Asuswrt-Merlin - custom build of the Asus RT-N66U firmware

[RMerlin]

Hi Merlin, A number of us are experiencing some annoying issues if we use Vlan which are required by some of the local ISPs over fibre.

With your in-depth knowledge of the workings of this router, can you advise your thoughts as to why we are experiencing issues in only being able to use one or two of the available four lan ports on the RT-N66U. As stated I used an additional gigabit switch (non-smart) to overcome the issue, but that is not an ideal solution.

I quote below an a link to a local discussion forum regarding this issue.

http://forums.hardwarezone.com.sg/n...s-rt-n56u-connected-ont-directly-3635885.html

Sorry, I'm not very familiar with VLANs. I haven't looked at that part of the firmware code yet, and none of the ISPs here in Canada uses that, except for one with an IPTV service - and they force you to use their own modem-router combo.

I would try applying the vlan settings that are closest to what you need, and then see what "nvram show | grep vlan" shows when connected over telnet. If the issue is the webui having incorrect hardcoded settings that don't work well for you, you might be able to manually set VLAN tags as needed, using:

nvram set varname=value
nvram commit

I might take a closer look at how vlans are implemented in Asuswrt once I'm done rebasing my patches on the new 3.0.0.3.144 codebase.

 

[tonydickinson]

Thanks again Merlin.

A Senior Member of the HardwareZone here (Qubicfactor) posted these comments which make some sense.

QUOTE


I believe it is the way Asus hard coded the preset in. From the looks of it, ports 3 and 4 are tagged, which renders it useless to your computers, which normally used untagged packets. If your network card supports vlans, try setting it to 10 and see if it works on ports 3 or 4.

Seeing that the N66U presets are based upon the N56U firmware presets, the Singtel-Mio preset has port 3 as 30 tagged and 4 as 20 untagged prio 4, while Singtel-Others has port 4 as 20 untagged prio 4.

The manual setting unfortunately assumes that you want ports 3 and 4 tagged, so even when you set it to 10, you get 10 tagged, which is not what you want.

In Padavan's N56U firmware, the Asus VLAN implementation (and presets) are scrapped entirely and everything is now manual, but you can select individual ports as tagged or untagged, as well as VID and PRIO which mean true vlan functionality. If Merlin were to fix this I won't be surprised if the same approach will be done (rewrite vlan code entirely).

Thanks to all...

 

[alexgd]

Not sure it is that complicated as rewriting the vlan code for an easy work around.

There is a manual setting option for the ISP Profile in the LANA->IPTV page
except that you are not allowed to enter 0 for the VID which seems to be
the VLAN used for ports 1 and 2.

There is a check in web page (file location /www/Advanced_IPTV_Content.asp)
such that the values entered for VID needs to be between 2-4094. You can
ssh/telnet into the router to look at this file.

If you look at the values for the preset configs, you can see that the unused
ports are assigned a VID of 0 and a PRIO of 0.

I tried setting the ISP config to "unifi_home" and LAN3 works as part of my
LAN switch (that is, it is connected to LAN1 and LAN2) while LAN4 is not.
If I set the ISP config to "m1_fiber", LAN3 is no longer connected to LAN1
and LAN2 but LAN4 is.

Now.... I am not sure what happens if someone enter 1 for the VID.

 

[jmantn]

Can't access WAN Port Forwarding

I flashed to the firmware .144 and was trying to setup VNC on TCP ports 7000:7002 and after applying the settings I got a white screen and could not access my router until I powered off and back on. When I powered back on I could access everything that I randomly clicked on except for WAN port forwarding as everytime I did I got the white screen and had to reboot.

After 20 minutes I decided to flash back to Merlin's build and when I go to configure the WAN Ports and hit apply I get the same thing. So I did the following which was steps for flashing DD-WRT (new to all of this):

- Put router into recovery mode by holding down the reset button while powering up the router, wait until the power led is blinking slowly, then release the reset button.

- Access the router’s built in recovery mode by issuing 192.168.1.1 in browser field.

- Flashed Merlin's build and upload. When completed wait at least 10 minutes.

- Put router into recovery mode by holding down the reset button while powering up the router, wait until the power led is blinking slowly, then release the reset button.

- Flash Merlin's build and upload. When completed wait at least 10 minutes

- Put router into recovery mode by holding down the reset button while powering up the router, wait until the power led is blinking slowly, then release the reset button.

- Select Reset NVRAM defaults when it completes (should be quick), in the browser field, type in http://192.168.1.1/do.htm?cmd=nvram+commit. When done press enter. When complete select reboot and wait 5-10 minutes for the router to reboot and start building its layers.


After Following those steps I loaded my saved settings and went to Wan and to Port Forwarding and it did it again. I really have no clue how to fix this as wiping the router I think would have corrected this. I am able to get online and use all other features but I can't setup any kind of port forwarding as it stands.

Can anyone give me some advice on how to fix or tell me what I need to do to help you help me?

Thanks in advance!!!

 

[RogerSC]

After Following those steps I loaded my saved settings and went to Wan and to Port Forwarding and it did it again. I really have no clue how to fix this as wiping the router I think would have corrected this. I am able to get online and use all other features but I can't setup any kind of port forwarding as it stands.

Can anyone give me some advice on how to fix or tell me what I need to do to help you help me?

Thanks in advance!!!

Just one question, were you loading your saved settings using a saved settings file or putting them in manually? If you were restoring by using saved settings, I'd suggest trying re-entering your settings manually after clearing the nvram (clearing the nvram after a loading firmware is always a good idea) intead of using a saved settings file.

 

[jmantn]

Thank you for your suggestion as that fixed things!! I should note that I did manually enter everything once after I had flashed the settings the first time as I did flash .144 twice before going back to Merlin's build.

Issue Solved for me



Update:
Issue not solved. I no longer have issues accessing Port Forwarding however I cannot access AiDisk setup now. What steps should I do to do a complete wipe (assuming that's what's called for) if different from the steps I took previously? Is this due to the 32 vs 64 bit discussion I've seen? I have a lot of manually assigned IP's and a lot of ports for gaming and wonder it it's running out of ram.

 

[RMerlin]

Loading a settings file should never be used on a firmware version that's different from the one it was created.

You can manually erase all nvram with the following commands over telnet:

mtd-erase -d nvram
sync && reboot

Once done booting, the default values should have been re-applied by the firmware.

 

[jmantn]

RMerlin,

This last time I loaded all settings in manually which is why I thought my issue was resolved at first as I could access Port Forwarding whereas previously I couldn't. Now I can't access AiDisk. I'm going to use the commands you suggested as I did not do the Sync && Reboot previously and hoping that fixes whatever issue I've somehow created

I will certainly remember next time to start fresh with my settings when changing firmware (I have all settings wrote down, just was a lot of them).

I'm heading to work and will post back if I encouter the same issues and thanks again for the suggestions and advice.

 

[RMerlin]

sync && reboot is merely to ensure that all buffers gets flushed to disk before rebooting in case you have a plugged USB disk with unwritten data in its cache.

 

[fearz]

A few issues

Hi,

I flashed Merlin's latest R9 firmware, set everything up and im having low/poor 5G throughput so i decided to re-flash original firmware, after i took settings backup...

switched back to original firmware and 5G throughput is the same, I am unsure if there is something wrong with my router, but i'm trying to stream a video from my iPad2 to my MBP...and its only getting 1~1.8 MBps...is that normal?

So anyway i decided to go back to Merlin's firmware, re-flashed, and restored settings.

Now i have a few issues:

Download Master never worked, neither with the original nor with Merlins', its trying to access my routers\ IP port 8081 but the page cannot be displayed as if it does not exist, i already downloaded the app to my PC...how does this work?

The other thing is with port forwarding, i've setup my PC to have DHCP reserve the IP then port forwarding 3389 TCP to this IP...but its not accepting the connection..

The same setup was on my old router and it used to work...

I can confirm RDP works from inside the netwok but not from outside...

Does anyone has problems with port forwarding??

Another thing, I checked on respond to ping from WAN...but its not working, still blocking ICMP requests...

 

[fearz]

Merlin?

or anyone please?

 

[RMerlin]

If you can't get port forwarding or ICMP pings to work, then my guess is you are using a modem that's also doing NAT and preventing traffic to even reach your router.

 

[fearz]

If you can't get port forwarding or ICMP pings to work, then my guess is you are using a modem that's also doing NAT and preventing traffic to even reach your router.

OK Merlin, here is what I did:

I fixed the download master issue, seems it is not working with NTFS although the drive is recognized & browsed normally.

I also fixed the ICMP Ping & Port forwarding...it seems if I reserve the IP(s)..everything get messed up

The only remaining issue is with this routers' throughput...I am really surprised I am connected on 450Mbps and with from the iPad to my MBP..both are next to each other and very close to the router on 5G and I only get 1.2MBps

Can anyone please confirm this? is this normal?

 

[RMerlin]

OK Merlin, here is what I did:

I fixed the download master issue, seems it is not working with NTFS although the drive is recognized & browsed normally.

I also fixed the ICMP Ping & Port forwarding...it seems if I reserve the IP(s)..everything get messed up

The only remaining issue is with this routers' throughput...I am really surprised I am connected on 450Mbps and with from the iPad to my MBP..both are next to each other and very close to the router on 5G and I only get 1.2MBps

Can anyone please confirm this? is this normal?

As far as I know, the iPad is only 72 mbits, maybe 150 Mbits at best (I wish Apple stopped treating people like idiots when it came to informing customers about actual hardware specifications of their products). So any transfer between the iPad and another device would be bottlenecked by the iPad's wifi interface.

 

[fearz]

As far as I know, the iPad is only 72 mbits, maybe 150 Mbits at best (I wish Apple stopped treating people like idiots when it came to informing customers about actual hardware specifications of their products). So any transfer between the iPad and another device would be bottlenecked by the iPad's wifi interface.

So even at 70 Mbits .. should be around 8MB while i only get 2MB...is this normal?

Are there any further tweaks other than tx power/channel and bandwidth (20/40) that I can make to enhance this?

 

[RMerlin]

So even at 70 Mbits .. should be around 8MB while i only get 2MB...is this normal?

Are there any further tweaks other than tx power/channel and bandwidth (20/40) that I can make to enhance this?

70 Mbits is raw throughput, as used by marketing departments. Add the encryption, the fact that the channel is shared with multiple devices, etc... and you should get closer to 15-20 Mbits of actual data throughput. That's normal, it's just the way wifi works.

 

[richto]

The power settings seem to be broken on this. Setting 5GHz to over 80mW seems to disable the 5GHz band, and the power settings have excessive restrictions. Please could you remove the EU power level restrictions...

Thanks.

 

[RMerlin]

The power settings seem to be broken on this. Setting 5GHz to over 80mW seems to disable the 5GHz band, and the power settings have excessive restrictions. Please could you remove the EU power level restrictions...

Thanks.

I have seen a few reports of the power output issues, but I haven't been able to reproduce them myself, after having spent a whole evening testing and figuring out how power output adjustments worked on this router (see a previous post from me in this thread on how it actually scales).

Once I'm done rebasing my work on build 144 I'll do further tests and see again if I can reproduce it. But I believe those who experienced the problem resolved it by restoring to factory settings - probably removing some temporary settings that were interfering. Asus did a few changes in build 144 to clean up those temporary values, so that could also help.

I won't be removing the limitations as these are legally imposed, and that's an area I'd rather not step onto.

 

[drinkingbird]

Any VLAN expert has any idea why Asus would limit it to 2-4094? If nobody can think of any reason, sure, I can probably remove that from the webui.

VLAN 0 should really never be used. It is reserved for untagged packets that contain a priority value (from what I remember). 4095 is a "catch all" for packets that the device doesn't know what to do with (a black hole).

VLAN 1 is the default/native VLAN for untagged packets, while you can reassign this to another VLAN, that would be pretty unusual. So the ports on the router by default are in VLAN 1 and untagged, except the WAN port which they put in VLAN2 by default, but untagged so it sort of becomes a "separate" VLAN1.

They're preventing you from using VLAN1 as that would put your WAN port in the same network as your LAN which would cause issues with spanning tree as well as security and routing, and is just a bad design in general. If your ISP uses VLAN 1 then you should not need tagged packets (or to set any VLAN settings on your WAN at all). Technically all ISPs that don't use VLANs use VLAN1, which for all intents and purposes is the same as "no vlan".

I toyed a lot with VLANs on stock/Rmerlin's builds and it seems Asus limits it to only very certain things, like the WAN port and VOIP. Trying to set guest wireless onto a separate VLAN and using multiple bridges etc was a fruitless endeavor.

 

[RMerlin]

Good news folks - in one swoop, I think I nailed down both the problem with the router crashing when connecting to it over Wifi (with the newer QoS code) and also the router crashing when accessing a LAN device over the VPN. Disabling one build option has fixed both issues for me so far

Looks like build 3.0.0.3.144.10 will be a quite interesting build, and not just for the 64K NVRAM support. I should have a public test build available soon for people to try.

@drinkingbird: Thanks for the detailed explanation. So I assume when it worked better for folks that were using ID 0 or 1, they were effectively fixing one problem by potentially creating a different one.