Asuswrt-Merlin 374 LTS fork questions - RT-AC1750 B1

[dr_peppsi]

I have an RT-AC1750 B1 currently running Merlin firmware 386.1_2. It is serving as the router and the only access point in my home network. I also have a pi-hole for DNS ad-blocking. My ISP provides an ipv6 connection, but I currently have it disabled in the router web interface because enabling it breaks the pi-hole ad-blocking. I think the issue stems from the fact that the router always advertises its own ipv6 address as DNS server, even though I put the pi-hole ipv6 address in to the router's ipv6 DNS server settings. Devices are using the router as ipv6 name server and using an upstream DNS provider (my ISP's ?) rather than the pi-hole.

I have seen several posts about modifying dnsmasq.postconf to change the router's behavior in this regard, but I wanted to look at other simpler options since I'm a novice at all this.

I saw on another thread that john's 374 LTS fork has an option in the web interface to stop the router from advertising its own ipv6 address, so I thought maybe I would give that a try. Basically just like the option that is available at (LAN>DHCP>Advertise router's IP in addition to user-specified DNS) but for ipv6.

So I have a few questions:
1) Is the RT-AC1750 B1 supported by john's fork, and if so, which hardware version should I install? With regular Merlin, my understanding is that the RT-AC1750 B1 uses the same firmware as the RT-AC68U.
2) Are there any downsides I should be aware of with using john's fork? Security patches just as good and up to date? I don't use any of the advanced features of the router's firmware, just the most basic routing and wireless access point features.
3) Am I making too big a deal about ipv6 in your opinion? Should I just leave it disabled and move on with the regular Merlin firmware, enjoying my ad-free but ipv4-only network?

Thanks in advance!

 

[bbunge]

RT-AC1750_B1 same as RT-AC66U_B1 will run the John's Fork for the AC68U.
I believe there have been several discussions, one in the past couple of days, to address IPV6 with a Pi-Hole. Did a quick look through the forum but couldn't find what I needed. As I remember you need to use the IPV6 address of the Pi that begins with fe.. in the router IPV6 DNS settings.
Or use the Pi-Hole as the DHCP server.

 

[dr_peppsi]

I did try using the link-local address (beginning with fe80) of the pi-hole in the router IPV6 DNS settings. Still no luck with ad-blocking, with Merlin firmware. I may give John's fork a try later today, and see if the setting in ipv6 to disable the router from advertising itself as DNS server does the trick.

 

[dr_peppsi]

Just to give an update- I tried John's fork on my RT-AC1750_B1 and unchecking the setting in ipv6 to have the router advertise itself as DNS did solve my issues with clients bypassing the pi-hole for DNS. However, there were some other quirks with running John's fork. For one, on several occasions my browser would stay logged in to the web interface even after I supposedly logged out and closed the browser. If I reopened the browser, sometimes hours later, and navigated to the web interface, I did not need to enter the password to access the interface. Secondly, the web interface was very slow compared to stock or merlin, and for some reason any time I changed a setting and clicked apply, the wifi would be disabled until I rebooted, which made changing even a simple setting rather time-consuming.

For now, I have gone back to Merlin 386.1_2 and disabled ipv6. Everything works, including pi-hole adblocking. No ipv6, but for my basic needs I don't think I'm missing much.

 

[Lord Lovaduck]

Just to give an update- I tried John's fork on my RT-AC1750_B1 and unchecking the setting in ipv6 to have the router advertise itself as DNS did solve my issues with clients bypassing the pi-hole for DNS. However, there were some other quirks with running John's fork. For one, on several occasions my browser would stay logged in to the web interface even after I supposedly logged out and closed the browser. If I reopened the browser, sometimes hours later, and navigated to the web interface, I did not need to enter the password to access the interface. Secondly, the web interface was very slow compared to stock or merlin, and for some reason any time I changed a setting and clicked apply, the wifi would be disabled until I rebooted, which made changing even a simple setting rather time-consuming.

For now, I have gone back to Merlin 386.1_2 and disabled ipv6. Everything works, including pi-hole adblocking. No ipv6, but for my basic needs I don't think I'm missing much.

I think the browser issues may be related to the HTML used in the web gui, and how Chrome and other browsers process it.... I thought this was resolved, but maybe some lingering issue? Anybody seeing this may try using a different browser and see if it bypasses the problem. YMMV.

 

[john9527]

Secondly, the web interface was very slow compared to stock or merlin, and for some reason any time I changed a setting and clicked apply, the wifi would be disabled until I rebooted, which made changing even a simple setting rather time-consuming.

I use Chrome https with my own cert generated with XCA for my primary development/testing without any problems. Periodically will give a quick check on Firefox and Edge.

One thing for both the fork and Merlin....the web interface generally doesn't like extensions inserting themselves into the mix. If you can, turn off extensions from running on the router ip.