Asuswrt-Merlin 3.0.0.4.374.35 is out

[bigup]

im currently running Merlin's 3.0.0.4.246.20 on my N66u

do i just flash to Merlin 3.0.0.4.374.35 and do a factory reset? and setup from scratch?

or will i need to go back to Asus stock firmware first?

thanks

 

[Burning Daylight]

try swapping USB cable, on USB 2.0 everything was ok, but on 3.0 I had similar problem and that was the cable

I'm plugging the stick into the USB2.0 port directly. I will try the 3.0 port.

 

[RMerlin]

im currently running Merlin's 3.0.0.4.246.20 on my N66u

do i just flash to Merlin 3.0.0.4.374.35 and do a factory reset? and setup from scratch?

or will i need to go back to Asus stock firmware first?

thanks

There's no need to flash any previous version - you can always directly flash to the desired version.

 

[santamanta]

PPTP/L2TP Client Feature

Dear Merlin,

I've been using your Firmware for quite some time now and would like to complement your for this marvelous piece that you've been able to create. The possibilities that you've enabled for your users are countless.

Recently you implemented the PPTP/L2TP Client Feature in the VPN section. This is very interesting for me as I have a situation that could possibly be solved through right configuration of this feature in my network.

Let me explain Briefly.

I have 2 RT-N66U Routers both running 3.0.0.4.374.35_4. The 2 devices are placed in two different geographical locations. So far I've been using one device as a VPN server to be able to acces the network when I am at each location and it's been working great.

Now the PPTP/L2TP Client should allow me, at least in theory, to hook up my IPTV box on the router and channel the required signal from one location to another. Practically 'fooling' the IPTV Box into thinking that it's connected to it's home location where I have my subscription. So far I've been able to access the Channels through a webinterface that the company provides but It's very inconvenient. This way I could just link my IPTV box to my Asus router and connect to the home network of the IPTV Box through the PPTP/L2TP Client feature. I hope you understand what I'm trying to accomplish.

I've been trying to achieve this setup for a few hours now but the configuration seems more tricky than I first believed.

Let me explain the Setup:

PPP VPN Server is running at Homelocation (1) of the IPTV Box. The IPTV Box has a regular LAN port. I would like channel the VPN Signal through the VPN Sever to Homelocation (2) where I'd like to connect the IPTV Box of Homelocation (1) to the Lanport of my router on Homelocation (2) The IPTV box then receives the Network of Homelocation (1) through the LAN Port of my Asus at Homelocation (2) and is fooled into believing it's hooked onto Homelocation (1) Network.

So far I've setup the VPN at Homelocation (1) and connected to it by using the PPTP/L2TP Client feature on the router placed at Homelocation (2). The connection goes through and it displays 'connected' in the menue of the router at Homelocation (2) When I use my PC to browser the web, the websites do not respond. No Websites can be loaded on my PC at Homelocation (2) when connected through PPTP/L2TP Client feature onto Homelocation (1) Network. What's strange is that when I type a google seach request into chrome directly from the bar I get search results but clicking on any of the search results does not work. The Site just doesn't load. Skype and other programms such as Whatsapp on the Mobile also work but no surfing. And sadly also the IPTV Box does not work. When I use the regular VPN Dialup through Windows to connect to Homelocation (1) VPN it works normally. I've tried a number of ways to make it work but no success so far. Oh yes and I should mention that the Router at Homelocation (1) is connected to an ADSL Modem where the Modem acts as a bridge relaying the ADSL signal to the Asus Router and the asus router is set on PPPoE Dialup to establish the connection. The Asus Router at Homelocation (2) is set to Automatically obtain the IP address from the Modem (No Dialup) but I don't think it makes a big difference. What I don't get is why the VPN connection works great when using windows to Dialin and when using the PPTP Client Feature to connect the 2 routers together it just doesn't work. Some very light websites that display your ip have worked when using the PPTP/L2TP Client feature and the IP displayed was indeed the IP of the remote location so the VPN connection is established but it's capabilities (surfing etc.) are for some reason limited.

i've also discovered a bug in the PPTP/L2TP Client feature on Firmware 3.0.0.4.374.35_4. When I Add profiles they work for a while. As soon as I reboot the Router or change a major setting the profiles just dissappear. When I try to add the Profiles again, the popup for adding the settings appears but after entering the settings I click on 'ok' but nothing happens. The window remains open and the settings are not saved. The Table does not show "No data in table." but is empty. The only thing that helps to restore the functionality is to completely reset the router.


Sorry that it turned out to be a huge essay but I just can't describe it with less words ;-)

I would really appreciate it if you could give me some tipps on how to make this setup work.

I also Wish you happy Holidays!

 

[RMerlin]

For site-to-site VPN you should use OpenVPN. PPTP/L2TP was mostly meant for point-to-point.

The PPTP/L2TP client code is from Asus. I haven't really looked at its implementation yet, all the development time was already taken just merging and adapting their webui in.

 

[douglasl]

Had problems with my Huawei e173 3G modem connecting to my RT66U. It worked once and then it kept seeing the modem as a memory stick.

Updated the firmware to the latest Merlin build and all is working now.

 

[Burning Daylight]

For site-to-site VPN you should use OpenVPN.

What are the firewall rules for this config? I'm using tinc instead of openvpn and wish to connect two routers.

Site1:
Router (openwrt) IP: 192.168.0.1
Subnet:192.168.0.0/24
Site2:
Router (asuswrt) IP: 192.168.10.1
Subnet:192.168.10.0/24

I do not bridge the vpn interface and br0, so I should add some firewall rules.
Which rules should I apply on asuswrt (site2)?

On openwrt I do the following:

iptables -A forwarding_rule -i pvpn -j ACCEPT
iptables -A forwarding_rule -o pvpn -j ACCEPT

P.S. I've compiled tinc for ac56u. I've managed to make it work in switch mode with bridging, everything seemed to work. I could copy files and so on. However transfer speed is unstable saw-shaped with gaps of ~3s, which is bad. I think the issue is somewhere on the side of openwrt router, but I could not fix this. Now I want to try router-mode instead of switch/bridge-mode.

 

[uncle.f]

i've also discovered a bug in the PPTP/L2TP Client feature on Firmware 3.0.0.4.374.35_4. When I Add profiles they work for a while. As soon as I reboot the Router or change a major setting the profiles just dissappear. When I try to add the Profiles again, the popup for adding the settings appears but after entering the settings I click on 'ok' but nothing happens. The window remains open and the settings are not saved. The Table does not show "No data in table." but is empty. The only thing that helps to restore the functionality is to completely reset the router.

This bug has already been brought to Merlin's attention here. However, since the bug is in the Asus code it is unclear when or if it is going to be fixed by Merlin (or Asus). The only thing you can do at the moment to work around it is to keep vpnc_client NVRAM variable backup. The easiest is to check the current value using Telnet / SSH session:

nvram get vpnc_clientlist

When it becomes corrupt (in my case nearly every time I disconnect VPN client and every time I delete a configured VPN Client connection from the list), you can restore the variable by doing:

nvram set vpnc_clientlist='name>type>ip>login>password'
nvram commit

Let's hope Merlin will find time to look at this next year ;-)

 

[RMerlin]

Let's hope Merlin will find time to look at this next year ;-)

The VPN client list corruption occurring when using certain characters in the password has been fixed a few weeks ago:

https://github.com/RMerl/asuswrt-merlin/commit/d78d837efef780747b2e769d5cd1899b88f41a24

The fix is present in 374.36 Beta 1.

 

[derrickrozay]

Hi I'm having trouble updating my FW I'm currently on 3.0.0.4.270.26 I tried updating to the newest but it gets to 95 and fails...I tried the one after 270.26 I think its 30 and another newer one and it all fails at around 90-95 what could the problem be? I'm updating using LAN

 

[tetrisfreak]

Hey Merlin, for some odd reason, after having directly updated to the newest build for the RT-N66U (374.35_4), I'm getting significantly weaker reception from long distances. Everything was smooth as butter on the previous Merlin firmware I had loaded (unfortunately I've forgotten which, but it was loaded 6~ months ago). I wiped the NVRam, went through the internet setup process from scratch, rebooted the router, etc. Regardless of what I do, the newest version of the Merlin build results in my personal desktop (Hackintosh w/ an Atheros AR9285 chip) having little to no reception (1 of 3 bars, under 1Mbps download on speedtest.net), and my laptop (mid 2012 MacBook Air) only getting 20Mbps down whereas it used to get slightly over 30Mbps (ISP max) in the location.

Is there something I can do, a setting I can tweak?

Edit: I found the 'Archived' section of the firmware bank and reinstalled what I thought was my old firmware, 270.2X, and the desktop is now getting its usual 10Mbps download (that was the norm due to the distance from the router and location of the actual tower). The laptop is also getting the full 30Mbps speeds. It seems that, at least for me, the 270 builds yielded much stronger broadcasting strength than the newest builds (and the 372 builds I also tried).

 

[jim769]

For the N66u did you try Merlin's SDK5 version of the firmware? The standard SDK6 version does cause the N66U to lose signal output it's a known issue. The SDK5 version workers great no signal issues.

 

[vprong]

A new qos-start custom script was also added, for people wanting to manually customize their QoS implementation.

What's the location of the qos-start script? I tried 'find / -name "*qos*"' and 'find / -name "*start*"' and found nothing. QOS is enabled and I have some user defined rules in the gui.

I'm a qos novice, but when I manually brought up imq0 on my old ddwrt router I could enter my own rules. The kernel here does not seem to support that.

admin@RT-AC66U:/tmp/home/root# ip link set imq0 up
SIOCGIFFLAGS: No such device​

 

[MarkyPancake]

For the N66u did you try Merlin's SDK5 version of the firmware? The standard SDK6 version does cause the N66U to lose signal output it's a known issue. The SDK5 version workers great no signal issues.

Just to back this up, I'm using build 3.0.0.4.374.35_4-sdk5 and the Wi-Fi strength and responsiveness is much better than the SDK6 version.

 

[DrTeeth]

Just to back this up, I'm using build 3.0.0.4.374.35_4-sdk5 and the Wi-Fi strength and responsiveness is much better than the SDK6 version.

AIUI, the SDK 6 only caused problems with the 2.4 band (and fixed some issues on 5).

 

[jim769]

AIUI, the SDK 6 only caused problems with the 2.4 band (and fixed some issues on 5).

We'll thanks but I don't have any issues with the 5ghz band and SDK5 just works better in my environment.

 

[RMerlin]

What's the location of the qos-start script? I tried 'find / -name "*qos*"' and 'find / -name "*start*"' and found nothing. QOS is enabled and I have some user defined rules in the gui.

See the included documentation or the Wiki for details on how to use custom user scripts (as you must first do other steps before being able to use them).

 

[derrickrozay]

Hi I'm having trouble updating my FW I'm currently on 3.0.0.4.270.26 I tried updating to the newest but it gets to 95 and fails...I tried the one after 270.26 I think its 30 and another newer one and it all fails at around 90-95 what could the problem be? I'm updating using LAN

anyone??????

 

[L&LD]

Remove all connections except the system controlling the router and the wan. Remove any attached USB drives, keys or printers.

Restore router to defaults. Do a power off cycle (pull the power plug - don't reboot via the gui).

Wait for about 5 minutes with the power off, then power on and wait another 5 minutes. Try updating the firmware now.

 

[dlucks]

Any known issues when upgrading from 354.29 to 374.35? I've been using 354 for quite some time and have been happy with it. Is it worth updating from 354 to 374? Thanks for the great work.
Dale