[Fork] Asuswrt-Merlin 374.43 LTS releases (Archive)

[rtn66uftw]

Is it causing any issues for your network? Hard to know if this is a Belkin baked in firmware design or the neighbor doing it manually?

If the Belkin is in 40MHz channel width mode and can't pick the exact opposite channel (channel 1), this would give their network the best performance by following yours. This is because the two radio's will be in sync when broadcasting (one will wait for the other) rather than simply getting 'noise' from an overlapping channel when they're not sync'd.

With your router on channel 11 now, can you try changing to channel 1 and see if it follows you there?

Can you ask your neighbor to check that it is in 20MHz channel width mode?

Do you have an old router to use on a fake channel so the Belkin stops following your real network?

Don't know.....but my Roku does the same thing (channel used for a paired remote). It's channel follows whatever channel I set on the router.

Thanks guys! I changed it to channel 1 and the Belkin stayed at channel 11. Hopefully it won't follow in the future

 

[rtn66uftw]

I'm running about 20+ devices streaming video online right now. Many times about 1/3 or half of them couldn't really load the video. All I saw was the spinning circle showing they're trying to load but they kept staying like that. I suspect that the router was maxed out in terms of connection/ports or something like that. Which parameters should I experiment? Should I play around with timeout parameters as well? Any suggestion would be appreciated. Thanks!

 

[terribell]

Is the disk formatted with GPT or MBR partitions? That was the only thing I wasn't sure of with respect to the fork.

Sorry for the late reply but I was away from home and had no way to check this.

I only have one GPT partition for the total capacity of the disk formatted with NTFS file system.

 

[Nullity]

I'm running about 20+ devices streaming video online right now. Many times about 1/3 or half of them couldn't really load the video. All I saw was the spinning circle showing they're trying to load but they kept staying like that. I suspect that the router was maxed out in terms of connection/ports or something like that. Which parameters should I experiment? Should I play around with timeout parameters as well? Any suggestion would be appreciated. Thanks!

We need much more information.

What device wireless AP/router do you have? (RT-N66U Iassume.) What is your internet connection speed? What streaming service? (What is the "spinning half circle"?) Are you using QoS? Is every client wireless?

To simultaneously supply ~20 1080p streams, you would need approximately 120Mbit (~6Mbit × 20) of bandwidth. That is easy for even a 802.11n WiFi AP (my RT-N66U can do ~180Mbit wirelessly), but 100Mbit+ internet connection is uncommon.

 

[john9527]

Sorry for the late reply but I was away from home and had no way to check this.

I only have one GPT partition for the total capacity of the disk formatted with NTFS file system.

No need to apologize...appreciate the response. Good to get confirmation that GPT partitions work OK.

 

[rtn66uftw]

We need much more information.

What device wireless AP/router do you have? (RT-N66U I assume.) What is your internet connection speed? What streaming service? (What is the "spinning half circle"?) Are you using QoS? Is every client wireless?

To simultaneously supply ~20 1080p streams, you would need approximately 120Mbit (~6Mbit × 20) of bandwidth. That is easy for even a 802.11n WiFi AP (my RT-N66U can do ~180Mbit wirelessly), but 100Mbit+ internet connection is uncommon.

Thanks Nullity!

1. Yes, I'm using RT-N66U with John's latest firmware.
2. My internet speed is about 20 Mbps.
3. All 20 devices are smartphones connected to wifi network. They're about 6 ft from the router via a thin wall. They run Android apps that stream video ad at low quality (e.g. swagbucks app). Last time I checked, they used about 500 Kbps/phone.
4. I haven't used QoS yet because I'm not very familiar with it tbh.

 

[slobodan]

500 kbps * 20 = 10 Mbps.

Do you have a real download speed of 20 Mbps or just an "up to 20 Mbps"? This is germane in ADSL land, wherein the farther you are from the distribution point (telephone central office), the slower the real speed is.

 

[rtn66uftw]

500 kbps * 20 = 10 Mbps.

Do you have a real download speed of 20 Mbps or just an "up to 20 Mbps"? This is germane in ADSL land, wherein the farther you are from the distribution point (telephone central office), the slower the real speed is.

Most of the time I get 15 Mbps. 20 Mbps is usually at night or early morning

 

[john9527]

I know it's only been a short time since the last release, but I think I have things in good enough shape to share a beta version of the V17 code with some new function ports. If you do try it out, please take the time to provide some feedback, especially if you run into any gui issues adding/deleting rules for the QoS options.

BETA RELEASE: Update-17BA
1-February-2015
Merlin fork 374.43_2-17BAj9527
Download http://1drv.ms/1sDtB1V
============================

Update-17BA
Another quick update....

• Fix: QoS enable slider may not be visible (thanks to @scaramonga for the report)
• Added JFFS backup function (Merlin backport)
  access via Administration>Restore/Save/Upload Settings page
• Memory leak fixes backported from Shibby Tomato and Linux repository (right now for ARM only)

Update-17B9
A quick update to the beta, primarily to fix client selection from the pulldown on the Bandwidth Limiter rules page (surprised that nobody has complained it was broke! )

• Fix client selection from Target pulldown on Bandwidth Limiter rules page
• Updated Target hint/placeholder on Bandwidth Limiter rultes page
  I've now verified that input of a guest interface works so added that to the hint (use wl0.1 for first 2.4GHz Guest, wl1.1 for first 5GHz Guest, etc).

Update-17B8

• DNSSEC support (Merlin backport)
  I've placed the enable setting for this on the WAN page, since this is where the DNS servers that must be set are located.
  After you enable DNSSEC support, you may have to close your browser (to clear it's DNS cache) and flush the DNS cache on your client (on Windows, 'ipconfig /flushdns' in an Administrator cmd window).
  BTW, if you use Private Internet Access (PIA) as a VPN provider, their DNS servers support DNSSEC.
• Support for QoS Bandwidth Limiter (ASUS backport)
  The type is selected on the initial Traffic Manager page, and the Bandwidth Limiter rules are entered by accessing a new page via the pulldown in the upper right corner.
  On thing of note....if you are running a VPN client, the upload limits will not be enforced for those clients using the VPN (download is enforced). If you want to limit VPN uploads, there is an nvram setting
  nvram set qos_iface=tun11 [or tun12]
  that will make the limits work for VPN, trading off that non-VPN clients will now not have upload limits set.
• Updates to the Traditional QoS rules pages so that the client name is now shown in addition to the MAC address - @Chrysalis
• The manually assigned DHCP address list is now automatically sorted by IP (sorry, no choice for other fields). Thanks to @aswild for providing the code.
• A subtle gui enhancement, right now just on the QoS pages (see if you can spot it )
• A fix for the VPN client state nvram variables not being set correctly when the client is fully up.

The code images have grown by 60K-100K...MIPS users make sure to have a jffs backup!

SHA256

965ea35c8ae29dc7c13c358aac0c082546d3d3e5791a2a0471cd252177bb254a *RT-AC56U_3.0.0.4_374.43_2-17BAj9527.trx
1145d667cc76faeec57396b48a00a4801f9f7eaee8521232e07008d12d911692 *RT-AC66U_3.0.0.4_374.43_2-17BAj9527.trx
9aac77b192e1ef7fb2765399c064df78b74d46821374885bc3bc47afb588a036 *RT-AC68U_3.0.0.4_374.43_2-17BAj9527.trx
49be9e128ebcb82b27f20458174b00df425e8465dbd9261ea0b654f7280e2ac8 *RT-N16_3.0.0.4_374.43_2-17BAj9527.trx
edc952553bc76d958a3cad7d214cf93d6005e4fd7b62d3a719a7acbac9b32ab4 *RT-N66U_3.0.0.4_374.43_2-17BAj9527.trx

 

[bbunge]

The newer Merlin builds put the OpenVPN certs into JFFS. I switched today from the latest Merlin to V16E1 and performed a factory reset from the Administration/ Restore/Save/Upload Setting tab. After setting up OpenVPN I noticed that there was an openvpn folder in /jffs. Could it be that the factory reset did not wipe out the certs from the Merlin build? My goal is to move these certs from NVRAM to jffs (yes, I have the procedure).

 

[john9527]

The newer Merlin builds put the OpenVPN certs into JFFS. I switched today from the latest Merlin to V16E1 and performed a factory reset from the Administration/ Restore/Save/Upload Setting tab. After setting up OpenVPN I noticed that there was an openvpn folder in /jffs. Could it be that the factory reset did not wipe out the certs from the Merlin build? My goal is to move these certs from NVRAM to jffs (yes, I have the procedure).

Yes....the certs should still be in jffs from the Merlin build. The factory reset doesn't touch jffs on the fork (at the time of the base code for the fork, nothing was stored there). But the fork will have no knowledge of them....as you noted the fork still expects them to be in NVRAM. So you should be able to use 'the procedure' and point to those same jffs certs.

 

[shooter40sw]

Hi Im currently on merlin 380.57, to go to johns fork do I have to do some special steps before doing so? or just upload, and factory defaults? I have read that to go from johns fork to merlin you have to go first with 378.xx and then to 380.xx, but have not seen the contrary. I apologize if I missed it, I got an R66U , thanks for the info.

BTW does the fork works ok with the android asus app?

Within the asus app for android I was messing with the Wifi eco option, it drops the wifi power to 1% but I didnt notice much change in wifi signal nor temp drop.
Thanks again
Special thanks to @john9527 I was one of the users asking for dnssec and bandwith limiter

 

[punchsuckr]

Hi John..great to see the beta release! Is the bandwidth limiter enabled for the N66U as well???

EDIT: Also, would it be possible to limit the b/w of any guest network?,typo

 

[john9527]

Hi Im currently on merlin 380.57, to go to johns fork do I have to do some special steps before doing so? or just upload, and factory defaults? I have read that to go from johns fork to merlin you have to go first with 378.xx and then to 380.xx, but have not seen the contrary. I apologize if I missed it, I got an R66U , thanks for the info.

Just upload and factory defaults to go from Merlin to the fork. In fact, I think on the MIPS based routers to go the other direction, fork to Merlin, it should be the same. The intermediate steps were for the ARM based routers.

EDIT: The one thing on the MIPS routers, you will probably lose your jffs data going in either direction, so make sure you have a backup to restore.

BTW does the fork works ok with the android asus app?

Within the asus app for android I was messing with the Wifi eco option, it drops the wifi power to 1% but I didnt notice much change in wifi signal nor temp drop.
Thanks again
Special thanks to @john9527 I was one of the users asking for dnssec and bandwith limiter

Sorry, the android app has been tried and doesn't work (not unexpected). This is one that is way beyond the fork scope as it would require too many changes.

 

[john9527]

Hi John..great too see the beta release! Is the bandwidth limiter enabled for the N66U as well???

EDIT: Also, would it be possible to limit the b/w of any guest network?

Yes sir....enabled for the N66U as well (enabled for all the fork supported routers until someone tells me it doesn't work and I find out I can't fix it )

As far as bw limits for the guest networks, the code is there, but I haven't tested that one yet. Just enter the interface name for the guest network in the target field where you would put the mac/ip address (i.e. wl0.1 for 2.4GHz Guest 1, wl1.1 for 5GHz Guest 1, etc.). If you try it, please give feedback.

 

[john9527]

Looking for a volunteer in the EU

A comment was made in another thread ( @MarkyPancake ) about how the fork does not support the DFS channels on the N66U. After a bit of investigation, I have a test build built on top of 16E1 that should (with regulatory guidelines in place) enable the full channel set. Testing will involve first checking that the existing wireless performance is not impacted, then enabling the extended channels and testing.

If you are interested in helping out, please send me a PM.
EDIT: Got a volunteer and are doing some debug/testing.

 

[punchsuckr]

Yes sir....enabled for the N66U as well (enabled for all the fork supported routers until someone tells me it doesn't work and I find out I can't fix it )

As far as bw limits for the guest networks, the code is there, but I haven't tested that one yet. Just enter the interface name for the guest network in the target field where you would put the mac/ip address (i.e. wl0.1 for 2.4GHz Guest 1, wl1.1 for 5GHz Guest 1, etc.). If you try it, please give feedback.

Great to hear that John!! It will be a bit difficult to try out the beta since I need a 100% stable connection for my work :| Will see if I can make something work over the weekend.

 

[shooter40sw]

Hi @john9527 just installed the fork, everything working great , I need to do more testing, dnssec working great, one thing I noticed with the bandwith limiter is that it does not work like in the merlin branch, I recall not having to turn on QoS for it to work, with your fork I have to enable QoS for the bandwith limiter to work, this disables hardware acceleration, thats the only issue so far the rest looks great, the range even seems to maintain connection in places that on merlin would drop wifi, anyways I will keep testing, thanks for everything!

 

[john9527]

one thing I noticed with the bandwith limiter is that it does not work like in the merlin branch, I recall not having to turn on QoS for it to work, with your fork I have to enable QoS for the bandwith limiter to work, this disables hardware acceleration,

This was a good catch...thanks. I'm surprised that in the Merlin builds bandwidth limiter does not disable CTF. I don't know if there is a co-req CTF change, but will look into it. Thanks for the report!

 

[miniterror]

Quick question, will this fork also work on the DSL-AC68U?