there any chance that you will deal with RT-BE88U in the future?
Whatever the answer, I thank you once again for what you have done so far.

 

[ExtremeFiretop]

Hi Merlin,
First of all, I would like to thank you for all the work well done so far.
Is there any chance that you will deal with RT-BE88U in the future?
Whatever the answer, I thank you once again for what you have done so far.

Read 4 posts up. Or the original post.

Note what RMerlin stated in the very first post to kick off this thread...

 

[superflq]

Hi everyone,

I am now able to officially announce support for three different Wifi 7 routers is currently under development, to be part of the 3006.102.1 release:

RT-BE96U
GT-BE98_PRO
GT-BE98 (by Gnuton)

View attachment 58755

Things are still too early to have any kind of ETA, even for snapshot builds, as there are a number of things still needing to be done, as this means not only new devices, but also a new technology (Wifi 7) and a new codebase (Asuswrt 3.0.0.6).

As previously indicated in the 3006 discussion thread, I will use the occasion of the move to 3006 to implement a number of changes that might not be 100% backward compatible with 3004 in terms of behaviour or third party addon compatibility. Here are some of the things I have noted down so far (so I don't forget to include them in the future changelog):

- VPN client tables changed, to integrate into Asus's SDN/Fusion layout.
  /etc/iproute2/rt_tables points to the new tables, so using names is unchanged.

- Due to growing differences between stock and Merlin, going from stock to Merlin
  when anything related to VPNs was already configured should ideally get a factory
  default reset, as SDN indexes won't match.
 (TODO: possibly investigate clearing these two in format.c?)

- NFS not supported on WIfi 7 devices (compatibility issues between nfs-utils
  and the new glibc these devices use)

- Removed option dns_local_cache from Tools -> Tweak settings, to avoid issues with SDN networks
  that run their own dnsmasq instances.

- OpenVPN: merged stop/start toggle with the Start with WAN into a single "Enable client" option,
  to match WireGuard, and also simplify things.  Enabling a client will start it, and it will also
  auto start at WAN up until it gets disabled.

- dnsmasq-INDEX.conf.add, stubby-INDEX.yml.add are appended to SDN config files (INDEX = SDN index value)

- dnsmasq-sdn.postconf and stubby-sdn.postconf are executed, with first argument being the path to
  the config filename for that SDN index, and the second argument is the SDN index number.

- Third party devs: chart.js was upgraded from 2.x to 3.x, which is not backward compatible.

On supported models, Asuswrt-Merlin 3006 will include support for VLAN and Guest Network Pro (SDN). VPN Director will remain Asuswrt-Merlin's method of handling VPN client routing, although Guest Network Pro rules will have a higher priority over VPNDirector rules.

I am also doing some housekeeping in the 3006 branch, such as removing the binary blobs + SDK for WIfi 5 devices, as these will never be supported by 3006 - this will speed things up a bit for us devs by reducing the amount of files to be checked out by git.

For the time being things are still being developed on a private git repo due to frequent git history cleanups. I'm planning on possibly moving the 3006 branch to the public git over the coming days, depending on how things go with the cleanup and reconciliating both repos.

Just to reiterate: don't ask for any ETA on availability, or for support for other models. 3006.102.1 will only support these three models, and we will re-evaluate things after that realease is finalized on any other potential device to support. These must be picked in collaboration with Asus as GPL code and device samples (in the case of new devices) are necessary for each individual model.

It has always been a supporter of Merlin.
Looking forward to Merlin to support BE88U, I can make me motivated to change BE88U

 

[Viktor Jaep]

It has always been a supporter of Merlin.
Looking forward to Merlin to support BE88U, I can make me motivated to change BE88U

Uhmm unless I'm mistaken, but the BE88U is not on the supported list at the moment.

 

[MF-Bra]

The GT-BE98 cannot be sold in North America for regulatory reasons, any shipped device sample might get rejected at the border. That's why Gnuton is taking care of it since he lives in Europe.


First screenshot.

I'm about to decide about RT-BE96U or GT-BE98_PRO but I live in Brazil, per https://www.wi-fi.org/regulations-enabling-6-ghz-wi-fi we have the same frequencies already adopted in USA, is it going to enable 6ghz here ? Thanks!!!

 

[RMerlin]

is it going to enable 6ghz here ? Thanks!!!

The device needs to be sold in your region. If it's not, then it won't work - the supported frequencies are based on the bootloader region.

 

[MF-Bra]

The device needs to be sold in your region. If it's not, then it won't work - the supported frequencies are based on the bootloader region.

Thanks!

As we don’t have “BEs” officially available from ASUS Brazil, sad to know but happy not to find out after paying a lot more for something that wouldn't be available here.

So my option would be RT-AX88U_PRO… Best alternative “Merlin ready” !