[Dev] Asuswrt-Merlin 388.1 development

[RMerlin]

Hi everyone,

Just to give a little progress report on 388 development.

The 388 merge is going better than initially expected. I hit a small road bump as the RT-AX88U I was working on died (burned voltage regular from what I can see on the pc board), but I also had 388 GPL code for the GT-AX11000 (same SDK), so I moved development to it.

I have a running build earlier than expected. Still a LOT of work left to do however, as some portions haven't been fully merged in or updated yet, like the whole Firmware Upgrade web page that needs to be reworked, due to AiMesh nodes supporting firmware rollback.

The VPN section also requires a lot of work. Asus redesigned the VPN Server and VPN Client webui. For the server section, for now I am simply disabling the OpenVPN section of the new UI, and added a tab to switch to our original webui. I might eventually try to port it to the new Server V2 UI, but that will require more analysis as the code of that new UI is very different in design (and I'm not exactly a Javascript programmer myself).

The client section is even trickier, due to Asus now using VPNFusion by default. Their Wireguard Client support is currently only available through VPN Fusion, which means I need to develop a separate webui for it (based on their old 386 development/test UI). That page will need to be updated to the newer code (for example I just finalized porting the config upload feature from the VPN Fusion UI into that old UI).

A usable test build is still weeks away with all the remaining work involved, and I currently only have GPL code for two models, so it's still impossible to provide any tentative ETA. I might start a focused alpha/beta test cycle at some point to at least get specific portions of it tested.

 

[Frank Monroe]

Thanks for the update and for all the hard work!

 

[JSinFCVA]

Wow! Never ceases to amaze me just how much work it takes and the dedication you have for maintaining this project. The Merlin user community certainly appreciates it. Thank you so much for your status update. Take care and stay safe.

Regards,
Jims S.

 

[vlord]

Thank you for the update. Hopeing OpenVPN is enabled as part of the final build.

 

[RMerlin]

Thank you for the update. Hopeing OpenVPN is enabled as part of the final build.

OpenVPN isn't going anywhere, it remains the primary VPN technology that I will actively support. All the WG code will be from Asus, and my only changes to it will be to get a working webui, and to integrate it into VPNDirector. I have no plans to do any further development of my own on Wireguard.

 

[capncybo]

OMG, sooooooooo much work. Many many thanks for your continued efforts, dedication & of course... the sharing of all your projects.

 

[charlie2alpha]

388 seems to need a lot of work to integrate with your own features and implementations. Personally the only thing I'd like to have right now is the Wireguard support but for the time being I'm using the Wireguard manager script successfully.

As I'm getting older (cough) I prefer more stability and I'm willing to wait longer for it. Thank you for your continuing efforts and development of this project.

 

[RMerlin]

88 seems to need a lot of work to integrate with your own features and implementations.

Most of it is around VPN, due to Asus rewriting the VPN UI, but also their integration of VPN Fusion on all models, which I don't use. The rest of the code was surprisingly easier to merge than 384 or 386 were at the time.

 

[laracroftonline]

Do you also know which older models gets supported after initial release?

 

[cptnoblivious]

Appreciate the update and thank you again for all your hard work!

 

[RMerlin]

Do you also know which older models gets supported after initial release?

I don't know.

 

[SomeWhereOverTheRainBow]

OpenVPN isn't going anywhere, it remains the primary VPN technology that I will actively support. All the WG code will be from Asus, and my only changes to it will be to get a working webui, and to integrate it into VPNDirector. I have no plans to do any further development of my own on Wireguard.

Yea it would be a shame to forsake all your hard work with your own implementation of openvpn. Especially since I got use to VPN Director. Personally I prefer VPNDirector, and your openvpn policy based routing setup.

 

[RMerlin]

Yea it would be a shame to forsake all your hard work with your own implementation of openvpn. Especially since I got use to VPN Director. Personally I prefer VPNDirector, and your openvpn policy based routing setup.

And I do have another improvement idea in mind for VPNDirector, and will probably experiment with in 388.1.

 

[SomeWhereOverTheRainBow]

And I do have another improvement idea in mind for VPNDirector, and will probably experiment with in 388.1.

Count me in for the testing. Let me know when you get a viable test batch for the ax88u on your alpha page, I will definitely test that as well. I am looking forward to seeing what you have come up with for the Gt-AX11000. I am also plotting on getting my hands on the GT-AXE16000 soon as well.

 

[alchemy]

Glad to hear it's less of a pain than expected!
Thanks for the update on some of the hard work you do for each new build.

 

[Reef2009]

Great news!

 

[Morris]

Hi Merlin,

I was just starting to wonder what your plans were and here you are hard at work and reporting to us. It is greatly appreciated!

Morris

 

[Wisiwyg]

@RMerlin With the AX88U now dead, are you planning to repair it, get another one, or switch to the AX11000 (or newer) as your primary router now? I purchased my AX88U because it was your primary router at the time, knew I couldn't go wrong with it. Maybe its time to upgrade to the AX11000 now!
Thank you for all you do.

 

[RMerlin]

@RMerlin With the AX88U now dead, are you planning to repair it, get another one, or switch to the AX11000 (or newer) as your primary router now?

I was already using a GT-AXE16000 as my primary router for a while now, and the GT-AX6000 before that. The RT-AX88U was only used for development purposes now.

 

[DJones]

As a GT-AX11000 owner this has me excited. Thanks for the hard work.