ASUS Republic of Games RAPTURE GT-AC5300

[Jerie-]

There's a beta release floating around out there for the GT-AC5300, 9.0.0.4.386_43576-g649d261. This firmware release fixed issues users were having running Pi-hole DNS servers on their LAN's. Otherwise no new official firmware for the GT-AC5300 since May 2021, which is disappointing considering it was one of ASUS's flagship routers. It's not as popular or as widely-used as other ASUS router models, so it's probably not high on the priority list for future firmware development.

How did you manage to get that beta version? Asus's site and router ui shows only: 3.0.0.4.386_42643-g16dc577

 

[ForkWNY]

Check here...

https://www.asuswebstorage.com/navigate/a/#/s/7FFB6BF65A4646E09D8AAE5E6BCFCEE1Y

There's also an ASUS ROG thread discussing the beta release here... https://rog.asus.com/forum/showthre..._42643-DNS-Issue-(PiHole)&p=840730#post840730

The beta firmware is by no means, new, released June 2021. It's a beta release, not a final, and it was primarily released to fix Pi-hole internal DNS server issues, which probably only accounts for a small overall % of users.

 

[oldguy]

New Firmware release for GT AC5300 today


ASUS GT-AC5300 Firmware version 3.0.0.4.386.46092
Security
- Fixed string format stacks vulnerability
- Fixed cross-site-scripting vulnerability
- Fixed informational vulnerability.
Thanks to Howard McGreehan.

-Fixed SQL injection vulnerability
-Fixed json file traversal vulnerability
-Fixed plc/port file traversal vulnerability
-Fixed stack overflow vulnerability
Thanks to HP of Cyber Kunlun Lab

-Fixed authenticated stored XSS vulnerability
Thanks to Luke Walker – SmartDCC

-Fixed LPD denial of service vulnerability
-Fixed cfgserver heap overflow vulnerability
-Fixed cfgserver denial of service vulnerability
Thanks to TianHe from BeFun Cyber Security Lab.

-Fixed CVE-2021-34174, CVE-2022-23972, CVE-2022-23970, CVE-2022-23971, CVE-2022-23973

Added more ISP profile
Digi 1 - TM
Digi 2 - TIME
Digi 3 - Digi
Digi 4 - CTS
Digi 5 - ALLO
Digi 6 - SACOFA
Maxis - CTS
Maxis - SACOFA
Maxis - TNB/ALLO

Fixed AiMesh guest network issues.
Fixed DDNS issues where the WAN IP is IPv6
Fixed UI bugs in Administration --> feedback.
Fixed time zone error.
Improved the connection stability.
Fixed IPSecVPN issues.

 

[drabisan]

Took them a while but it's good to see a new firmware for GT-AC5300

 

[ForkWNY]

Finally...UI performance seems vastly improved. Overall memory utilization is also lower compared to previous firmware versions for the GT-AC5300. Long overdue.

Can't comment on stability as I've only been running the new firmware for a few hours (since this AM). Time will tell if the UI freezes/hang-ups that have plagued the GT-AC5300 for several firmware revisions resurface.

 

[Jerie-]

Check here...

https://www.asuswebstorage.com/navigate/a/#/s/7FFB6BF65A4646E09D8AAE5E6BCFCEE1Y

There's also an ASUS ROG thread discussing the beta release here... https://rog.asus.com/forum/showthre..._42643-DNS-Issue-(PiHole)&p=840730#post840730

The beta firmware is by no means, new, released June 2021. It's a beta release, not a final, and it was primarily released to fix Pi-hole internal DNS server issues, which probably only accounts for a small overall % of users.

Thanks, but already found it and yes, I know it's old, been running a much older firmware. As you stated, my setup is part of that "small overall % of users" and latest stable won't work with my local dns but this beta does.

Now just today, I've tried the newest release. What a mistake. Now my VPN connection won't work. Spent hours with support and it seems to be working again. Hopefully nothing else turns up. Plan on upgrading router, but won't be looking into Asus.

 

[ForkWNY]

What type of VPN connection are you using through your GT-AC5300? I personally use a Cisco AnyConnect split tunnel VPN which seems to be working without any issues.

Did restarting the router fix your VPN problems, configuration adjustments, or did you end up factory resetting?

I'm using the GT-AC5300 as the main router in an AiMesh network. Previously I had a mix of RT-AC68U's and an RT-AC86U as Aimesh nodes. Eventually replaced them with RT-AX92U's. The GT-AC5300 did not play nicely at all with the older 68U/86U Aimesh nodes (which were connected via e-net backhaul).

 

[Jerie-]

What type of VPN connection are you using through your GT-AC5300? I personally use a Cisco AnyConnect split tunnel VPN which seems to be working without any issues.

Did restarting the router fix your VPN problems, configuration adjustments, or did you end up factory resetting?

I'm using the GT-AC5300 as the main router in an AiMesh network. Previously I had a mix of RT-AC68U's and an RT-AC86U as Aimesh nodes. Eventually replaced them with RT-AX92U's. The GT-AC5300 did not play nicely at all with the older 68U/86U Aimesh nodes (which were connected via e-net backhaul).

Using NordVPN.

I always reset to factory after every upgrade and reconfigure manually.

There's something in the new firmware that isn't playing nicely with NordVPN. No matter how I setup the router, as soon as I configure a working VPN connection, should the router be rebooted, the VPN connection won't auto reconnect, even if I disable and reenable. The only way to get it working again, besides going back to a previous firmware, is to delete the vpn connection and reboot. Then reconfigure a new connection for it to work again. Should the router reboot, the problem starts all over again. NordVPN's support made a few adjustments in the ovpn they offered me to test. I'm glad they were willing to help & solve this problem. Been running fine since.

Just stressed that Asus isn't releasing updates for this model as quickly as others. They must not had sold as many units. Seems the higher tier models fall into this situation, but one would think they would give equal support since they charge a much higher price for these models.

I don't use Aimesh because it just never worked properly when I had it enabled and only run nodes in wired AP mode.

 

[ForkWNY]

I went out of town last week and the frozen/crashed web admin UI reared its ugly head again. Several days after flashing the new firmware (and factory resetting), the web admin UI decided to randomly hang up, so I wasn't able to login to my router until I returned home to power everything off, then back on (AiMesh nodes must be power cycled also). This has been an annoying issue because restarting the router from SSH does not resolve, the web UI won't load until the entire AiMesh network is powered down. The only upside is that network functionality is usually fine, even though the web UI becomes inaccessible. I've opened tickets with ASUS and they never seemed to be able to reproduce the issue in their labs, though a number of GT-AC5300 users have clearly encountered the same problem.

 

[drabisan]

@ForkWNY I'm wondering so I have to ask: what is the reason you're connecting to Web GUI?
What I mean with the question: if connectivity is fine, if OpenVPN is working, I have no reason to connect to GUI.
In my case logs are send to a syslog server and I have a small script to go trough every now and then to look for not-normal activity.
I have a weekly reboot and I don't connect to GUI for weeks if not months.

Edit: if you have a need, I may learn something new. And that would be good.

 

[ForkWNY]

I'm in the web GUI quite often...usually to check out the traffic analyzer graphs, memory usage on the router, look at how devices are distributed out between the AiMesh nodes. Easy to do a quick general health check from the web UI. Sometimes I'll change 2.4Ghz channels depending on how some of my IoT devices are behaving (some channels work better with some devices during certain times for whatever reason), etc. I also send logs to a syslog server, but rely on the GUI for minor config changes and health checking. I'll also occasionally use port forwarding...if I'm outside my home network, I remote in and will sometimes set up a port forward to access a certain device temporarily, then remove the port forwarding rule.

Once the web GUI goes down, a weekly reboot will not bring it back up. Power cycling is the only method to restore its operation.