[Beta 384/NG] Asuswrt-Merlin 384.5 Beta is now available

[mikelees2]

Oh, huh, I totally missed the memo that Asus had KOed those--thanks for the info. It's unfortunate that SNB deleted the thread that discusses this--I totally understand that they don't support discussion of circumventing things, but I'm genuinely curious what it was that changed here, and that discussion appears to have been deleted in the crossfire.

So, that brings up what I do moving forward. I run my ex-TM device purely as an access point. It's connected via hardwire to my router, so I don't care about things like AiMesh.

Is there any real security concern with leaving an AP's firmware static? I would never dream of leaving a router unpatched, but do APs get meaningful security updates sometimes too or are they essentially just dumb portals?

I am holding my ex-TM at 384.4_2. It runs fine with that and as an AP it still has the security of the RT-AC5300 on the front side to protect the infrastructure that is behind it. I don't think you have to be concerned as much with an AP behind your main router as you would if it was the main router.
I would not have an issue evan going back to the stock firmware but it was never updated by TM from the day I got it and at that time it was my main router. I have too much invested to use a router that I can't update as my front door. I upgraded to the RT-AC5300 because of the amount of hackers trying to access my network and a close call. Now they still try but are stopped in there tracks. This still is no guarantee someone won't get in but I do sleep better knowing that I have the best setup for my family's usage and have done everything I could do to protect myself from that.

 

[karateca]

Hi, i have problem to do call in whatsapp, just with wifi conection, if i use just 4G on my mobile can do it with out problem. I appreciate if can help me with this, thx.

 

[RMerlin]

When I installed the beta I did not change anything with Traffic Monitoring or any other setting. It's still saving in RAM and not the USB stick. The Trend Micro statistics doesn't show the upload spike. So, something is certainly going on with this beta that is not happening with the stock firmware. ( RT-AC68U_3.0.0.4_384_20648-g21e3702.trx )

I just compared the rstats code, and my code is identical to stock firmware, aside from the removal of debugging output, and that I check ntp_ready rather than rely on an (incorrect) Y2K time to determine if clock has been set.

The only other difference I can think of is Asus interfaces at a lower level to the switch to retrieve data, while I don't. The reason I disabled that is because it was returning completely bogus values for long-term historical data in terms of total data traffic, which I consider more important. I tried twice to re-enable that setting over the years to see if Asus had fixed it, and last time I did they still hadn't.

So even if re-enabling that option might fix the random spike (which is just a theory at this time), it's out of the question because I consider historical data gathering to be more important than one random spike that only appears when viewing the last 24 hours traffic history. And fixing this one is something a few Tomato devs have tried to do over the years, and they never found a 100% reliable solution.

So for the short term, I don't have any solution to this, sorry. I may retest BCM530x0-based traffic gathering again to see if Asus fixed it in the past few months, but that won't be happening for 384.5.

 

[MarkRH]

So even if re-enabling that option might fix the random spike (which is just a theory at this time), it's out of the question because I consider historical data gathering to be more important than one random spike that only appears when viewing the last 24 hours traffic history. And fixing this one is something a few Tomato devs have tried to do over the years, and they never found a 100% reliable solution.

This data error is also saved in the upload stats of the daily chart and thus saved into the historical data. I first installed the beta on the 8th:

The 8th-11th I didn't even reach 1 gig of actual upload. Just look at the chart.. those are the only days with that much recorded upload. Since it does it while saving to RAM, I've changed it back to saving on the USB stick and will see what it does.

I'm not gripping or complaining or anything, just letting you know what I see.

 

[RMerlin]

The 8th-11th I didn't even reach 1 gig of actual upload. Just look at the chart.. those are the only days with that much recorded upload. Since it does it while saving to RAM, I've changed it back to saving on the USB stick and will see what it does.

I can't check right now if my own data is accurate, my ISP is a retard and they shut down their traffic monitoring webpage during the night, for "maintenance" reasons. Sigh.

I'll have to check tomorrow if my own data matches what my ISP has been recording.

 

[RMerlin]

I'm not gripping or complaining or anything, just letting you know what I see.

I know. It's just that last time I spent a couple of days trying to sort through the mess that constitutes rstats and cstats, it was a PITA. And with Asus having moved part of the switch-related code to a closed section of libshared, I'm having difficulties finding the motivation and the will to dive back into that code once more...

The increased complexity of Asuswrt's code and the constant addition of closed source components have now made this project more a chore than anything to maintain. Right now, I just want to get 384.5 out (will probably be this weekend), and step away from all of this for a bit.

 

[Quoc Huynh]

Thank you for all of your kindness and great effort in establishing this fantastic firmware for us, RMerlin! If it is Asus' intention to prevent making customized firmwares in the future, regardless of their great additional function and the developers' hard work, I will consider switching to other router brands.

 

[RMerlin]

If it is Asus' intention to prevent making customized firmware in the future, regardless of their great additional function and the developers' hard work, I will consider switching to other router brands.

It's not their intention. It's just a consequence of other legal/business related decisions they have to make.

 

[MarkRH]

I know. It's just that last time I spent a couple of days trying to sort through the mess that constitutes rstats and cstats, it was a PITA.

Just some additional information. These spikes only show on the WAN tab, not the wired. My Wireless is turned off so that tab doesn't work as expected. So, it makes me wonder where this information is coming from.

 

[Quoc Huynh]

It's not their intention. It's just a consequence of other legal/business related decisions they have to make.

Oh, thank you Merlin. I did not know that Sorry Asus guys...

 

[zadigre]

I too have problems with Traffic Monitor having some weird data in the upload part...
for yesterday, Traffic Monitor is showing 39.23 downloaded and 28.82 uploaded.
statistic tab in Traffic Monitor has 39.47 download and 1.43 upload.
ISP has 38.85 download and 0.97 upload. (which sounds about right for what I've did yesterday)

for the realtime data, when downloading something, I can see that upload is somewhat linked to download... Download and upload will show the same speed... even if my upload speed is like 10 times lower than upload.

 

[skeal]

I know. It's just that last time I spent a couple of days trying to sort through the mess that constitutes rstats and cstats, it was a PITA. And with Asus having moved part of the switch-related code to a closed section of libshared, I'm having difficulties finding the motivation and the will to dive back into that code once more...

The increased complexity of Asuswrt's code and the constant addition of closed source components have now made this project more a chore than anything to maintain. Right now, I just want to get 384.5 out (will probably be this weekend), and step away from all of this for a bit.

Take a break man and don't risk burning out!!
EDIT: By the way "Super Moderator" is awesome!!

 

[scjr]

I know. It's just that last time I spent a couple of days trying to sort through the mess that constitutes rstats and cstats, it was a PITA. And with Asus having moved part of the switch-related code to a closed section of libshared, I'm having difficulties finding the motivation and the will to dive back into that code once more...

The increased complexity of Asuswrt's code and the constant addition of closed source components have now made this project more a chore than anything to maintain. Right now, I just want to get 384.5 out (will probably be this weekend), and step away from all of this for a bit.

I bought my router, because of your project. Asus should be careful here, because there are many like me. I understand they have to do what’s best for their business, but somehow they should try to strike a balance. Some of their business comes from people like myself, that enjoy the flexibility to use your firmware and how it drives improvements in their stock firmware.

Having said that, I completely understand your frustration. You have to do what’s best for you. Hopefully you don’t walk away from the project permanently, but if you do I’m very sure folks will understand.

Thanks again for providing your firmware to the community.

 

[Vexira]

I read some mention of adaptive qos being broken what's wrong with it?

 

[skeal]

I read some mention of adaptive qos being broken what's wrong with it?

I'm using adaptive with FreshJR and its awesome!!

 

[Vexira]

I'm using adaptive with FreshJR and its awesome!!

yes so am I but I read some one mentioned its broken in stock firmware as well or something.

 

[zoggy]

In the forums I saw people reporting oddities with stats and I've never used it.. so I enabled it and was looking at what it would report back. Thats when I noticed unable to get to some things.
Enabling "Traffic Analyzer - Statistic" with cloudflare dns? seems to break pages from responding/redirecting/etc.. Tried going to several sites.. they wouldn't load (ex: https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/shield/). Tried multiple computers, devices.. reloaded router.. nothing. As soon as I turn off Traffic Analyzer it worked again. Anyone else notice this?

 

[skeal]

In the forums I saw people reporting oddities with stats and I've never used it.. so I enabled it and was looking at what it would report back. Thats when I noticed unable to get to some things.
Enabling "Traffic Analyzer - Statistic" with cloudflare dns? seems to break pages from responding/redirecting/etc.. Tried going to several sites.. they wouldn't load (ex: https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/shield/). Tried multiple computers, devices.. reloaded router.. nothing. As soon as I turn off Traffic Analyzer it worked again. Anyone else notice this?

I have traffic analyser on and I can render a complete page clicking on the link provided in your post. I have a AC3100 with the beta 2.

 

[RMerlin]

EDIT: By the way "Super Moderator" is awesome!!

Didn't realize it was showing up on my profile. Eh.

It's just so I can give Tim a hand with moderating, with the recent increase of spam throughout the forums.

 

[RMerlin]

384.5 is now available. Thank you everyone for the test and feedback.

Locking down this thread.