Asuswrt-Merlin 3.0.0.4.372.32 Beta 3 available

[SjoerdNLD]

@all:

Any feedback regarding the IPv6 firewall webui? Does it look intuitive enough the way it's designed? I tried to keep it as simple as Asus's port forward page, but added a bit of flexibility by allowing to specify the remote IP or CIDR.

Anyone thinks it would also be useful to be able to specify a CIDR on the LAN endpoint rather than just a single IP?

Any issue with the OpenVPN upgrade to 2.3.2, especially those of you using a commercial tunnel provider?

Regarding the N66U driver issue, I decided to stick to the 270 driver for the time being. While the latest release fixed the Centrino issues, there are still some other cards having issues with it - Asus said they would look into it. Also, they haven't released the 374_257 GPL yet anyway.

Regarding ipv6 fw page. Intuitive enough, only I would expect it under the ipv6 page not the firewall page. Cidr for lan would be nice to open one port for all laptops etc for specific purpose but in my case I wouldn't use it very quickly. Anyway I think it is great. Good job Merlin.

 

[Bluetrack]

As a non technical user, I have been on original stock firmware for a year and was disappointed by 5ghz performance.

I never thought about upgrading fw for fear of bricking.
Just got Comcast native ipv6 to work and found out by accident reading these threads ipv6 has no firewall.

Took the plunge and upgraded to Merlin's beta3. Using Centrino Ultimate N 6300 modified for desktop. Now 5ghz rock solid with Merlin's fw. Found ipv6 firewall right away under firewall. All is working great. Only "issue" is that neighbour table overflow that I read is caused by Comcast and will ignore.

 

[F5ing]

Long time (but only occasional) lurker, first post.

Reflashed with various Asus firmware versions after purchasing RT-N66R (vB1) back in 2012-12 (last was v3.0.0.4.260). Upgraded to Merlin's v3.0.0.4.372.31 a couple weeks ago and all was well. About two or three days ago I flashed with v372.32 beta3 for the security fixes (and a couple of the other usability fixes) and it's been running well (although I'm not using (yet) many of the extra features). So, by mentioning that last bit, I gotta say that I cannot provide feedback for any of the "What I mostly need tested in this release" items.

I'd like to ask what is the best way to ask about the possibilty of adding a couple of features. One feature is something I'd really like, and I think would be rather simple to implement/test (but I really have no clue as to how simple it might be), the other I'm pretty sure would be much more complicated and therefore possibly "out of scope", but for me would be "nice to have".

So can anyone respond to let me know the proper way to ask for additional features?

@RMerlin: I really appreciate your efforts. Glad to have seen that Asus has publicly acknowledged that as well (in some of their prior release notes).

Oh, I'd like to add that the parental control user interface is working in this beta (for IE9 anyway). I've read all of the recent posts about this issue and thought it would be best to respond.

 

[~Craig~]

I am getting exactly the same results. 3.0.0.4.372.32 has been the best build so far. All of my issues with my Apple hardware have gone.

Beta 3 works great too.

Including iPhone & iPad?

Yup everything is good on my end.

Hi, I know there is not a one fit all solution when it comes to wireless settings but would you mind sharing what settings you have?

I ask as I am still having wireless problems with my apple devices on both the 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz bands.

Using a N66U router and my Apple devices are a Iphone 5, 4S, Ipad 2 & Mini. Getting just under half my ISP speed.

Thanks
Craig

 

[vdemarco]

Hi, I know there is not a one fit all solution when it comes to wireless settings but would you mind sharing what settings you have?

I ask as I am still having wireless problems with my apple devices on both the 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz bands.

Using a N66U router and my Apple devices are a Iphone 5, 4S, Ipad 2 & Mini. Getting just under half my ISP speed.

Thanks
Craig

So i have a RC-AC66u

most of the settings are standard but the interesting ones are

2GHz
Wireless Mode - N Only, NO optimized for XBox, NO b/g protection
Channel Bandwidth - 20 MHz

5Ghz
Wireless Mode - N + AC
Channel Bandwidth - 40MHz

Professional Tab
Both 2/5 have
Multicast Rate OFDM 9
And IGMP Snooping is turned on

 

[RMerlin]

I'd like to ask what is the best way to ask about the possibilty of adding a couple of features. One feature is something I'd really like, and I think would be rather simple to implement/test (but I really have no clue as to how simple it might be), the other I'm pretty sure would be much more complicated and therefore possibly "out of scope", but for me would be "nice to have".

So can anyone respond to let me know the proper way to ask for additional features?

Best way is to start a new thread in this forum. Be advised however that I am very picky when it comes to adding new features, since my primary goal isn't to reproduce the DD-WRT "do-everything-and-then-some-more" type of FW, but merely to enhance the original one.

 

[~Craig~]

So i have a RC-AC66u

most of the settings are standard but the interesting ones are

2GHz
Wireless Mode - N Only, NO optimized for XBox, NO b/g protection
Channel Bandwidth - 20 MHz

5Ghz
Wireless Mode - N + AC
Channel Bandwidth - 40MHz

Professional Tab
Both 2/5 have
Multicast Rate OFDM 9
And IGMP Snooping is turned on

Thank you for the reply, Unfortunately I have much the same settings.

Hopefully when Asus release the source code for 3.0.0.4.374.257 and Merlin gets a chance to look into it I will see some improvement.

Craig

 

[didario]

The beta_3 I can not change the channel for 2.4 GHz network (20/40Mhz, 40Mhz): (
Override the options on the "6"... and still gives to "1".
It can not be set Extension Channel (auto).
I clear to factory settings and nothing.
command:

nvram set "wl0_chanspec = 6"
nvram commit
service restart_wireless

does not change anything (still "1").

If I change 20mhz and "6"- ....working fine

router: RT-N66U

 

[vdemarco]

Thank you for the reply, Unfortunately I have much the same settings.

Hopefully when Asus release the source code for 3.0.0.4.374.257 and Merlin gets a chance to look into it I will see some improvement.

Craig

Its very important that you reset to factory defaults after installing this firmware.

Then Manually reapply all of your old settings. (yes its a pain, but the wireless driver has hidden settings in the nvram, and the old/new hidden settings conflict)

 

[RMerlin]

@all: when posting any bug report or feedback, please specify which router it is. I will soon start ignoring reports that don't at least contain this critical piece of information, as otherwise it's a huge waste of time having to try to guess which router you are talking about, or having to test the issue on four different routers to confirm that the issue occurs on one of them, or not at all.

Thank you for your understanding.

 

[Warlock00]

Errors have been detected on your hard drive. Remove any damaged files or use a PC to correct system issues.

Scan Results:
/usr/sbin/app_fsck.sh: eval: line 1: fsck.ext4: not found


Scan results used to have a different message to this.

Rescan appeared to work like always, although a bit slower.

Same results as I used to get...
Scan Results:
/dev/sda1 is in use.
e2fsck: Cannot continue, aborting.

EXTRA was not cleanly unmounted, check forced.

62 inodes used (0.00%, out of 7045120)
21 non-contiguous files (33.9%)
0 non-contiguous directories (0.0%)
# of inodes with ind/dind/tind blocks: 32/30/1
943170 blocks used (6.70%, out of 14076928)
0 bad blocks
0 large files

42 regular files
11 directories
0 character device files
0 block device files
0 fifos
0 links
0 symbolic links (0 fast symbolic links)
0 sockets
------------
53 files

 

[Kobold]

If you have a MIPS based router, it doesn't support ext4 at all. Use ext3 or better ntfs as it has ntfs support.

 

[RMerlin]

Errors have been detected on your hard drive. Remove any damaged files or use a PC to correct system issues.

Scan Results:
/usr/sbin/app_fsck.sh: eval: line 1: fsck.ext4: not found

This is a good example BTW where knowing the router model is critical. The RT-AC56U is the only router with ext4 support. So without knowing which router this is, I have no idea if the bug is a) a non-ext4 compatible router trying to incorrectly check the filesystem using fsk.ext4, or b) an AC56U with actual ext4 support missing the fsck.ext4 symlink.

Which router model was that? Also, what filesystem is your disk actually using?

 

[F5ing]

Best way is to start a new thread in this forum. Be advised however that I am very picky when it comes to adding new features, since my primary goal isn't to reproduce the DD-WRT "do-everything-and-then-some-more" type of FW, but merely to enhance the original one.

Thanks, I'll start a thread. And, yes, I've read a lot of the info you've provided, as well as a lot of the threads here, so I'm pretty familiar with your strategy/goals.

BTW, a little clarity on my parental control comment as I see a lot of comments about problems with IE10; I mentioned that the parental control UI works on IE9 in this beta. I was referring to the time schedule page. The time schedule page was not working in IE9 with Merlin's v3.0.0.4.372.31 (although it did work with different browsers). I guess it should also be noted that no matter which firmware I had flashed on the RT-N66 the router responded properly according to the time schedule (as long as I made the schedule using a browser that would work with that page). It's not "perfect" though, as I do see issues with existing connections (ie, as a test I launch a 2 hour youtube video just before the "deny" time starts and it continues downloading the entire video even though it's long past the start of the deny time). I've never relied too much on parental controls though, so I couldn't even really say how "perfect" the other routers I have/had were. I only checked out this router due to all the comments I've seen about this issue on this forum.

 

[Warlock00]

Soz, I was about to edit my post after reading your previous message about asking users to supply info about router, but someone replied to thread before I could edit.

router: AC66U

mount replied with:
/dev/sda2 on /tmp/mnt/EXTRA type ext2 (rw,nodev,noatime)
/dev/sda1 on /tmp/mnt/OPTWARE type ext2 (rw,nodev,noatime)

32GB Flash stick.
Mostly I use this for the per-ip traffic monitoring history location.

 

[RMerlin]

Soz, I was about to edit my post after reading your previous message about asking users to supply info about router, but someone replied to thread before I could edit.

router: AC66U

mount replied with:
/dev/sda2 on /tmp/mnt/EXTRA type ext2 (rw,nodev,noatime)
/dev/sda1 on /tmp/mnt/OPTWARE type ext2 (rw,nodev,noatime)

No problem, thanks for the precision.

In 374 Asus has improved the filesystem detection so hopefully it will no longer treat an ext2 disk as being ext4 on routers that don't support it. I haven't had the chance to test it yet however, will try to do so before pushing out the final 374 release.

 

[RMerlin]

BTW, a little clarity on my parental control comment as I see a lot of comments about problems with IE10; I mentioned that the parental control UI works on IE9 in this beta. I was referring to the time schedule page. The time schedule page was not working in IE9 with Merlin's v3.0.0.4.372.31 (although it did work with different browsers).

I couldn't test IE9, which is why I was mentioning IE10 in my bug reports. It's possible that the issue was also affecting IE9.

Asus did tell me however that they were aware of other browser-specific issues related to Parental Control and they were still working on it. I do not know how many of the various issues PControl users have reported are actually tied to the webui (might possibly be as simple as the broken webui failing to save their settings, resulting in PControl appearing to not be working at all), that's something that will be interesting to test for anyone having issues with PControl.

I guess it should also be noted that no matter which firmware I had flashed on the RT-N66 the router responded properly according to the time schedule (as long as I made the schedule using a browser that would work with that page). It's not "perfect" though, as I do see issues with existing connections (ie, as a test I launch a 2 hour youtube video just before the "deny" time starts and it continues downloading the entire video even though it's long past the start of the deny time).

Failure to close existing connection was a known limitation of the current implementation. Problem is, once the connection is established, the router cannot really keep track of which connection is under PControl and which aren't, so it cannot easily determine which connections need to be terminated.

 

[F5ing]

Asus did tell me however that they were aware of other browser-specific issues related to Parental Control and they were still working on it. I do not know how many of the various issues PControl users have reported are actually tied to the webui (might possibly be as simple as the broken webui failing to save their settings, resulting in PControl appearing to not be working at all), that's something that will be interesting to test for anyone having issues with PControl.

Looks to me that it could be quite a few users affected only by the UI as I've read postings by only a few users mentioning problems with existing connections. Then again the other users might not have been specific enough (at least for me) in describing their problem.

Failure to close existing connection was a known limitation of the current implementation. Problem is, once the connection is established, the router cannot really keep track of which connection is under PControl and which aren't, so it cannot easily determine which connections need to be terminated.

Makes me wonder how "perfect" other brands/models/firmwares are regarding this function.

 

[RMerlin]

Makes me wonder how "perfect" other brands/models/firmwares are regarding this function.

Time to track down a competitor's router that also has PControl, and dissect their implementation

 

[~Craig~]

Its very important that you reset to factory defaults after installing this firmware.

Then Manually reapply all of your old settings. (yes its a pain, but the wireless driver has hidden settings in the nvram, and the old/new hidden settings conflict)

Thanks, I thought that was only needed when flashing from .2xx firmware? But I will try it anyway I also always reset the network settings on my IOS devices.