Asuswrt-Merlin 3.0.0.4.266.23b is out

[RMerlin]

Maybe there is a post out there already, but is there a easy way of implement it?
If so, would you mind directing me to the post?

I never looked at how webmon worked, so I have no idea at all. I might look at it eventually once I get time to study it. This module is a leftover from Asuswrt's original Tomato code.

 

[mromero]

QoS is a very complex thing, and doing any change to this would be opening a can of worms in terms of stability and reliability. I'm not expert enough in Linux networking to do even a half-decent job in that department, so I have no intention of changing this for now. People looking for a better QoS implementation should look at Tomato.

Eric, is it not possible to implement it as a module or plugin?

I see from Shibby Tomato which I have on another router that various modules are listed from different authors.

In the acknowledgements Shibby lists Toastman as the author of the wonderful Quality Of Service QOS application in his firmware.

 

[RMerlin]

Eric, is it not possible to implement it as a module or plugin?

I see from Shibby Tomato which I have on another router that various modules are listed from different authors.

In the acknowledgements Shibby lists Toastman as the author of the wonderful Quality Of Service QOS application in his firmware.

Tomato remains Tomato, whether it's Toastman or Shibby's variant. Moving code between variants is very easy. They also share the same webui engine, so it's mostly a copy/paste job to reuse the webui from a Tomato variant into a different one.

Asuswrt is a different story. I would have to strip off the existing QoS code to replace it. The webui would have to be rewritten from scratch. I would have to deal with the impact of QoS on the other features such as AiCloud, Parental Control. And every time Asus would make a new release, I would have to manually strip off any code change related to QoS to merge their new code into Asuswrt-Merlin, making the job much more complex and error-prone.

That's why Asuswrt-Merlin focuses on tweaking rather than major overhauls. I need to be able to easily keep up with Asus's own code changes.

You still have the opportunity to run Tomato if its featureset suits you better than Asuswrt-Merlin. Both projects have different goals.

 

[rxu]

Disconnecting the Internet connection (L2TP for me) leads to disabling WAN. Why?

 

[RMerlin]

Disconnecting the Internet connection (L2TP for me) leads to disabling WAN. Why?

WAN is the Internet connection, so that looks normal to me.

 

[rxu]

Then I'm probably confusing Internet disconnecting with L2TP disconnecting. How do I complete the latter then?

Edit: yes, the root of misunderstanding, probably, is the fact that in Russia WAN is not the Internet connection only. Without Internet connection, you still can get the local ISP resourses (ISP site, p2p hubs, local ftp/http servers etc.)

 

[RMerlin]

Then I'm probably confusing Internet disconnecting with L2TP disconnecting. How do I complete the latter then?

The WAN interface is the interface that provides your Internet access, and your Internet access is through a L2TP connection. It's all the same thing.

 

[Santana]

NTP server

Hi,
Last week I replaced my old ASUS router for a RT-N66U, and was advised to start using it with Merlin's firmware. I am using it in bridge mode for now, and everything is working fine. However, I experienced a minor, but somewhat annoying issue regarding the setting of the time/date on the N66U. Despite trying (and applying) various NTP servers, the time/date always started at 1AM, Jan 1 2011, and never updated to the current one...

I finally found on the ASUS forms the suggestion (by RMerlin!) to directly use the IP address instead of the host name, which indeed worked for me and others. Moreover, it was later reported that this behaviour is apparently due to "the wrong starting order of the ntp and dns agents".
http://vip.asus.com/forum/view.aspx..._id=11&model=RT-N66U (VER.B1)&page=2&count=12

If this is really the case, it would be convenient to have this corrected.

Thanks,
S

 

[RMerlin]

Hi,
Last week I replaced my old ASUS router for a RT-N66U, and was advised to start using it with Merlin's firmware. I am using it in bridge mode for now, and everything is working fine. However, I experienced a minor, but somewhat annoying issue regarding the setting of the time/date on the N66U. Despite trying (and applying) various NTP servers, the time/date always started at 1AM, Jan 1 2011, and never updated to the current one...

I finally found on the ASUS forms the suggestion (by RMerlin!) to directly use the IP address instead of the host name, which indeed worked for me and others. Moreover, it was later reported that this behaviour is apparently due to "the wrong starting order of the ntp and dns agents".
http://vip.asus.com/forum/view.aspx..._id=11&model=RT-N66U (VER.B1)&page=2&count=12

If this is really the case, it would be convenient to have this corrected.

Thanks,
S

I started looking at this, but haven't spent much time on this yet. It's not just a matter of starting order, since the ntp should in theory still be able to update later on once the WAN is fully available. There are various issues arround NTP, and part of these are more related to what will actually trigger a client update to occur.

It's still on my Todo list at this time.

 

[RMerlin]

Edit: yes, the root of misunderstanding, probably, is the fact that in Russia WAN is not the Internet connection only. Without Internet connection, you still can get the local ISP resourses (ISP site, p2p hubs, local ftp/http servers etc.)

I see what you mean now. This VPN-based Internet access you use in Russia is quite odd, if I may say. While debugging the Beeline-related issues I figured out that the WAN interface will first request a DHCP lease, which will give you just routed access to your ISP's internal services, such as the DNS and the PPTP/L2TP server. And then the VPN session gets established with the ISP, with all the Internet traffic going over that tunnel.

I wonder why they didn't go with PPPoE instead, as this is a much simpler approach (IMHO) if they wanted to still be able to deal with Internet clients through a username/password authentication system.

In any case, I don't think you can just disconnect the VPN session without turning off the whole WAN interface. From the firmware's point of view, wan0 will be the Internet access as a whole. Best that might be done I guess would be to just terminate the L2TP session through SSH, but I don't know how redialing will get handled by the firmware if you did so - it would probably try to immediately reconnect.

 

[rxu]

Thanks RMerlin, you're absolutely right guessing the ISP - that's Beeline actually
I don't rerally know why L2TP was chosen by them, this is just what I have to deal with.
Okay, I've understood the point, so let it be just as is.

 

[pigbrother]

Are there any knows issues with Port Triggering? I use this option only for IRC ident and the same rule that I used on different routers in the past years (6666-7000 TCP out -> 113 UDP in) doesn't work. Same issues with both ASUSWRT and Merlin build.

 

[Chrysalis]

Ok I have just installed this on my nt16u.

Here is my feedback.

The system admin page where can adjust ssh on/off etc. if I make any change using firefox 17 and hit apply, the proceeding animation pops up and sits there forever, nothing happens, if i refresh the page the settings are not applied. In IE9 it works and changes are applied.

If I login to ssh I can mount my windows share to /cifs1 manually no problem. However I then of course want it to auto mount every reboot so proceed to /jffs/configs/, folder doesnt exist, /jffs/ exists but when i try to mdkir configs I am informed the filesystem is read only. So the custom config location is read only? I can write to /etc but I assume that would be overwritten as I guess is a reason you put in document to set configs elsewhere.

I havent done much else yet, this is where I am at the moment.

I previously used tomatousb shibby, which was ok but frustrated me that 80% of the settings forced a full network restart of the internet connection, am hoping this firmware doesnt have that problem.

I would like to see a user friendly editor added such as nano as vi isnt user friendly, and it would be nice if openvpn was added to the nt16u version as well.

edit I mounted the jffs now no problem.

It seems tho this firmware (and I guess asus also as this is based on stock) requires a complete drop to edit static dhcp and to edit port forwarding, can I ask the author why its rebooting or at least doing a full network restart to edit something that shouldnt need that kind of carnage? The firmware otherwise is nice. The problem for me is my isp is a dynamic ip and everytime the ppp session drops I have a new ip, which is bad for me to change ip everytime I edit my port forwarding or my dhcp list. Is not possible just to rehash the dhcp daemon for the dhcp list and firewall for the port forwarding?

Thanks

 

[RMerlin]

Ok I have just installed this on my nt16u.

Here is my feedback.

The system admin page where can adjust ssh on/off etc. if I make any change using firefox 17 and hit apply, the proceeding animation pops up and sits there forever, nothing happens, if i refresh the page the settings are not applied. In IE9 it works and changes are applied.

Either the router is currently rebooting, or there is an error. Open the Error console in Firefox to see if there is any reported Javascript error.

I would like to see a user friendly editor added such as nano as vi isnt user friendly, and it would be nice if openvpn was added to the nt16u version as well.

I looked at adding nano, but it would require adding quite a few dependencies for curses. Installing nano through Optware is quite simple and currently the recommended way of doing it.

It seems tho this firmware (and I guess asus also as this is based on stock) requires a complete drop to edit static dhcp and to edit port forwarding, can I ask the author why its rebooting or at least doing a full network restart to edit something that shouldnt need that kind of carnage? The firmware otherwise is nice. The problem for me is my isp is a dynamic ip and everytime the ppp session drops I have a new ip, which is bad for me to change ip everytime I edit my port forwarding or my dhcp list. Is not possible just to rehash the dhcp daemon for the dhcp list and firewall for the port forwarding?

I haven't changed anything in this regard compared to the stock firmware. I haven't looked yet at the various scenarios that involve a reboot, but often this is because the same page contains settings which do require a reboot after they are changed. Investigating the various reboot scenarios is on the ToDO list.

 

[Chrysalis]

Either the router is currently rebooting, or there is an error. Open the Error console in Firefox to see if there is any reported Javascript error.



I looked at adding nano, but it would require adding quite a few dependencies for curses. Installing nano through Optware is quite simple and currently the recommended way of doing it.



I haven't changed anything in this regard compared to the stock firmware. I haven't looked yet at the various scenarios that involve a reboot, but often this is because the same page contains settings which do require a reboot after they are changed. Investigating the various reboot scenarios is on the ToDO list.

Ok the static dhcp isnt as big a deal but it would be great if the port forwarding could be made to be independently rehashed/restarted without a complete network reset, the router isnt actually rebooting as I checked uptime after and ssh stayed up but it has a long wait on the proceed and seems to do a full network restart (entire lan goes down briefly also).

It seems all open source based firmwares have this issue, commercial routers with closed source commonly can adjust all these settings which apply instantly and without dropping the network so I am hoping its not a limitation of linux? and I do also respect you want to change too much away from the stock as well and I appreciate that you are considering this instead of just saying no

As far as I can see in terms of bugs, I havent actually come across any apart from that weird firefox apply issue.

thanks I will get back to you on the javascript log in firefox.

 

[Chrysalis]

Hi again, I want to correct so noone is misled.

It seems now I can change the port forwarding adding new ports (not sure about remove) without the connections dropping, only thing changed since yesterday is I have powered it down since.

The wireless I have now tested and compared to tomota firmware is a LOT better, faster and stable on all my devices.

I have tried to use the optware stuff but seems I need to read up on it more, I will do that. Thank you for the documentation as I see you have written a lot making sure is documentated and a lot of developers dont bother so its a fresh thing to see you have done so, yes I havent read it properly trying to rush things, thats my own fault

On firefox is a bunch of these

Timestamp: 12/01/2013 13:43:18
Warning: Expected declaration but found '*'. Skipped to next declaration.
Source File: http://192.168.1.253/Tools_OtherSettings.asp
Line: 0

and other warnings also but I cant copy and paste it all seems a bit awkard to use, if you interested I will manually get them all for you, my firefox does have adblock plus and no script which may be breaking this, even tho I whitelisted on both.

I have a couple of support questions as well which if you dont want in this thread I will make a new one, thanks.

 

[LHF]

Hi Merlin !

As we can see in this forum and others, you have done a great job in developing fw for Asus routers !

But my router is a RT-N56U. Have you already consider to developing a fw for this model ?

Thanks !

 

[rxu]

LHF
The answer is here: http://forums.smallnetbuilder.com/showthread.php?t=9324

 

[LHF]

Thanks rxu !

 

[Chrysalis]

Ok some feedback of what might be a bug.

I have the per device monitoring enabled.

Here is what I see on the daily page.

Date Host Download Upload Total
13.01.2013 192.168.1.7 0.04 GB 0.01 GB 0.05 GB
13.01.2013 CHRIS-LAPTOP (192.168.1.70) 0.00 GB 0.00 GB 0.00 GB
13.01.2013 I5PC (192.168.1.124) 0.02 GB 0.00 GB 0.03 GB
12.01.2013 192.168.1.7 0.21 GB 0.06 GB 0.27 GB
12.01.2013 CHRIS-LAPTOP (192.168.1.70) 0.00 GB 0.00 GB 0.00 GB
12.01.2013 I5PC (192.168.1.124) 2.31 GB 0.27 GB 2.58 GB

ok so over 2 gig usage for the 12 jan.

Then if I select the global daily page I see this.

Date Reception Transmission Total
13.01.2013 0.07 GB 0.01 GB 0.08 GB

Last 30 Days (13.01.2013 ~ 15.12.2012)
Reception 0.07 GB
Transmission 0.01 GB
Total 0.08 GB

no data for the 12th.

global monthly is no data at all, but per device monthly shows stats what appear to be right.

In addition I have to change the data format (for me is dd.mm.yyyy) everytime I access the page it be cool if this was remembered.