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

[IsaacFL]

Ok. Thanks.

 

[Waylo]

It's been long since I checked out this thread... but read through like 40 pages to catch up with what's happening with this fork I like so much. I had initially decided to upgrade to an AC router but decided to hold off for a bit.

I had been away from home and my N66U was on 23e4, up continuously for 280 odd days (screenshot attached), that's some reliability!
However the recent vpnfilter hacks had me really wary and updating the firmware was the first thing I did upon getting back.

Realised there are now 2 separate update paths, decided to test out the E release but first updated to 32L4 and then switched to 32E4 and it has been working really well for the past half hour without a reset.

Pleasantly surprised to see the range has not suffered for the 5Ghz like it used to, probably because of the updated db regulation limits. Working excellently as always.

Thanks again @john9527 for your work and help in squeezing all useful life out of this excellent hardware of its era. I have moved all heavy stuff like the vpn server off it anyways.

When the two upgrade paths were introduced, there were a few posts (I think one from @john9527 himself) about trying it without a reset, without major issues. I might do that myself eventually!

 

[mikeone]

Hey Guys,

Is there a way or is it even possible to use Asus router as repeater for 802.1x AP-TTLS (MSCHAPv2) authentification ?
I just moved in and my FAI will install my internet access only 2 weeks from now, here I have a Smart wifi from my Fai I can connect to it via username and password from my pc but other devices such as Apple TV Xbox ect can't.

So therefore can I use my Asus router to connect to that network and then share it from to every other device ?

Thank you

 

[msilenus]

@msilenus I have a vague recollection from way back (so I could be wrong) that the setting used to store whether that VPN server was on or off was used the opposite way around in Asus vs. Merlin/John firmware. So this meant that when people migrated from Asus' firmware their previously off VPN server turned itself on. Resetting to factory defaults fixed this (and other things).

If you have the problem again try and save the complete log (remove your WAN IP address) to somewhere like pastebin so we can see the whole thing in context.

Thanks, Colin. The situation is much improved since the factory reset/JFFS reformat. It looks like the situation is healing quickly (<3 minutes) now and without me needing to poke at it. However, it does still seem to be cycling on its own occasionally. I just got another repro (I can't believe you guys never heard the word before ) and I snagged the logs which are pasted here:
https://pastebin.com/h7H0Nrfi

I captured everything from the last normal reboot (I have it bouncing automatically at 4 AM ) until the end of the log, so there are two full startup cycles with the first being expected and the second anomalous.

What jumps out at me is that a) there's a 52 minute period where we don't get logs before the reboot, and b) not having logs for 52 minutes doesn't happen normally judging from the logs above that, c) I definitely had network access during this window for which we don't have logs. I checked the temperature w/in about 10 minutes of the reboot and found it was around 65C, which I understand to be normal.

Jun 10 11:15:15 (none) user.notice ntp: NTP update successful after 1 attempt(s)
Dec 31 16:00:12 (none) syslog.info syslogd started: BusyBox v1.25.1​

 

[cowst]

Maybe worth mentioning: when I have some server acting weird, it doesn't make any sense, and logs are not growing, it is often missing space on disk.
Can it be that you have something eating resources?

 

[msilenus]

Maybe worth mentioning: when I have some server acting weird, it doesn't make any sense, and logs are not growing, it is often missing space on disk.
Can it be that you have something eating resources?

Good thought, but I don't think so. JFFS is small, but only 4% utilized b/c nothing else seems to be competing w/ syslog for the space:

admin@RT-AC66U-E0F0:/tmp/home/root# df -h
Filesystem Size Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/root 18.8M 18.8M 0 100% /
tmpfs 117.0M 4.3M 112.6M 4% /tmp
devfs 117.0M 0 117.0M 0% /dev
/dev/mtdblock5 32.0M 1.3M 30.7M 4% /jffs
/dev/sda1 1.8T 187.2G 1.6T 10% /tmp/mnt/My_Passport
​

Uptime isn't showing any stress, but this is after another reboot (as opposed to right before one.)

admin@RT-AC66U-E0F0:/tmp/home/root# uptime
13:15:52 up 27 min, load average: 0.01, 0.02, 0.00​

 

[ColinTaylor]

@msilenus Thanks for the logs. I don't see anything in the logs to suggest that there's an automatic reboot @ 04:00 . I only see the two boot sequences. The first one we can calculate started on Jun 8 @ 13:13:50 and the second we can calculate started on Jun 10 @ 11:52:56.

There is a gap in the log for Jun 10 between 11:15:15 and 11:52:56 but that's not too unusual. The writing of the log entries to JFFS is buffered in RAM and if the router is forcibly restarted (a crash or powered off/on) then the last few log entries are lost .

I don't see anything in the log that suggests there's a problem with the WAN connection or DHCP.

So the question is "What happened on Jun 10 @ 11:52:56?". It had been up with no problem for almost 2 days.

 

[msilenus]

You're right, Colin. Both reboots were probably anomalous. I do have auto reboots configured, but only for Mon/Wed/Fri. Somehow I confused myself into thinking the first reboot was one of those. To be clear, I now think there were previously two underlying issues causing what I was seeing before:

1. (Still happening) Periodic crashes.
   
2. (Fixed) Prior to the factory reset it would take long enough to heal after a crash (if it ever did) that I'd usually wind up logging in and telling it to reconnect manually. That's not happening anymore.

Re: DHCP, I'm still seeing the "ISP's DHCP did not function properly." message, but it's healing fast enough now that I don't think I care. I'm not 1000% sure that it has nothing to do with the crashes, but don't think it's such a promising lead any more, absent better supporting information.

When the crash on Jun10@11:52 happened I was making tea and noticed that my phone had lost wifi. So I knew right away after the fact, but wasn't doing much of anything user-driven with the network.

I just installed a syslog server on my desktop and pointed the router at it. Seems to be getting events. That should solve the volatile logging problem, right?

 

[ColinTaylor]

@msilenus Good move with the syslog server, that might provide some clues.

I'm not sure what you mean by, still seeing "ISP's DHCP did not function properly". You usually get one of those messages when the router boots up, just before the WAN link is established. So I'm not seeing any other occurrences in the log you posted.

Unless the syslog server reveals something I'm tempted to think it's just the hardware getting old. There have been a few reports of those routers (N66U/AC66U) suffering from "tired" power supplies, causing spontaneous reboots. Replacing the PSU has fixed some of them. What is the quality of your mains electricity supply like?

 

[SuperFly74]

Russian cyber attack on RT66U[emoji849]


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[OMNI619]

You're right, Colin. Both reboots were probably anomalous. I do have auto reboots configured, but only for Mon/Wed/Fri. Somehow I confused myself into thinking the first reboot was one of those. To be clear, I now think there were previously two underlying issues causing what I was seeing before:

1. (Still happening) Periodic crashes.
   
2. (Fixed) Prior to the factory reset it would take long enough to heal after a crash (if it ever did) that I'd usually wind up logging in and telling it to reconnect manually. That's not happening anymore.

Re: DHCP, I'm still seeing the "ISP's DHCP did not function properly." message, but it's healing fast enough now that I don't think I care. I'm not 1000% sure that it has nothing to do with the crashes, but don't think it's such a promising lead any more, absent better supporting information.

When the crash on Jun10@11:52 happened I was making tea and noticed that my phone had lost wifi. So I knew right away after the fact, but wasn't doing much of anything user-driven with the network.

I just installed a syslog server on my desktop and pointed the router at it. Seems to be getting events. That should solve the volatile logging problem, right?

Replace the AC adapter that's will resolve your problems I had same issues rebooting every 48 hour or 72 sometimes often once I replaced power supply problem fixed

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G920AZ using Tapatalk

 

[punchsuckr]

When the two upgrade paths were introduced, there were a few posts (I think one from @john9527 himself) about trying it without a reset, without major issues. I might do that myself eventually!

Yep i guess i saw his messge as well. It's working just fine without it.
Enabling https though does result in some httpd process not responding errors which I've disabled again.

 

[gwopman]

Hi everyone. I replaced my rt-n16 power caps and have it on a 2a power supply but i still have some wifi dropouts and hangs. It will work fine for a few hours then something will stop loading, however it's only a problem over wifi, not ever over wired LAN. Is it more likely the old hardware of the rt-n16 or is there something i can look to fix for the n16 specifically? I live in a wifi congested area I may have to finally give in and get an ac66u b1 but would like to make sure it is or isn't a hardware thing first. I am running Update-32E4. Thanks!

 

[steelskinz]

I there, could be a strange question but i run an RTn16 which is working fine except when i enable WAN on USB and use my android phone in tethering mode. It reboots my device each time after few seconds. Do you have any idea ? Thanks.

 

[mannp]

I am curently on the Merlin 380.70 final release for my N66U and am wondering if I have a little time before I transfer accross to this firmware.

The question is for now, would you say this fork is ahead, on par of behind updates and patches from the 380.70?

If its on par I can hold off doing the transfer until I have a little more time and can manage the down time.

Thanks in advance

 

[kfp]

I am curently on the Merlin 380.70 final release for my N66U and am wondering if I have a little time before I transfer accross to this firmware.

The question is for now, would you say this fork is ahead, on par of behind updates and patches from the 380.70?

If its on par I can hold off doing the transfer until I have a little more time and can manage the down time.

Thanks in advance

Roughly the same, didn’t do a very exhaustive comparison but both patched the same bugs for their last releases.

 

[jrmwvu04]

The question is for now, would you say this fork is ahead, on par of behind updates and patches from the 380.70?

If its on par I can hold off doing the transfer until I have a little more time and can manage the down time.

They’re comparable at the present time. No worries about staying on 380.70. As time passes, that probably won’t be the case.

 

[mannp]

@kfp & @jrmwvu04 thanks both, that is what I was hoping.

 

[agilani]

I'm thinking about downgrading my two repeaters to johns fork. Any advice to downgrade two ac68 routers running 384.5? I assume that johns fork supports repeater mode?

 

[kfp]

I'm thinking about downgrading my two repeaters to johns fork. Any advice to downgrade two ac68 routers running 384.5? I assume that johns fork supports repeater mode?

There is repeater mode. Can’t guarantee your downgrade flash will go without hiccups but I don’t really see a problem, just make sure to clear NVRAM after.