Beta ASUSWRT 386 RC2 public beta with full functions AiMesh 2.0

[sanke1]

Spoke too soon. Router's login page is now inaccessible from DDNS url after 4 days and as expected, Port Forwarding has stopped working. This happens usually when my WAN IP is refreshed after 23hr PPPOe sessions.

So some service crashes and it stops reporting the changed WAN IP to Asus DDNS service causing everything to fail. @ASUSWRT_2020 are you even listening?
@RMerlin do you have any idea why this happens? I am on stock firmware.

So I am thinking of dumping all 3 of my RT-AX88Us on OLX/ebay and consider QNAP QHora-301W which is THE router Asus should have made with 2 10Gbe ports and Wifi6. But they want to drip feed with one 2.5 gbe useless port and maybe after 10 years they will have a router with two 10gbe ports and stable firmware. Will wait till end of this year to make the switch.

 

[ASUSWRT_2020]

Spoke too soon. Router's login page is now inaccessible from DDNS url after 4 days and as expected, Port Forwarding has stopped working. This happens usually when my WAN IP is refreshed after 23hr PPPOe sessions.

So some service crashes and it stops reporting the changed WAN IP to Asus DDNS service causing everything to fail. @ASUSWRT_2020 are you even listening?
@RMerlin do you have any idea why this happens? I am on stock firmware.

So I am thinking of dumping all 3 of my RT-AX88Us on OLX/ebay and consider QNAP QHora-301W which is THE router Asus should have made with 2 10Gbe ports and Wifi6. But they want to drip feed with one 2.5 gbe useless port and maybe after 10 years they will have a router with two 10gbe ports and stable firmware. Will wait till end of this year to make the switch.

Hi
Does the problem still exist when changed to WAN IP rather then DDNS?
Maybe the problem is not caused by the port forwarding, and we should focus on DDNS related module.

 

[sanke1]

Hi
Does the problem still exist when changed to WAN IP rather then DDNS?
Maybe the problem is not caused by the port forwarding, and we should focus on DDNS related module.

Yes it is DDNS related issue. I have QNAP NAS and it uses its own DDNS service. So when Asus DDNS has failed, I use RT-AX88U's port 9000 in front of QNAP DDNS address, I am able to access Router login page.

This clearly means the fault is with DDNS module.

 

[ASUSWRT_2020]

@ASUSWRT_2020

Checked again today and still no RC8 firmware for the RT-AC86U, what's going on?

If the RT-AC86U is not going to receive RC8, please change the release notes for RC8 to indicate so.

@Neil62
The RT-AC86U beta-8 firmware had uploaded[/QUOTE]

 

[ASUSWRT_2020]

@karma

Well I guess it’s still a little “better than nothing” in that you can at least have separate Guest SSID’s which you can turn on/off, change passwords on etc without mucking about with your “main” SSID name/password, but yes isolation would be very desirable.

Funnily enough from the very early days of AIMesh 1.0 betas I’d always assumed that achieving Guest Isolation across the AIMesh would be an unsolvable limitation/side-effect WHEN the “Parent” is in AP Mode (and thus not Routing) - am I incorrect in my assumptions?

Perhaps @ASUSWRT_2020 can respond and clarify as to whether this is ever going to be achievable/fixable in the current development cycle?

AP mode is a bridge to provide Wi-Fi and there is no WAN and LAN difference in AP mode.
In router mode, the WAN and LAN are separated and it can isolate the guest access.

 

[Neil62]

@Neil62
The RT-AC86U beta-8 firmware had uploaded

[/QUOTE]
Thanks for doing that...

 

[karma]

AP mode is a bridge to provide Wi-Fi and there is no WAN and LAN difference in AP mode.
In router mode, the WAN and LAN are separated and it can isolate the guest access.

thanks for the reply.. so there are no plans to add VLAN tagging for the guest WLAN in AP mode?

 

[Everbrave]

AP mode is a bridge to provide Wi-Fi and there is no WAN and LAN difference in AP mode.
In router mode, the WAN and LAN are separated and it can isolate the guest access.

From a fundamental point of view, if we take two units, one as AP (connected to the ISP router) and the other as a node with Ethernet backhaul, is Mesh 2.0 equivalent to two AP's but offers central management?
In other words, why should one choose a mesh (of two) over (two) AP's?
Thanks

 

[OzarkEdge]

From a fundamental point of view, if we take two units, one as AP (connected to the ISP router) and the other as a node with Ethernet backhaul, is Mesh 2.0 equivalent to two AP's but offers central management?
In other words, why should one choose a mesh (of two) over (two) AP's?
Thanks

I can't answer the technical reasons other than to suggest AiMesh may offer better WiFi service overall; but the practical reason for AiMesh remains the wireless one... AiMesh in AP Mode can still use wireless backhauls for the remote nodes.

OE

 

[Everbrave]

I can't answer the technical reasons other than to suggest AiMesh may offer better WiFi service overall; but the practical reason for AiMesh remains the wireless one... AiMesh in AP Mode can still use wireless backhauls for the remote nodes.

OE

Thank you for the quick response. How/why a better WiFi service overall, this is exactly the question, e.g. does the root and note share the same channel? Does the roaming in a mesh configuration works better?
The reason behind this is, if one has cables why use mesh instead of independent AP's?

 

[OzarkEdge]

Thank you for the quick response. How/why a better WiFi service overall, this is exactly the question, e.g. does the root and note share the same channel? Does the roaming in a mesh configuration works better?
The reason behind this is, if one has cables why use mesh instead of independent AP's?

I don't have enough AP experience to answer this more subjective question. From what I gather, setting up multiple APs requires more careful configuration than most residential users can be expected to muster.

OE

 

[OzarkEdge]

Clean installed RC2-8 on 2xRT-AC86U... sans Smart Connect. I feel Smart Connect node band steering works well enough but I suspect it can still disrupt streaming media apps.

The remote node uploaded normally. The root node was unsuccessful the first attempt... I've never seen this message before (using direct wired PC):

I notice the Wireless Log still needs Tx rate and Rx rate column spacing for readability:

Thanks, Asus!

OE

 

[mikewop]

Thank you for the quick response. How/why a better WiFi service overall, this is exactly the question, e.g. does the root and note share the same channel? Does the roaming in a mesh configuration works better?
The reason behind this is, if one has cables why use mesh instead of independent AP's?

in AiMesh the main AP and the connected nodes share the same channel. I am not sure if that’s beneficial from an RF point of view (interference) but might be useful/required for the “Roaming assistant” feature.
That is where I see the biggest potential difference between AiMesh with Ethernet backhaul vs multiple APs connected by Ethernet:
AiMesh with the Roaming Assistant feature can actively disconnect clients and suggest a different node if the RSSI falls below the configured threshold.
If you just use multiple APs it’s basically up to each client to decide which AP to connect to.

 

[JoWa]

I did a dirty flash of Rc8 over latest offical build 25790 yesterday, have not make any reset. I must say it has been rock solid since then. Now I even have 160mhz for my 5-2 backhaul, never had that on official.
And I love that I can lock units to a special nod.

 

[Mattias]

For me happen once that I lost internet connection on my main router, rt-ax88u. It's connected to a mediaconverter(fiber to ethernet switch). I tried to restart that, tried also to change the wan settings, turn off/on wan. Did not help, restart of the router did help. I suspect that I got a new ip from my internet provider but the update did not work. I sent logs(hopefully) to asus. Not sure because I needed to restart the router to be able to send the logs.

Have anyone else noticed this? I'm a bit afraid of this, if i'm not home and this happens I can check my cameras and smarthome stuff. Is there a way to put autorestart on the router if internet goes down and it does not come up after some time?

 

[OzarkEdge]

To those using wired backhauls, can you confirm if these statements are accurate:

- if using a wired backhaul, set AiMesh node Connection Priority to Ethernet/WAN first
- if using ALL wired backhauls, enable AiMesh Ethernet Backhaul Mode to release all WiFi for client use only

I wonder why the Connection Priority setting even exists... why can't AiMesh assume 'Ethernet/WAN first' and fallback to wireless when necessary?

OE

 

[ASUSWRT_2020]

Same for me with my two RT-AC88U. Ethernet backhaul is not working with all possible options.

@SBSTNGRSS @PretorianADB
We reproduced the RT-AC88U backhaul bugs.
It happened when the RT-AC88U role is a node.
We will fix this bug in next release.

Rotuer/RT-AC88U + Node/RT-AC88U -> fail
Rotuer/RT-AC86U + Node/RT-AC88U -> fail
Rotuer/RT-AC88U + Node/RT-AC86U -> pass
Rotuer/RT-AC86U + Node/RT-AC88U -> fail

 

[semigator]

To those using wired backhauls, can you confirm if these statements are accurate:

- if using a wired backhaul, set AiMesh node Connection Priority to Ethernet/WAN first
- if using ALL wired backhauls, enable AiMesh Ethernet Backhaul Mode to release all WiFi for client use only

I wonder why the Connection Priority setting even exists... why can't AiMesh assume 'Ethernet/WAN first' and fallback to wireless when necessary?

OE

In RC2-8 it changed to ‘Ethernet Only’ when you enable Ethernet Backhaul.

I have wired Ethernet backhaul and turning it on in AiMesh 2.0 seems to make WiFi clients faster than with it off or with AiMesh 1.0. The nodes seem to keep a connection via WiFi and allocate bandwidth in case the Ethernet connection is disrupted and quickly use wireless backhaul.

 

[OzarkEdge]

In RC2-8 it changed to ‘Ethernet Only’ when you enable Ethernet Backhaul.

That correlates with my statements... if ALL backhauls are wired, you can enable Ethernet Backhaul Mode to release WiFi, and then the connection priority is simply Ethernet only.

I have wired Ethernet backhaul and turning it on in AiMesh 2.0 seems to make WiFi clients faster than with it off or with AiMesh 1.0. The nodes seem to keep a connection via WiFi and allocate bandwidth in case the Ethernet connection is disrupted and quickly use wireless backhaul.

So, if Ethernet Backhaul Mode is enabled, then some but not all WiFi is released for client use. I wonder what 'some' means as it relates to a dual-band pairing, a dual-band/tri-band pairing, and a tri-band pairing. And in the event of a wire fault, does it failover to a full wireless backhaul, like it should, regardless of the Ethernet Backhaul Mode setting?

OE

 

[Stephen Harrington]

AP mode is a bridge to provide Wi-Fi and there is no WAN and LAN difference in AP mode.
In router mode, the WAN and LAN are separated and it can isolate the guest access.

Thank you @ASUSWRT_2020, this confirms what I had assumed would be the case in AP Mode.
For myself (and maybe others) it's still useful having Guest Networks even in AP Mode as it gives you additional SSID's to use for "disposable" situations (such as short-term rental tenants) without constantly changing password(s) on the "main" SSIDs.
May I suggest though that if the Parent unit is in AP Mode then the Guest Networks page needs to state a big warning that they are NOT isolated as people would perhaps assume?

thanks for the reply.. so there are no plans to add VLAN tagging for the guest WLAN in AP mode?

@karma
This would obviously give us the best outcome if it was possible/selectable.
Another vote from me.