Latest FW for the Asus-RT-N66U

[Minglarn]

Been a while since I actually read the forum, so I'm a bit confused about the latest FW from Merlin.

I'm currently on 3.0.0.4.270.26 and works OK. But there is always room for improvements. =)
As I can see there are 2 different FW for the 66U available. One with the SDK5 drivers and one with SDK6 drivers.

Before I upgrade do I need to do something with the router as I have a lot of static IPs and other settings set.
And regarding the SDK5 and SDK6 differences in range, how bad is it?

Best Regards....

 

[brummygit]

Hello

There are quite a lot of changes from the version you are on now to the latest versions. In addition Merlin is working on 3.0.0.4.374.38 at the moment which has newer SDK6 wireless drivers for the RT-N66U. It might be better to wait a few days.

The difference between SDK5 and SDK6 was quite noticeable in my case - range was significantly reduced on SDK6.

To move to the new release (SDK6) you will need to reset to factory defaults and manually configure in order to get correct performance. I found some information in the forums on how to save the DHCP reservations easily if you have a hard drive or USB stick mounted.

To save your static address entries a command such as this will work

nvram get dhcp_staticlist > /mnt/sda1/dhcpstatic.txt

To restore them use

nvram set dhcp_staticlist=$(cat /mnt/sda1/dhcpstatic.txt)

 

[Minglarn]

Thanks for the info regarding the static IP save. Will wait for Merlins FW release, but if I upgrade to SDK5 version there is no need to reset the router to defaults before upgrading?

Again, big thanks!

 

[brummygit]

I don't think so, but it would need better minds than mine to confirm

 

[RMerlin]

Thanks for the info regarding the static IP save. Will wait for Merlins FW release, but if I upgrade to SDK5 version there is no need to reset the router to defaults before upgrading?

Again, big thanks!

It's a big version jump, so it's not guaranteed to work properly without a factory default reset. You can always try, but be ready to do one if you encounter any odd issues.

 

[elorimer]

66U, running beta1. I have a 4TB Seagate Backup Plus attached to it, and everything is working well. I have about 20 devices with reserved static IPs, in part because the naming in this firmware is useful.

I'm very much a noob with this, and I've had some issues with the saving and restoring of the static list. Specifically, I don't seem to have sda1 mounted. Instead I have the full disk name mounted. So, I get an error with /mnt/sda1, but I can save the list to:

/mnt/Seagate_Backup_Plus_Drive/dhcpstatic.txt

When I open that file in Notepad, all the reservations are listed.

I reset to factory defaults and restore the list, but only get the first reserved IP back. I did the save and restore both through ssh, not the Tools/run command.

Clearly I'm doing (at least) two things wrong.

Awesome work. You can tell Asus I bought the 66U expressly because I'd liked this on a 16U.

 

[brummygit]

It should all be one long string in the file. Here's some of mine (note the < and > positions)

<DC:C3:21:B2:98:88>192.168.1.10>YouView<58:55:CA:28:07:9D>192.168.1.11>AppleTV<00:90:3E:79:9D:09>192.168.1.12>BT-Vision<00:0E:59:18:9B:F0>192.168.1.20>SureSignal

 

[elorimer]

Yes, thanks. That's how it looks. But I just get the first IP in the reserved list.

 

[RMerlin]

Try using quotes:

nvram set dhcp_staticlist="$(cat /mnt/sda1/dhcpstatic.txt)"

Or even better, put the quotes inside the text file itself, as otherwise I'm not sure the cat command will be properly processed.

 

[elorimer]

Using quotes in the command worked perfectly. Thanks!

Using quotes in the text file itself, only the first IP was read in.

 

[slow]

Hi, is there any way to save my port forwarding rules?

 

[RMerlin]

Hi, is there any way to save my port forwarding rules?

Yes, they are stored in vts_rulelist.

BTW, you can keep a copy of your whole settings in a text file format, using:

nvram show | sort > /tmp/your_disk/nvram.txt

This will sort all variables alphabetically, and save them to that text file. After that you can open that text file on your computer, and manually set any individual setting from it:

nvram set setting_name="value"

 

[jsmiddleton4]

nvram get dhcp_staticlist > /mnt/sda1/dhcpstatic.txt

I have the .txt file but its empty. What am I missing?

 

[jsmiddleton4]

nvram get dhcp_staticlist > /mnt/sda1/dhcpstatic.txt

I have the .txt file but its empty. What am I missing?

The box just below for the command entry field list the static IP list. Just nothing in the .txt file.

File is empty, 0 bytes....

 

[lilstone87]

nvm wrong thread my bad....

 

[sto]

nvram get dhcp_staticlist > /mnt/sda1/dhcpstatic.txt

I have the .txt file but its empty. What am I missing?

I had the same problem when I did it using Run Cmd. It worked when I did it by ssh instead. YMMV.

 

[elorimer]

Same here. It worked in SSH not Run/Cmd

 

[jsmiddleton4]

Thanks but need a little help with ssh.

Steps?

Edit: Figured it out. What about restore? Does that work via Run/CMD?

If the run/cmd thing isn't reliable it would be nice to know it....