Asuswrt-Merlin 3.0.0.4.246.19 is out

[RMerlin]

Howdy folks,

I just uploaded build 3.0.0.4.246.19 to Github (I will mirror them later on my personal website). N66U and AC66U builds are up, N16 build will follow later once it's done compiling.

While primarily a feature-upgrade release (with build 246 base code and the new custom config files), there is also a fairly good slew of bugfixes included as well.

The biggest changes in this version:

• Re-based on 3.0.0.4.246. Asus included a pretty good list of bugfixes and AiCloud improvements in this version, in addition to upgrading dnsmasq, and improving WPS and IPv6 support.
• Custom config files. Asuswrt-Merlin will let you customize a select number of config files (like dnsmasq.conf or /etc/hosts - see the README for a complete list). You will be able to either completely replace a config file (in case you need to change entries usually generated by the firmware), or simply append new lines to the config files generated by the router (for example, adding new entries to the hosts file).
• More OpenVPN-related fixes. Hopefully getting near the end of these remaining issues by now
• Option to enable simple share naming. Instead of naming shares "blah (on sda1)", enabling this option will make your shares be named simply "blah". While this make it easier for people using the command line to remotely mount shares from other machines, make sure you don't have two directories named the same way on two plugged HDDs, or you will have a problem.
• Backported OpenSSL 1.0.1 ASM optimizations. In plain English, this will improve performance for OpenVPN (in AES mode) and for SSH/SCP. In more details: AES and SHA1 routines were recently rewritten in pure mips asm in the recent OpenSSL development tree. I backported those changes on top of the 1.0.0j version used by Asuswrt-Merlin. Sadly, Download Master won't benefit from these improvements (it would greatly improve hashing performance!) because DM comes with its own (much older) openssl library.

That covers the essentials. Make sure you have a look at the complete changelog (either the included README, or right here.)

Once again, thank you to people who reported bugs, suggested feature ideas, donated over Paypal, or simply showed their interest or appreciation for this project!

UPDATE (25-Oct-2012):
Some users were experiencing various stability issues with build 246 (both my firmware and the Asus original firmware) on their RT-N66U. I just released build 246.19b for the RT-N66U, which uses the old driver from build 220.

This only affects the N66U, so there is no update necessary for the other routers - nothing else was changed in build 246.19b.

 

[RMerlin]

For the curious, here are some benchmarks of OpenSSL before, and after backporting those ASM optimizations. The numbers are the number of blocks generated in 3 seconds (so, the higher, the better):

Before:

SHA1:
type 16 bytes 64 bytes 256 bytes 1024 bytes 8192 bytes
sha1 1557.77k 4110.98k 8128.21k 10853.72k 12018.60k

AES:
type 16 bytes 64 bytes 256 bytes 1024 bytes 8192 bytes
aes-128 cbc 8529.25k 9151.03k 9305.85k 9335.01k 9347.56k
aes-192 cbc 7582.44k 8048.25k 8174.88k 8197.76k 8205.56k
aes-256 cbc 6814.37k 7191.08k 7288.54k 7302.95k 7310.41k



After:

SHA1:
type 16 bytes 64 bytes 256 bytes 1024 bytes 8192 bytes
sha1 2151.79k 6328.24k 14196.56k 20562.67k 23740.52k

AES:
type 16 bytes 64 bytes 256 bytes 1024 bytes 8192 bytes
aes-128 cbc 9398.56k 9941.17k 10138.71k 10195.09k 10234.54k
aes-192 cbc 8309.07k 8690.73k 8819.37k 8859.30k 8853.87k
aes-256 cbc 7394.64k 7720.69k 7820.29k 7853.94k 7855.64k


(Sorry for the poor formatting - no <pre> or <code> tags on these forums)

 

[Junior Lopez]

Im new

Hi guys.. First of all i want to say im sorry if im posting where im not suppose too.. Ive never actually used a forum before.. So hopefully im ok..
I have a question about this post.. I recently purchased the asus-rt ac66u and updated the firmware to 3.0.0.4.246 from asus.. But now i see alot of talk of these curtom Merlin firmwares and i just noticed mr merlin just released a new firmware.. So what i want to know is.. Do i need this update and if so do i just load it up and update the firmware like i did recently or do i need to take some extra steps to update to this firmware?
Im sorry if i sound lost.. But i kinda am

 

[RdeN]

I cant find the New "Enhanced interference management" option under Wireless -> Professional.

Should I reboot or reset after the firmware update? Btw, I updated from 220.18b.

 

[Nerre]

Oh no! To bad I won't have time to upgrade my router until... friday!!


Junior Lopez, you don't have to install the Asuswrt-Merlin unless you need the features in it or one of the fixes.

 

[OGroteKoning]

Hi guys.. First of all i want to say im sorry if im posting where im not suppose too.. Ive never actually used a forum before.. So hopefully im ok..
I have a question about this post.. I recently purchased the asus-rt ac66u and updated the firmware to 3.0.0.4.246 from asus.. But now i see alot of talk of these curtom Merlin firmwares and i just noticed mr merlin just released a new firmware.. So what i want to know is.. Do i need this update and if so do i just load it up and update the firmware like i did recently or do i need to take some extra steps to update to this firmware?
Im sorry if i sound lost.. But i kinda am

The Merlin firmware is better than the Asus stock firmware in the sense that Merlin fixes bugs and add little bit more functionality than that of Asus' stock firmware.

Download the correct firmware for your router from Merlin's website and flash it in the same way as you did Asus' firmware. Merlin's firmware is the closest to Asus' stock firmware. And if you don't like it (which I doubt), then you can just flash Asus' stock firmware again.

 

[house]

Eric,
Can you experience any problems with wireless 2,4 ghz stability or any throughput performance issues ? some people says about it in here :
http://forums.smallnetbuilder.com/showthread.php?t=8297
hope your release is free of them

 

[Emil]

Hello, been thinking about buying the AC66U for some time now. To begin with I was looking for a router that supports dd-wrt but since I found Merlin I decided to go that route instead.

One question though, why dont manufactures support OpenVPN by default?

Does anyone have a screenshot for me showing the configuration options for OpenVPN in Merlin?

Thanks for your hard work RMerlin.

 

[Junior Lopez]

Thanks!

Thank you guys for replying back to my post.. I went ahead and clicked on the restore to default settings and then went ahead and loaded up the firmware and everything went down smooth.. The only problem i was having was trying to setup my ftp.. Kept telling me their was an error when i tried to give it a name.. But somehow i fixed it by jumping in and out of it and rebooting a few times.. Thank you for the help..

 

[house]

Eric,
Can you experience any problems with wireless 2,4 ghz stability or any throughput performance issues ? some people says about it in here :
http://forums.smallnetbuilder.com/showthread.php?t=8297
hope your release is free of them

interesting :

Jan 1 01:00:06 kernel: CPU: BCM5300 rev 1 pkg 0 at 600 MHz
Jan 1 01:00:06 kernel: Using 300.000 MHz high precision timer.

using only half of his cpu power ? :/

 

[RMerlin]

interesting :


using only half of his cpu power ? :/

The High Precision Timer (HPT) is not the same thing as the CPU. It's only used for setting up timers.

 

[RMerlin]

I cant find the New "Enhanced interference management" option under Wireless -> Professional.

Should I reboot or reset after the firmware update? Btw, I updated from 220.18b.

The option is only available on the 2.4 GHz radio.

 

[RMerlin]

Eric,
Can you experience any problems with wireless 2,4 ghz stability or any throughput performance issues ? some people says about it in here :
http://forums.smallnetbuilder.com/showthread.php?t=8297
hope your release is free of them

I only did some basic wifi test on the N66 since I use the AC66U as my main (which is rock-stable), and didn't have any problem then (using an Intel Centrino 6230).

Please post the wifi card model that you are using which has problems, I'll see if we can get a list compiled for Asus to look at.

 

[rlcronin]

Prior to flashing the new build, my OpenVPN clients could all connect fine. Now, after flashing, they no longer connect. Here's a log snippet. It just keeps repeating this over and over and over. Why are these connections resetting? I tried from both a Windows 7 client and an Android client that both worked fine before the flash. I've x'd out some personally identifying info, but otherwise this is the log, verbatim.

Tue Oct 23 10:36:40 2012 us=431000 OpenVPN 2.2.2 Win32-MSVC++ [SSL] [LZO2] [PKCS11] built on Dec 15 2011
Tue Oct 23 10:36:40 2012 us=431000 NOTE: OpenVPN 2.1 requires '--script-security 2' or higher to call user-defined scripts or executables
Tue Oct 23 10:36:40 2012 us=556000 LZO compression initialized
Tue Oct 23 10:36:40 2012 us=556000 Control Channel MTU parms [ L:1560 D:140 EF:40 EB:0 ET:0 EL:0 ]
Tue Oct 23 10:36:40 2012 us=556000 Socket Buffers: R=[8192->8192] S=[8192->8192]
Tue Oct 23 10:36:40 2012 us=868000 Data Channel MTU parms [ L:1560 D:1450 EF:60 EB:135 ET:0 EL:0 AF:3/1 ]
Tue Oct 23 10:36:40 2012 us=868000 Local Options String: 'V4,dev-type tun,link-mtu 1560,tun-mtu 1500,proto TCPv4_CLIENT,comp-lzo,cipher AES-128-CBC,auth SHA1,keysize 128,key-method 2,tls-client'
Tue Oct 23 10:36:40 2012 us=868000 Expected Remote Options String: 'V4,dev-type tun,link-mtu 1560,tun-mtu 1500,proto TCPv4_SERVER,comp-lzo,cipher AES-128-CBC,auth SHA1,keysize 128,key-method 2,tls-server'
Tue Oct 23 10:36:40 2012 us=868000 Local Options hash (VER=V4): 'bc07730e'
Tue Oct 23 10:36:40 2012 us=868000 Expected Remote Options hash (VER=V4): 'b695cb4a'
Tue Oct 23 10:36:40 2012 us=868000 Attempting to establish TCP connection with xx.xxx.xxx.xx:1194
Tue Oct 23 10:36:40 2012 us=868000 TCP connection established with xx.xxx.xxx.xx:1194
Tue Oct 23 10:36:40 2012 us=868000 TCPv4_CLIENT link local: [undef]
Tue Oct 23 10:36:40 2012 us=868000 TCPv4_CLIENT link remote: xx.xxx.xxx.xx:1194
Tue Oct 23 10:36:40 2012 us=868000 TLS: Initial packet from xx.xxx.xxx.xx:1194, sid=99523204 53a89331
Tue Oct 23 10:36:41 2012 us=133000 VERIFY OK: depth=1, /C=US/ST=xx/L=xxxxxxxx/O=OpenVPN/OU=xxxxxx/CN=xxxxxxxx.asuscomm.com/name=xxxxxxxx.asuscomm.com/emailAddress=xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Tue Oct 23 10:36:41 2012 us=133000 VERIFY OK: nsCertType=SERVER
Tue Oct 23 10:36:41 2012 us=133000 VERIFY OK: depth=0, /C=US/ST=NY/L=xxxxxxxx/O=OpenVPN/OU=xxxxxx/CN=n66u/name=n66u/emailAddress=xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Tue Oct 23 10:36:41 2012 us=196000 Connection reset, restarting [-1]
Tue Oct 23 10:36:41 2012 us=196000 TCP/UDP: Closing socket
Tue Oct 23 10:36:41 2012 us=196000 SIGUSR1[soft,connection-reset] received, process restarting
Tue Oct 23 10:36:41 2012 us=196000 Restart pause, 5 second(s)

 

[rlcronin]

Oh, nevermind. The date/time on the router was not set right. It was sometime back in 2010. Not sure why exactly, but manually setting it to now fixed the problem.
--
bc

 

[rlcronin]

Oh and by the by, I no longer have to override the server-supplied DNS info in the Android client, so it looks like this build had a fix for that. Not sure if it was an Asus or Merlin fix, but its much appreciated nonetheless!
--
bc

 

[Ramon]

Ah sweet, will try this one tonight. Thanks Merlin!

 

[mikeg]

Thanhs for this new version RMerlin , just a question : the Asus fw .246 has GRO option in Advanced settings->LAN->Switch control.
Please disable it if there are problems in UPnP and port forwarding. I can not find it in your fw. , have you disabled it ?
I flashed in this fw. and have no problem with it so far so good.

 

[tamalero]

Hey Merlin,

is there a full changelog somewhere?

I'm wondering in updating or staying.. right now I ahve no problem so far.

 

[rlcronin]

I see there's a feature in this build to enable custom config files. Nice. I'd like to setup the router as the master browser. I see I can now do that by putting an smb.conf in the jffs partition. Only problem is, how do I get the file in there? Sorry for the n00b question ;-)
--
bc