Best-practices for replacing ASUS RT-AX86U with ASUS RT-AX86U Pro (=moving everything from the existing router to a replacement one)?

[Rici]

Hi,

Since my current ASUS RT-AX86U starts having Wifi and WAN outages, I like to refresh my router - by replacing my current one with the ASUS RT-AX86U Pro .

How to move all settings (AiMesh, Skynet etc.) best from my current one to my new router?

Any best practices for how to do that best?

Thanks a lot!

 

[Viktor Jaep]

Step 1: Take screenshots of all major screens within the Asus Merlin UI on your RT-AX86U and save them in Word (or other preferred word processing app)
Step 2: Take screenshots of your settings in the critical scripts you are running (like Skynet), and save them in Word
Step 3: (optional) Using a tool like WinSCP, copy the contents of your /jffs/scripts folder over locally, so you have some config files to refer to if needed.
Step 4: Install your new RT-AX86U Pro router & scripts
Step 5: Using your screenshots, set everything back up per your old settings! This literally can be done in under 15mins.
Step 6: Take a step back, get a glass of wine, and pat yourself on the back for yet another successful migration!

 

[Rici]

Thank you!

While I understand that I have to manually configure my new router:

Any way to easily move over my Skynet etc. settings?
Any anything else that's on it.

 

[L&LD]

Sure, there is a possibility to use scripts/code to move some settings. Not really recommended.

Instead of (just) screenshots, I suggest using a text/pdf document to enable copy/pastes too.

 

[calex]

I use the same method, but instead of screenshots, I record the screen and browse through all the settings of the router.

 

[bibikalka]

I use the same method, but instead of screenshots, I record the screen and browse through all the settings of the router.

Another option is to dump all nvram variables :

nvram show | sort > nvram.txt

Then one can fish out a few settings by using grep. For example, customized device names are easiest to transfer via the nvram variable.

 

[cgrey8]

I've got a similar scenario where I currently have an RT-AC88U that I'll be retiring and replacing with an RT-AX86U. Based on this thread, I see that despite the similarity in routers here (AX86U->AX86U Pro), it's a manual process to migrate. So it stands to reason that a generational upgrade like my migration will also fall into the manual-migration bucket. But I'm hoping there's an easy way to export/preserve some of the custom settings I've made to clients I've identified. As part of setting up the AC88U, I went in and identified every device on the network and named it. In some cases, I also changed its icon or uploaded a custom one. Doing this allows me to quickly recognize if there's something new that has shown up on the network that I need to name OR be concerned about and investigate exactly what it is.

I'm Ok with screencapping this info in preparation for a completely manual migration, however the custom icons/avatars I'd like to preserve by uploading them off the AC88U and deploying them to the AX86U. I am comfortable working with WinSCP. I just need to know where, within the filesystem, to look for where those custom avatars got uploaded to so I can pull them back down to my PC. Does anybody know?

Also I notice that there is a way to export the settings of my AC88U. While the "safest" way to migrate is a manual migration, I'm curious if there any chance that the export file is in human readable form (or can be made human readable somehow) so I can manually splice together an AX86U settings file and import it in to quickly restore at the Ethernet MAC to Name/Avatar associations that are in the AC88U? If the settings file is in JSON or XML, I'm quite comfortable editing these formats and manually migrating the pertinent settings over so they can be imported safely into the AX86U. But if those settings files are not human readable, and instead, are binary blobs, then the chances of being able to decipher this and do it right would be far more work than just manually migrating.

Any thoughts on this that might help me to ease the migration process?

Oh and yes, my AC88U is running latest Merlin (386.14 as of this post) and I'll certainly be applying the latest Merlin for the AX86U before deployment as well.

 

[JGrana]

As far as transferring IP to MAC clients, if you used the Advanced Menu LAN->DHCP Server to do the assignment, you should look into installing YazDHCP

YazDHCP - YazDHCP - feature expansion of DHCP assignments (increasing limit on the number of DHCP reservations)

v1.0.6 Updated 2023-11-18 Feature expansion of DHCP assignments using AsusWRT-Merlin's Addons API to read and write DHCP assignments, increasing the limit on the number of reservations. YazDHCP is free to use under the GNU General Public License version 3 (GPL 3.0). This project is hosted on...

www.snbforums.com

With this Addon, you can export your list to a csv file and also export custom icons (thanks to @Martinski). Save those files to a USB stick. Setup your new router, install YazDHCP and import the list and icons back.

 

[rung]

Two tools I used:
1) Network client list and DHCP reservation lists can be selected, copied and pasted directly from their web page into Excel.
2) Microsoft Edge extension called SingleFile can be used to save each config page individually. If you click to show hidden password, those will be saved too

 

[cgrey8]

Two tools I used:
1) Network client list and DHCP reservation lists can be selected, copied and pasted directly from their web page into Excel.
2) Microsoft Edge extension called SingleFile can be used to save each config page individually. If you click to show hidden password, those will be saved too

#1 is a great tip. I just click-dragged the client list and as you indicated, it pasted right into Excel and Word allowing me to then save off the icons if I so chose.
The downside to it is that all devices have to be online at the time the copy/paste is done. I know there are entries I've made that are not currently online (printer that's turned off, laptop(s) that are off, phones and watches from friends/family that are not present at the moment, etc). So while it is not bad, it's not a perfect solution...but better than nothing.

The frustrating part is I know this info is in some database within the router so it is accessible if it could just be done. And even as I think about this more, I'm genuinely surprised Asus doesn't have a way to extract router configuration (e.g. DHCP setup, Wifi setup, etc) plus all the user data I'm talking about for the purpose of easily upgrading/migrating to another Asus router in the future. As-is relatively savvy tech people have little incentive to be brand-loyal to Asus. If upgrading is a manual process and rummaging around in the router UI is not something they regularly do, then there's very little difference between setting up another Asus router vs whatever other router they find on sale. But if Asus had a way to export router data in a model-agnostic way FOR THE PURPOSE of upgrading, then there'd be a huge incentive for non-tech people to buy another Asus router. Simply export the existing router config, import into the new router, and BAM, the router, AIMesh, and Wifi is setup (including guest network) with the same SSID/password so every device (both wifi device and AI mesh node) in the house just reconnects and works with the new router as though nothing changed. That, to me, would be a HUGE selling point for the average Joe to stay with Asus or possibly choose to an Asus router over some other brand so future upgrades go smoothly.

The only real customer loyalty lock-in Asus has right now is people invested in AiMesh and people familiar with Asus UI/OS/Merlin features. Somehow, it just seems like a missed opportunity.

Anyway I think I got the answer I was looking for. However if someone knows exactly where, in the Asus filesystem this stuff is stored, let me know. I've done a Linux "find" of the entire filesystem looking for image files, and I don't think the custom icons are stored as discrete image files. The closest I found are *.log files within /jffs/usericon/ that don't look like actual log files. They look like they could be some kind of proprietary blob file management. For example, one I opened has a header that explicitly indicates the data an image/png. Here's the first bits of the file content:

data:image/png;base64,iVBORw....

The characters that follow the comma look like they could be ASCII-encoded binary (similar to how Motorola created S-record files for anybody familiar with them) although the format is NOT S-record encoded. I did try to ASCII-to-Binary convert the data just to see what it looks like, and it doesn't appear to be PNG directly. So I'm not sure what this is, but I found it interesting and worth mention in case someone more familiar with these files might be able to shed some light on how it is encoded.

 

[bibikalka]

...

Migration is PITA, and either way you do it will be PITA and somewhat time consuming. Same with resetting the router.

You may want to opt for more fidelity, meaning preserving your stuff as it was at the expense of time.

If you are running Entware, set up backupmon addon, and run it on your current router to back up /jffs and Entware drive. You can do this manually too.

Next, dump nvram in text readable:

# nvram show |sort > /tmp/nvram_old.txt

Client names sit in custom_clientlist.

On your new router when it's just been factory reset and clean running the same firmware version (!!!), save the same variables again:

# nvram show |sort > /tmp/nvram_new.txt

I think for each variable of the same name in the new router you could put back the settings from the old router from the same named variable. You will need a script for that to select such matching variables, then inspect them visually. Will have to use quotes with the set command if there are odd characters, like this:

set wl1_chlist="36 40 44 48 52 56 60 64 100 104 108 112 116 120 124 128 132 136 140 149 153 157 161 165"

There are tons of tedious settings that are simple to bulk import, such as vpn ones:

nvram show |sort  |grep ^vpn

After porting settings, you'd update the new router to the latest mis-matching Merlin version. Also, bring the old router /jffs and Entware backups to the new router, unpack these to USB, so you can always have a reference for what the old router had.

Alternatively, you could start with the latest Merlin on the new router, and just import matching nvram variables, and see what happens.