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

[RMerlin]

Is there a small chance that a VPN client will be included in the near future?

A VPN client for which VPN technology?

OpenVPN: possible, but only in a distant future. In the mean time you can install it and manually configure it through Optware.

PPTP: while there is no client per see, you might be able to manually configure it. I never really tried, so I can't give you any pointers, sorry.

 

[RMerlin]

Hi Merlin.

I was here awhile back and have been following this thread about. Seems like you've added a few options in your version that I asked about earlier. Mainly:
(1) being able to label and reserve your Devices
(2) you added no-ip.org DDNS

Which version is a stable version that has those options? Also, the latest fw has 64nvram right? am I correct?

Check first post for details. Latest version available is currently stable (i.e. not beta).

can you please give me some instructions on how to flash my rtn66u with your custom FW? I am currently using stock FW .112..... I understand that I cannot save and retrieve my configurations right? I can only do a fresh install of your fw right?

See included instructions in the README.

with regards to your VPN, would I be able to set certain device of my network, not all, to go through a VPN server?

If you mean as being reachable over VPN, no. The concept of a VPN is to connect two networks together. Beyond that, you would have to start creating custom firewall rules, which would be quite tricky since the VPN effectively connects both networks together, it's not a client to client connection.

 

[electro]

optware is gone

Hi Merlin,

could you please advise on how can I get the optware back? After I added a flash drive with ext3 partition and moved the asusware folder there the /opt folder is gone. Can I somehow reinitialize it?

Thanks!

UPD: Sorry, got it ))

 

[richto]

Is there a small chance that a VPN client will be included in the near future?

Yes a client for standards based VPN like IPSEC would be awesome. Then I could ditch the VPN setup I use to connect to Azure...

 

[richto]

I haven't changed anything.

Just change your router's region if you really want to bypass restrictions, since it goes beyond just the webui:

It let me adjust it via that interface on your earlier versions - it must be a web page change from Asus then - maybe you could see what they changed and revert?

If I set US settings then presumably my channel range will be crippled to only 1-11? Due to other networks, I use Channel 13 as my main channel rather than the other normal choices of 1, 5 or 9....

 

[matthew_eli]

DLNA sever and scanning activity

Dear Merlin, is there a way for controlling the scan activity (manual enabling and deactivating) of the media server?

Thanks in advance

 

[RMerlin]

Dear Merlin, is there a way for controlling the scan activity (manual enabling and deactivating) of the media server?

Thanks in advance

MiniDLNA does not do scheduled scan. It does a first scan when the service is started (or the router is booted). After that, it relies on inotify to add files as they get added to the router.

Unfortunately, MiniDLNA's scanning capabilities are quite limited. There's no way for instance to simply update a database without rebuilding it from scratch. I opened a ticket with the MiniDLNA author about two years ago to have a database refresh option added, sadly it never got implemented.

 

[LaFemme69]

If you mean as being reachable over VPN, no. The concept of a VPN is to connect two networks together. Beyond that, you would have to start creating custom firewall rules, which would be quite tricky since the VPN effectively connects both networks together, it's not a client to client connection.[/QUOTE]

What I meant was if I have a VPN service with for e.g. 'HideMyAss' VPN, will I be able to configure the router for certain devices (IP or MAC address) to connect through HMA VPN and have the rest of other devices to connect through my regular internet?

thanx.

kd

 

[matthew_eli]

Thank you Merlin for the quick reply...it's quite sad having a router so powerful, but without the right software for handling it...

 

[RMerlin]

Thank you Merlin for the quick reply...it's quite sad having a router so powerful, but without the right software for handling it...

The available DLNA servers that can run on a router are very limited. I only know of MiniDLNA (also used by Netgear), Mediatomb (development stopped years ago, and has a much higher resource requirement since it was designed for a desktop computer, not a 600 MHz router with 256 MB RAM), and Twonky (which is commercial, and would require Asus to pay a licence).

Most NAS also have the same issues.

 

[RMerlin]

What I meant was if I have a VPN service with for e.g. 'HideMyAss' VPN, will I be able to configure the router for certain devices (IP or MAC address) to connect through HMA VPN and have the rest of other devices to connect through my regular internet?

thanx.

kd

No, not possible. The first problem is the tunnel endpoint is on the PC running the VPN client, all the router sees is an encrypted tunnel coming from the desktop.

I haven't made any change as to what VPN clients are available in the firmware. You can install other VPN clients like OpenVPN through Optware, but this is only for advanced users.

 

[furiannn]

What I meant was if I have a VPN service with for e.g. 'HideMyAss' VPN, will I be able to configure the router for certain devices (IP or MAC address) to connect through HMA VPN and have the rest of other devices to connect through my regular internet?

thanx.

kd

Just configure the computers that you want to connect to HMA to use it, and leave the router to just connect to the internet. There's no need to have a function on the router that will do this when it is all configurable on the PC's that you only want to use HMA.

Edit: Just realised what you may be trying to do, i.e. you have devices on your network that you cannot configure specifically for VPN. I know my WDTV does not have this function. I think a possible solution is if you do have a separate PC or server on your network that you are OK with running the HMA VPN over, then sharing that internet connection and allowing other devices on the network to connect through it. Then you just point the gateway to the system with HMA running. Is this correct?

 

[LaFemme69]

Just configure the computers that you want to connect to HMA to use it, and leave the router to just connect to the internet. There's no need to have a function on the router that will do this when it is all configurable on the PC's that you only want to use HMA.

Edit: Just realised what you may be trying to do, i.e. you have devices on your network that you cannot configure specifically for VPN. I know my WDTV does not have this function. I think a possible solution is if you do have a separate PC or server on your network that you are OK with running the HMA VPN over, then sharing that internet connection and allowing other devices on the network to connect through it. Then you just point the gateway to the system with HMA running. Is this correct?

BINGO.....yes, that's exactly what I want to do. I already manually configured my PCs to log to HMA, that way i have the option of logging in HMA whenever I want to if not i'd just use my regular internet. However, I just want to know how I can configure my media player to connect to HMA since there is no option to do so with my media player. so i was wondering if i can configure my router to do just that.

but definitely will give Merlin's firmware a try.

thanx.

kd

 

[IcEMoCHa]

Low Memory

Hi there, just got this router and flashed asuswrt-merlin firmware.. Is it normal for it to show only around 6MB-7MB of free memory on the tools sysinfo page? When it reboots it will show around 200MB then gradually reduced to 6-7MB.. I'm having reboots sometimes maybe due to low memory.. Please enlighten me. thanks

Also noticed some bugs
--> Enabling DMZ makes ftp and VPN stop working.
--> It doesn't save my manual QoS settings always revert to automatic mode..

 

[RMerlin]

Hi there, just got this router and flashed asuswrt-merlin firmware.. Is it normal for it to show only around 6MB-7MB of free memory on the tools sysinfo page? When it reboots it will show around 200MB then gradually reduced to 6-7MB.. I'm having reboots sometimes maybe due to low memory.. Please enlighten me. thanks

Also noticed some bugs
--> Enabling DMZ makes ftp and VPN stop working.
--> It doesn't save my manual QoS settings always revert to automatic mode..

RAM: If you are torrenting, then Transmission might be using RAM. You can view RAM usage in details by logging with Telnet, and running "ps w" to see how much RAM each process uses.

QoS mode: it's misleading. There's no "Automatic/Manual" mode, that dropdown merely lets you see what rules are configured.

DMZ: That's because when you set up a DMZ, all inbound traffic gets forwarded to the DMZ machine. In general you should not need or use DMZ unless running a very particular application that won't work without it (and to be honest I can't think of any application that would require that). Use port forwards instead.

 

[IcEMoCHa]

RAM: If you are torrenting, then Transmission might be using RAM. You can view RAM usage in details by logging with Telnet, and running "ps w" to see how much RAM each process uses.

QoS mode: it's misleading. There's no "Automatic/Manual" mode, that dropdown merely lets you see what rules are configured.

DMZ: That's because when you set up a DMZ, all inbound traffic gets forwarded to the DMZ machine. In general you should not need or use DMZ unless running a very particular application that won't work without it (and to be honest I can't think of any application that would require that). Use port forwards instead.

Thanks for the advice. Transmission is using up a lot of RAM even when there are no torrents active. The free memory goes up to 200+MB when I disable it.

 

[IcEMoCHa]

After a while of disabling the downloadmaster. The usage of RAM is still very high. Here is the print out of the 'ps w' command in telnet.

admin@RT-N66U:/tmp/home/root# ps w
PID USER VSZ STAT COMMAND
1 admin 1984 S /sbin/init noinitrd
2 admin 0 SW< [kthreadd]
3 admin 0 SWN [ksoftirqd/0]
4 admin 0 SW< [events/0]
5 admin 0 SW< [khelper]
18 admin 0 SW< [kblockd/0]
49 admin 0 SW [pdflush]
50 admin 0 SW [pdflush]
51 admin 0 SW< [kswapd0]
52 admin 0 SW< [aio/0]
96 admin 0 SW< [mtdblockd]
113 admin 0 SW< [kmmcd]
304 admin 612 S hotplug2 --persistent --no-coldplug
342 admin 1968 S console
343 admin 1556 S /bin/sh
354 admin 0 SW< [khubd]
428 admin 1976 S usbled
431 admin 604 S /usr/sbin/sd-idle-2.6 -i 300
487 admin 0 SW< [scsi_eh_0]
488 admin 0 SW< [usb-storage]
496 admin 0 SW< [scsi_eh_1]
497 admin 0 SW< [usb-storage]
512 admin 1976 S /sbin/wanduck
568 admin 0 SW< [kjournald]
652 admin 628 S udhcpc -i vlan500 -p /var/run/udhcpc0.pid -s /tmp/udhcpc -b
654 admin 1472 S /usr/sbin/pppd file /tmp/ppp/options.wan0
660 admin 1004 S /bin/eapd
663 admin 1440 S nas
667 nobody 1288 S dnsmasq -c 1500 --log-async -n
670 admin 1556 S crond
671 admin 976 S /usr/sbin/infosvr br0
672 admin 980 S networkmap
674 admin 2000 S watchdog
675 admin 1976 R phy_tempsense
677 admin 1176 S rstats
683 admin 1976 S ots
684 admin 1008 S lld2d br0
692 admin 616 S pptpd -c /tmp/pptpd/pptpd.conf -o /tmp/pptpd/options.pptpd
715 admin 6076 S minidlna -f /etc/minidlna.conf
724 admin 2004 S u2ec
726 admin 1064 S lpd
730 admin 6076 S minidlna -f /etc/minidlna.conf
731 admin 6076 S N minidlna -f /etc/minidlna.conf
732 admin 2004 S u2ec
733 admin 2004 S u2ec
769 admin 2348 S nmbd -D -s /etc/smb.conf
772 admin 1404 S vsftpd /etc/vsftpd.conf
774 admin 3212 S N smbd -D -s /etc/smb.conf
1150 admin 1976 S ntp
1232 admin 1544 S syslogd -m 0 -S -O /tmp/syslog.log -s 256 -l 7
1234 admin 1544 S /sbin/klogd
1243 admin 1548 R telnetd
1379 admin 3500 S httpd
1472 admin 760 S miniupnpd -f /etc/upnp/config
1518 admin 1564 S -sh
1541 admin 1548 R ps w
admin@RT-N66U:/tmp/home/root# free
total used free shared buffers
Mem: 255520 241916 13604 0 18340
Swap: 0 0 0
Total: 255520 241916 13604

Is it normal?

 

[erwinquek]

Speed is good on my RT_N66U.

However, I noticed that when I download using Download Managers, I cannot load certain websites or my son cannot login to his Minecraft game, what is wrong? Anyone else ever encounter this?

Download is via a different computer and web access via another. Not using the same machine. During this problem, access to speedtest site is ok with good speeds. Thus, don't think the issue is due to bandwidth being max out.

Tired with .162, Beta .151 and .155 and Asuswrt-Merlin with the same results.

Max setting for Download Managers is 4 concurrent downloads with 3 connections, anything higher will have problem. Strangely, the problem only affects some sites and minecraft game. For unaffected sites, access is as normal.

What is wrong?

 

[Gitsum]

Hi Merlin, using your 14b right now.
When I go to the traffic monitor page, real time, and click on any of the other tabs but the "Internet" tab, it goes right back to the internet tab within a second or two. It won't stay on anything else. Is this by default??

One other subject, is your version able to utilize an installed SD card in the internal card reader?

Thanks.

 

[RMerlin]

Hi Merlin, using your 14b right now.
When I go to the traffic monitor page, real time, and click on any of the other tabs but the "Internet" tab, it goes right back to the internet tab within a second or two. It won't stay on anything else. Is this by default??

One other subject, is your version able to utilize an installed SD card in the internal card reader?

Thanks.

I can't reproduce the issue here, running Google Chrome as my browser.

SD card: I didn't try, but I think it will show up as a USB disk.