DS-LITE and DSL-AC68U (with GNUton Merlin)

[sandrodjay]

Hi all
I do really need your support as I believe I am almost there, but I don't manage to find a solution

So, long story short, I have the same issue of the user dopefish reported here: [Release 382] Asuswrt-Merlin 382.1 is now available

Basically, my ISP - like most of German ISPs - is providing me with an IPv6 and DS-Lite (ie. somehow a 4in6 tunnel needed for internet access). And unfortunately my ASUS DSL-AC68U does not support DS-Lite, which means I have to connect the WAN via Ethernet to the Fritzbox provided by my provider (M-NET). Of course I do not like this solution for all the reasons you can imagine (other than Fritzbox is s*t), but I survived so far in the last 4 years ...

... until I discovered the GNUton Merlin version for DSL-AC68U and this opened a new world to me! And in particular, I have discovered that the odhcp6c protocol used by Merlin supports DS-LITE https://github.com/openwrt/odhcp6c. In the readme, they mention that AFTR is an "environment", but no idea how to set it up ...

...so now comes the tricky part:

1. The GUI of Asus doesn't have the possibility to set the DS-Lite and AFTR, so I have to use the console/terminal
2. Odhcp6c should work with DS-Lite, but I have to set some parameters, namely I have to say to use DS-Lite and pass it an AFTR FQDN server (which is aftr.prod.m-online.net)
3. The issues is .. I don't manage to set those parameters ... I managed to create a /jffs partition, I have SSH access to the Router and everything is nice .. but damn - I do not know how to setup the parameters for this Odhcp6c as the documentation is very poor and I am not familiar with Routers' programming!

So can anyone help me? I also manage to "kill odhcp6c" service and re-launch it (see code below) ... but also in this case, I do not find the right options to set the DS-Lite and AFTR server. I also tried to see if I manage to use the dhcp6s.conf or dhcp6s.conf.add, but again - I really do not know from where to start (and not sure that is the right place to set the AFTR environment). I really can't understand what the options are ... if anyone could explain me, it will be really helpful!

Many thanks
Sandrodjay

odhcp6c -df -R -s /tmp/dhcp6c -N try -c <hex_code_omitted> -FP <hex_code_omitted> -r23 -r24 -r82 -r83  ppp0

 

[charlie2alpha]

I don't know if that you want to do is possible with the current firmware Asus routers have as it's rather complicated and requires a lot of manual setup which has to be done by user scripts as there's zero support for this in the firmware.

On the other hand, you can put your Asus behind the Fritzbox and set it as an exposed host for both IPv4 and IPv6, and also enable the option on the Fritzbox that shares an IPv6 subnet to another router. This method will have you use a double NAT setup but as DS-Lite already gives you a fake IPv4 address that shouldn't bother you. On the other hand, it will allow you to have proper IPv6 addressing with everything controlled by the Asus instead of the Fritzbox. I'm using such a setup successfully with the only difference, I have VDSL service from telekom.de with normal IPv4 and I'm not behind carrier grade NAT.

Sent from my Mi 9T Pro using Tapatalk

 

[sandrodjay]

I don't know if that you want to do is possible with the current firmware Asus routers have as it's rather complicated and requires a lot of manual setup which has to be done by user scripts as there's zero support for this in the firmware.

On the other hand, you can put your Asus behind the Fritzbox and set it as an exposed host for both IPv4 and IPv6, and also enable the option on the Fritzbox that shares an IPv6 subnet to another router. This method will have you use a double NAT setup but as DS-Lite already gives you a fake IPv4 address that shouldn't bother you. On the other hand, it will allow you to have proper IPv6 addressing with everything controlled by the Asus instead of the Fritzbox. I'm using such a setup successfully with the only difference, I have VDSL service from telekom.de with normal IPv4 and I'm not behind carrier grade NAT.

Sent from my Mi 9T Pro using Tapatalk

Thanks for your reply!
Honestly I don't know if it's possible or not, but considering that odhcp6 supports it, I thought we just need to setup the parameters correctly: most of them are already set by the firmware.. We just need to set a DS-LITE and maybe a IPv4 interface .. I don't know ..

Regarding the solution you mention, it is what I have currently (double NAT, ASUS behind Fritzbox) - I exposed ipv4, not sure how to expose IPv6 but long story short i don't manage to access my ASUS router from the internet (I have already checked all the options) and all its devices (like the Xbox) .. indeed, if i would manage to access them via IPv6 It would be great!

Compared to you, I don't have a dedicated IPv4 (I had to pay an extra monthly fee..), rest I imagine it is the same .. so maybe would it help if you share with me your fritzbox settings?

Many thanks!




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[Grisu]

I think he means you wont have double NAT if you enable: Zugangsdaten->Internetzugang->Verbindungseinstellungen ändern>Angeschlossene Netzwerkgeräte dürfen zusätzlich ihre eigene Internetverbindung aufbauen (nicht empfohlen)

 

[charlie2alpha]

No, I don't mean that as that would mean that the Asus router would have to open it's own connection but most ISPs do not allow more than one connection. I will share my settings when I get home later, right now I'm at work and can't check my Fritzbox.

 

[Grisu]

You could disable login of modem by deleting user/pw credentials (dont set them) and the Asus will be only device, its not really but some kind of bridge mode.

I am interested in you solution too!

 

[dopefish]

I have switched to OpenWRT. OpenWRT supports DS-Lite and finds the AFTR automatically. I had a lot of issues with MerlinWRT/DD-WRT and DS-Lite. Furthermore i switched to a Linksys WRT3200

 

[sandrodjay]

I have switched to OpenWRT. OpenWRT supports DS-Lite and finds the AFTR automatically. I had a lot of issues with MerlinWRT/DD-WRT and DS-Lite. Furthermore i switched to a Linksys WRT3200

Welcome back thanks for answering! But did you manage to install openWRT to the ASUS or you bought the Linksys basically? Because - in the first case - does it exist a DSL version of OpenWRT?

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[charlie2alpha]

So, the settings I am using are described in this knowledge base article from avm.de itself: https://en.avm.de/service/fritzbox/...9_Setting-up-an-IPv6-subnet-in-the-FRITZ-Box/

This works fine between my Fritzbox 7530 and my ASUS RT-AC86U. An IPv6 subnet is delegated to the Asus router and from it the rest of the LAN devices are getting their IPv6 address. You can also take a look here

 

[sandrodjay]

So, the settings I am using are described in this knowledge base article from avm.de itself: https://en.avm.de/service/fritzbox/...9_Setting-up-an-IPv6-subnet-in-the-FRITZ-Box/

This works fine between my Fritzbox 7530 and my ASUS RT-AC86U. An IPv6 subnet is delegated to the Asus router and from it the rest of the LAN devices are getting their IPv6 address. You can also take a look here

Thanks charlie2alpha - that's indeed a nice guide! I like also the title "surviving with DS-Lite" ))

Anyway I am quite impressed that, despite basically DS-Lite is de facto the standard in Germany (ie. 80million people), in practice there is a lack of support of the online community

And in any case, I'm looking forward to see if in this Forum there is someone who can support me in this (crazy) idea to enable the DSL-AC68U to DS-Lite. Again, I feel it is just a matter of configuration .. does anyone know how to setup the parametrs of odhcp6c? Basically I just need an empty example template and instructions to make it run on the Asus router .. then I will care about the rest

Many thanks again for your support!

Sent from my SM-G960F using Tapatalk

 

[sandrodjay]

So, the settings I am using are described in this knowledge base article from avm.de itself: https://en.avm.de/service/fritzbox/...9_Setting-up-an-IPv6-subnet-in-the-FRITZ-Box/

This works fine between my Fritzbox 7530 and my ASUS RT-AC86U. An IPv6 subnet is delegated to the Asus router and from it the rest of the LAN devices are getting their IPv6 address. You can also take a look here

OK charlie - so I managed to configure the Fritzbox. And the first results I achieved is to manage to let the ASUS register in its own DDNS server ... nevertheless, I still do not manage to access it from Web (despite it says that it is registered, the xxx.asuscomm.com doesn't fly ..) and I need to do it to setup my local VPN (eg. to stream the Xbox when I travel for example) .. do you have also a guide to roughly explain what is the best configuration to take the most of the AC68U behind the Fritzbox? Many thanks!

 

[charlie2alpha]

OK charlie - so I managed to configure the Fritzbox. And the first results I achieved is to manage to let the ASUS register in its own DDNS server ... nevertheless, I still do not manage to access it from Web (despite it says that it is registered, the xxx.asuscomm.com doesn't fly ..) and I need to do it to setup my local VPN (eg. to stream the Xbox when I travel for example) .. do you have also a guide to roughly explain what is the best configuration to take the most of the AC68U behind the Fritzbox? Many thanks!

The assuscomm.com ddns only registers on IPv4, it will never work with IPv6. For your use case you should use a custom ddns script with a dynamic ddns service that also supports IPv6. I personally use https://freedns.afraid.org/ . As for the Asus behind the Fritzbox nothing complicated here, just make sure you have it configured for native IPv6 mode. If you followed the guides I posted before, you should have native IPv6 access with the Asus. If you have problems, please post here.

 

[charlie2alpha]

Since you mentioned VPN, also keep in mind that the ASUS router only accept VPN connections via IPv4. This won't work with your current connection since you do not have a real IPv4 address, you need a VPN server that listens on IPv6 and not just IPv4.

 

[sandrodjay]

Since you mentioned VPN, also keep in mind that the ASUS router only accept VPN connections via IPv4. This won't work with your current connection since you do not have a real IPv4 address, you need a VPN server that listens on IPv6 and not just IPv4.

Exactly - I was just asking you about the VPN ... there aren't any plugins/scripts for Merlin which activate also IPv6 VPN?

 

[charlie2alpha]

Exactly - I was just asking you about the VPN ... there aren't any plugins/scripts for Merlin which activate also IPv6 VPN?

Not really, but you can try to play with custom configuration, for example like they mention in this thread

 

[charlie2alpha]

Exactly - I was just asking you about the VPN ... there aren't any plugins/scripts for Merlin which activate also IPv6 VPN?

LOL, reading the wiki it is actually very easy to make OpenVPN listen on IPv6. You just need to put

proto udp6

on the custom configuration of the OpenVPN setup on the Asus router. I just tried it on mine!

 

[sandrodjay]

LOL, reading the wiki it is actually very easy to make OpenVPN listen on IPv6. You just need to put

proto udp6

on the custom configuration of the OpenVPN setup on the Asus router. I just tried it on mine!

Cool can't wait to go back home to try .. indeed my key objective is to stream the Xbox One on my notebook using the Xbox app when I'm traveling, ie. I'm not in my WLAN ... and apparently using IPv4 is straightforward, but IPv6 it seems not so easy ... so the idea of using VPN was to somehow "bypass" this issue ... but I was wondering if you have some experience with this / if you use also in this case Afraid.org for teh Xbox IPv6 or if you have any other solution than VPN

 

[charlie2alpha]

Cool can't wait to go back home to try .. indeed my key objective is to stream the Xbox One on my notebook using the Xbox app when I'm traveling, ie. I'm not in my WLAN ... and apparently using IPv4 is straightforward, but IPv6 it seems not so easy ... so the idea of using VPN was to somehow "bypass" this issue ... but I was wondering if you have some experience with this / if you use also in this case Afraid.org for teh Xbox IPv6 or if you have any other solution than VPN

Sorry, no experience with XBOX. When you try, you will also need to add this line to your firewall-start script (if not sure what that is, search for Merlin's firmware custom scripts).

ip6tables -I INPUT 3 -i eth0 -p udp --dport <vpn-port>  -j ACCEPT

Replace <vpn-port> with whatever port you set your VPN server on the ASUS. This line opens the port on the ASUS IPv6 firewall.

 

[sandrodjay]

The assuscomm.com ddns only registers on IPv4, it will never work with IPv6. For your use case you should use a custom ddns script with a dynamic ddns service that also supports IPv6. I personally use https://freedns.afraid.org/ . As for the Asus behind the Fritzbox nothing complicated here, just make sure you have it configured for native IPv6 mode. If you followed the guides I posted before, you should have native IPv6 access with the Asus. If you have problems, please post here.

Hi Charlie - I am really sad ... I don-t manage really to make it work ..
So, just to recap:
(1) on freedns.afraid.org, you setup an AAAA with IPv6 subdomain?
(2) if you used IPv6, what IP do you put in your subdomain? ie. how do you get your IPv6? do you read it on the Fritzbox or on the ASUS router (they are different) ... sad story is also that https://test-ipv6.com/ tells me that I do not even have an IPv6 address .. only the IPv4 from the DS-LITE ... so really do not know from where to start
(3) even if you do all the above, how do you setup hostname/password/user/"method to retrieve WAN IP"on the ASUS?

But really .. I feel I do not even manage to get an IPv6 seen by internet, despite I followed your guide on the Fritzbox ...

Any help is welcome ...

 

[charlie2alpha]

Hi Charlie - I am really sad ... I don-t manage really to make it work ..
So, just to recap:
(1) on freedns.afraid.org, you setup an AAAA with IPv6 subdomain?
(2) if you used IPv6, what IP do you put in your subdomain? ie. how do you get your IPv6? do you read it on the Fritzbox or on the ASUS router (they are different) ... sad story is also that https://test-ipv6.com/ tells me that I do not even have an IPv6 address .. only the IPv4 from the DS-LITE ... so really do not know from where to start
(3) even if you do all the above, how do you setup hostname/password/user/"method to retrieve WAN IP"on the ASUS?

But really .. I feel I do not even manage to get an IPv6 seen by internet, despite I followed your guide on the Fritzbox ...

Any help is welcome ...

One thing at a time. First you need to solve the "no IPv6" problem. Please double check the Fritz settings, specifically the DHCPv6 settings. Also check what kind of IPv6 subnet your ISP assigns to you, avm states in their knowledge base: "The FRITZ!Box must obtain an IPv6 prefix longer than 64 bits (for example /60 or /56) when it connects to the internet."