Help: Using AC56U with Sky Hub so that attached HDDs are still visible

[DanSmalley]

With my Sky Broadband connection, I used to have a modem that made the internet connection and a Sky Hub that acted as a router. I replaced the Sky Hub with the AC56U and have been using it to serve external drives to my Shield for Plex. Now that I have Sky Q, the new Sky Hub replaces the router and modem as one unit which can't be replaced by my AC56U.

I want to have my AC56U connected to the Sky Hub in such a way that if my Shield connects to it wirelessly or my PC connects to it via cable, those devices can get access to the internet and the shared drives.

Changing the AC56U mode to an AP allows it to serve the internet to those devices but switches off the ability to share the drives. Leaving it in router mode allows the drives to be seen but not serve the internet connection.

Any advice?

Forgot to add I'm using Merlin 374.43_2 firmware. Thanks.

 

[ColinTaylor]

Leaving it in router mode allows the drives to be seen but not serve the internet connection.

There's no reason why this shouldn't work. It's quite a common configuration (one router behind another router).

Check the cable between the Sky box and the Asus' WAN port. Log into the Asus' web interface and check the Internet status on the Network Map page.

As your firmware is over 4 years old it's probably worth installing the final Merlin release or the current Asus release. In which case you might as well follow that with a factory default reset and manual configuration. That will probably fix the problem.

 

[roguetr]

Or leave it in router mode, disable dhcp and just use the LAN ports. The WAN port becomes useless but you get the same functionality as AP mode with the router mode features.

I'm assuming the HDDs are available via DLNA or samba. The above shouldn't stop that.

Sent from my MI 5 using Tapatalk

 

[DanSmalley]

There's no reason why this shouldn't work. It's quite a common configuration (one router behind another router).

Check the cable between the Sky box and the Asus' WAN port. Log into the Asus' web interface and check the Internet status on the Network Map page.

As your firmware is over 4 years old it's probably worth installing the final Merlin release or the current Asus release. In which case you might as well follow that with a factory default reset and manual configuration. That will probably fix the problem.

When I left it last night, I think I might have switched it back to AP mode. Either way, it's sharing the internet but not the drives right now. However, I can't get into the ASUS settings. If it does load a page, it's telling me this: "Settings have been updated. Web page will now refresh.
Changes have been made to the IP address or port number. You will now be disconnected from RT-AC56U.
To access the settings of RT-AC56U, reconnect to the wireless network and use the updated IP address and port number." What updated IP number? I have no idea. Tried logging in via my phone on the wireless connection but that same IP gives no result and I don't know what else it would be.

 

[DanSmalley]

Or leave it in router mode, disable dhcp and just use the LAN ports. The WAN port becomes useless but you get the same functionality as AP mode with the router mode features.

I'm assuming the HDDs are available via DLNA or samba. The above shouldn't stop that.

Sent from my MI 5 using Tapatalk

This is what I was advised to do elsewhere but as I said above, in this mode, I get no internet.

 

[ColinTaylor]

If you've switched the Asus into AP mode then you can use the Asus Device Discovery utility to find out the new IP address. Or just press the Reset button on the back to force it to go back to its factory default settings (router mode).

 

[DanSmalley]

If you've switched the Asus into AP mode then you can use the Asus Device Discovery utility to find out the new IP address. Or just press the Reset button on the back to force it to go back to its factory default settings (router mode).

The download page for the AC56U is blank and the mobile app isn't finding the router. AI Cloud can't find it either, although it does find the network server. Maybe because it's in AP mode it can't find a router anyway.

It looks like I'll have to reset it but I don't really want to as it will probably mean rebuilding my Plex library.

 

[ColinTaylor]

The download page for the AC56U is blank

It does that to me when using Chrome. If I use Internet Explorer I can see the downloads. Anyway, this is the utility: https://dlcdnets.asus.com/pub/ASUS/wireless/RT-AC56U/Discovery_v1480.zip

 

[roguetr]

This is what I was advised to do elsewhere but as I said above, in this mode, I get no internet.

Hmm ... Could only imagine that the DHCP server is still enabled and issuing incorrect settings ...

Or, prior to doing this you will have to ensure that the WAN interface has no IP assigned and the LAN interface does not have a conflicting IP with the upstream router.

Sent from my MI 5 using Tapatalk

 

[ColinTaylor]

Changing the AC56U mode to an AP allows it to serve the internet to those devices but switches off the ability to share the drives.

Taking a step back and thinking about this again, I'm pretty sure that Samba file sharing still works in AP mode. Of course the IP address will change so you'll probably need to reconfigure your clients to pick up the new address. You might want to double-check that.

 

[roguetr]

Taking a step back and thinking about this again, I'm pretty sure that Samba file sharing still works in AP mode. Of course the IP address will change so you'll probably need to reconfigure your clients to pick up the new address. You might want to double-check that.

But you may still want to bridge your Hub and use the Asus in router mode if you think the Asus is a better device.

Agree completely with Colin, if you can get your head around it, bridging and using the router as intended would be ideal.

I've never tested these features extensively and especially never tested in AP mode but from what I know, Colin should be correct. If you can get the IP and access the interface, unless it says those features are disabled then they should be accessible.

AP mode should just be adding the WAN port to the switch vlan and disabling the dhcp server, firewall etc. and not removing features. I wish I had a spare to test, I'd definitely be interested to know if this isn't the case.

Sent from my MI 5 using Tapatalk

 

[DanSmalley]

>I've never tested these features extensively and especially never tested in AP mode but from what I know, Colin should be correct. If you can get the IP and access the interface, unless it says those features are disabled then they should be accessible.

They do say they're inaccesible.

Anyway, I've got it working now, thanks all. The Sky Hub was on the 192.168.0.x domain whereas the router was on the 192.168.1.x domain. By changing its IP in isolation to something in the 192.168.0.x domain, I was then able to connect to the internet through the router while also having external drives enabled. I had to reset the router along the way but that at least meant I had a reason to update to the latest merlin firmware.

So, all is good now, thanks.