Request: move custom_clientlist, dhcp_staticlist, and dhcp_hostnames from NVRAM to jffs

[David Cavalli]

Ran for 5 days and then wifi went out again. One final NVRAM entry I see in my case that needs help. qos_rulelist seems to be large (1716) and filled with my original configuration to prioritize individual machines, along with a likely header of "=<Web Surf>>80>tcp>0~512>0<HTTPS>>443>tcp>0~512>0<File Transfer>>80>tcp>512~>3<File Transfer>>443>tcp>512~>3". Since I've never seen anyone post how this gets to the jffs partition, I'm assuming it's required to stay in NVRAM. If so, is there an NVRAM command I can submit that wipes out my junk and leaves only the "necessary" (if any) part? Don't want to do a factory reset just for this.

Also, if/when I do choose to do a factory reset, I have one question on how to achieve a customization in the easiest possible way. I use an icon file for each machine to easily help me identify which entity is which. I'd like to carry that forward. From what I remember, I manually had to add/remove each machine in the GUI to get the picture file in there. It seems to be in the jffs partition which minimizes impact on the router, so I would love it to be there after factory reset. Is there a way to get this done without having to do it in the GUI?

Finally, here's a list of the NVRAM parameters. From my research, I think everything here is normal enough except the qos_rulelist. Am I wrong?

size: 61399 bytes (4137 left)
1716 qos_rulelist
931 nc_setting_conf
573 rc_support
411 sshd_authkeys
164 subnet_rulelist
153 acc_list
131 wl1_chansps
112 vlan_rulelist
95 asus_device_list
92 1a5ga2
92 1a5ga1
92 1a5ga0
72 bwdpi_app_rulelist
71 vpn_server2_ncp_ciphers
71 vpn_server1_ncp_ciphers
71 vpn_client5_ncp_ciphers
71 vpn_client4_ncp_ciphers
71 vpn_client3_ncp_ciphers
71 vpn_client2_ncp_ciphers
71 vpn_client1_ncp_ciphers

 

[ColinTaylor]

nvram set qos_rulelist="<Web Surf>>80>tcp>0~512>0<HTTPS>>443>tcp>0~512>0<File Transfer>>80>tcp>512~>3<File Transfer>>443>tcp>512~>3"
nvram commit

 

[David Cavalli]

Writing so others who have an RT-AC68U can comment. Have to admit defeat. The NVRAM was staying consistent but the wifi regularly cut out a couple of times a week, forcing a reboot and unhappy family. Thanks Colin for all the help. Each step did seem to make things better. I just think that the 386.9 firmware breaks the RT-AC68U. Downgraded to 386.7_2 on the hope that wifi stability returns. Don't have the NVRAM nag anymore, just the "!" saying new f/w available. Hopefully others don't have the AC68U issues I do. Eyeing the RT-AX86U at Walmart for $250 if/when I have to make the leap. Not sure the wife will appreciate the choice/budget, so let's hope for wifi stability!

 

[drinkingbird]

Writing so others who have an RT-AC68U can comment. Have to admit defeat. The NVRAM was staying consistent but the wifi regularly cut out a couple of times a week, forcing a reboot and unhappy family. Thanks Colin for all the help. Each step did seem to make things better. I just think that the 386.9 firmware breaks the RT-AC68U. Downgraded to 386.7_2 on the hope that wifi stability returns. Don't have the NVRAM nag anymore, just the "!" saying new f/w available. Hopefully others don't have the AC68U issues I do. Eyeing the RT-AX86U at Walmart for $250 if/when I have to make the leap. Not sure the wife will appreciate the choice/budget, so let's hope for wifi stability!

Did you factory reset and manually reconfigure after upgrading? Many have posted that is required after upgrading the 68U to 386.9 in order to eliminate the NVRAM issue.

 

[David Cavalli]

Did you factory reset and manually reconfigure after upgrading? Many have posted that is required after upgrading the 68U to 386.9 in order to eliminate the NVRAM issue.

No I didn't. I downgraded but can try that again when the wife is at swim class tomorrow... Anything else "special" other than factory reset to reinitialize the router? Here's the plan, if "no":
1) upgrade to 386.9 again
2) press and hold the reset button on the router until the power light on the router begins to flash, and then release the button
3) manually reconfigure the settings
4) restore the various JFFS files relevant after reconfig (dnsmasq.add, hosts.add, profile.add, smb.postconf, usericon\*.log)
5) amtm and other misc
Am I missing anything, or is this plan a go?

 

[drinkingbird]

No I didn't. I downgraded but can try that again when the wife is at swim class tomorrow... Anything else "special" other than factory reset to reinitialize the router? Here's the plan, if "no":
1) upgrade to 386.9 again
2) press and hold the reset button on the router until the power light on the router begins to flash, and then release the button
3) manually reconfigure the settings
4) restore the various JFFS files relevant after reconfig (dnsmasq.add, hosts.add, profile.add, smb.postconf, usericon\*.log)
5) amtm and other misc
Am I missing anything, or is this plan a go?

This is what I do:
1. Hold WPS button while powering on to do factory reset.
2. Configure just enough to get in, upgrade firmware
3. WPS reset again
4. Minimal config, wait until the CPUs settle down
5. Select "format JFFS at next reboot" apply, reboot again
6. Wait for CPUs to settle again (usually pretty quick this time)
7. Reconfigure by hand and copy your JFFS stuff back, reinstall amtm and whatever else.

These older routers are going to be NVRAM limited with the newer firmware it appears, but that seems to clear up enough to get rid of the errors. Especially if you've moved stuff onto JFFS like it appears you have.

There was another thread recently where someone manually wiped out NVRAM completely and let it rebuild and said it got the size down a bit too. Not sure if there is any potential "gotchas" with doing that though.

 

[L&LD]

I wouldn't even reuse the JFFS backups. A clean install means exactly that; clean, 100%.

Otherwise, whatever you're testing isn't from a good/known state.

 

[drinkingbird]

I wouldn't even reuse the JFFS backups. A clean install means exactly that; clean, 100%.

Otherwise, whatever you're testing isn't from a good/known state.

I meant scripts and the like that are user created. System created stuff no, no reason to copy that back.

 

[David Cavalli]

I meant scripts and the like that are user created. System created stuff no, no reason to copy that back.

Yeah, I even documented the individual files from JFFS that are relevant in my post. Wife going for a morning massage and finally given permission to do or die. Wish me luck!

 

[David Cavalli]

Through upgrade to 386.9 successfully. Logged in and all looked great! "WPS reset again." OK. Came back on. Asked for password. Asked "Change the router login password." Changed login and password. Asked to login. New login didn't work. Only admin/admin worked. Change router login again Deadly loop with no access but phone. Help!

 

[David Cavalli]

Well, worked through that problem. Can't seem to access the router via http://router.asus.com/ and my 'hosts' entry of http://dacasus/ did not have access, but going explicitly to http://192.168.1.1/ seemed to do the trick. Finished configuration and all seems stable and wife/son back online not knowing any differences (yet?). The nvram show command now has (latest: 386.9_0) size: 59175 bytes (6361 left) which is about 2k more left than before, without the "!" NVRAM warning signal, so all looks great! Thanks again for all the help. Everything seems normal for me too, except I can't get the SSH PuTTY connection back online. That's in my realm of competance, so just have to remove all old versions of my Asus and install correct SSH things to get that working.

Thanks again for all the help! The need to buy a 6E has been deferred to everyone's budget happiness!

 

[drinkingbird]

Well, worked through that problem. Can't seem to access the router via http://router.asus.com/ and my 'hosts' entry of http://dacasus/ did not have access, but going explicitly to http://192.168.1.1/ seemed to do the trick. Finished configuration and all seems stable and wife/son back online not knowing any differences (yet?). The nvram show command now has (latest: 386.9_0) size: 59175 bytes (6361 left) which is about 2k more left than before, without the "!" NVRAM warning signal, so all looks great! Thanks again for all the help. Everything seems normal for me too, except I can't get the SSH PuTTY connection back online. That's in my realm of competance, so just have to remove all old versions of my Asus and install correct SSH things to get that working.

Thanks again for all the help! The need to buy a 6E has been deferred to everyone's budget happiness!

May have been a stale cookie or even as simple as a fresh browser window would have helped. There have been firmwares in the past that required clearing cookies.

 

[David Cavalli]

May have been a stale cookie or even as simple as a fresh browser window would have helped. There have been firmwares in the past that required clearing cookies.

Could be. Grateful it worked. No idea why http://router.asus.com/ doesn't work, but don't care. Everything else working great.

 

[drinkingbird]

Could be. Grateful it worked. No idea why http://router.asus.com/ doesn't work, but don't care. Everything else working great.

If your hosts file entry isn't working either definitely seems to imply something on your PC. I guess the asus could be looking at the HTTP header but not sure why it would block anything, maybe some new security measure.

My home router has been 10.0.0.1 for decades so I've never tried anything else.

 

[David Cavalli]

7. Reconfigure by hand and copy your JFFS stuff back, reinstall amtm and whatever else.

Installed 386.10 with a hard factory reset and followed your instructions. Everything is (almost) great. Put all jffs addons/configs/scripts manually back editing them each with vi. Fully functional and as it was before (almost). I wanted the /jffs/usericon logos back. I created them first in AiMesh/ClientList to change them. Unfortunately, this also added NVRAM info back in. Another hard factory reset / reconfigure, I'm back to where I was functionally perfect.

Two things:
1) Is there a way I can take my files backed up from jffs and copy/ftp them into the configs/scripts/usericon directories? Not only can I recycle my backup files without having to recreate each, but also get the usericon files I backed up in place.
2) The usericon directory seems to be of the naming convention "<mac id>.log". Is there a way to get jpg/png files converted/copied to this directory without using the GUI? What format is that .log file? Can old macid.log files just be copied in the new config? If so, how? If not, any non NVRAM ideas?

Thanks as always!

 

[igo]

Whew! All's well that ends well. Knowing the difference between the host name (internal to dnsmasq.conf.add, no NVRAM space) and the client name (GUI, lots of NVRAM in custom_clientlist) made all the difference. I used smart reference names in dnsmasq.conf.add that show up in the GUI with no effect on NVRAM and cleared out custom_clientlist to have 4136 left from 61400 bytes, completely useable and stable. Here are commands and reference points I stored for my own "Your router is running low on free NVRAM" documentation, in case it helps someone else, as of version 386.9_0, grouped in one place in case others didn't see all these links. Hope that helps! Thanks for all responses.

- Removal of old certificate leftovers in NVRAM
* https://www.snbforums.com/threads/asus-rt-ac68u-386-2_6-low-on-free-nvram.73158/#post-695283

- Check custom client list in NVRAM, should be in JFFS/dnsmasq.conf.add
# nvram show | grep custom_clientlist

- Clear custom client list in NVRAM
* https://www.snbforums.com/threads/r...-and-dhcp_hostnames-from-nvram-to-jffs.63886/
# nvram set custom_clientlist=""
# nvram commit

- Show variables using most space in NVRAM
* https://www.snbforums.com/threads/asus-rt-ac68u-386-2_6-low-on-free-nvram.73158/#post-695283
# nvram show | awk '{print length(), $0 | "sort -n -r"}' | cut -d"=" -f 1 | head -n 20

- Show emtpy NVRAM variables
# for line in `nvram show | grep ^[^=]*=$ `; do var=${line%*=}; echo $var; done

- Remove emtpy NVRAM variables
* https://www.snbforums.com/threads/solved-high-nvram-usage.56848/#post-494736
# for line in `nvram show | grep ^[^=]*=$ `; do var=${line%*=}; nvram unset $var; done; nvram commit
<for stability, immediately reboot to restore "necessary" NVRAM variables, even if empty>

great overview! worked for me (for now) ! Thanks for ur time and effort!

 

[David Cavalli]

Installed 386.10 with a hard factory reset and followed your instructions. Everything is (almost) great. Put all jffs addons/configs/scripts manually back editing them each with vi. Fully functional and as it was before (almost). I wanted the /jffs/usericon logos back. I created them first in AiMesh/ClientList to change them. Unfortunately, this also added NVRAM info back in. Another hard factory reset / reconfigure, I'm back to where I was functionally perfect.

Two things:
1) Is there a way I can take my files backed up from jffs and copy/ftp them into the configs/scripts/usericon directories? Not only can I recycle my backup files without having to recreate each, but also get the usericon files I backed up in place.
2) The usericon directory seems to be of the naming convention "<mac id>.log". Is there a way to get jpg/png files converted/copied to this directory without using the GUI? What format is that .log file? Can old macid.log files just be copied in the new config? If so, how? If not, any non NVRAM ideas?

Thanks as always!

Took me a while to figure out how to do this, so figured I'd answer my own question, in case anyone else has the same issue. Hope this helps!


=====Custom logo icon for each router device

***** /jffs/usericon/ icon specifications
- named <mac-id>.log
- resize 85x85 resolution
https://www.befunky.com/features/resize-image/
- inline image {jpeg,png}, encoded in base64, Image optimization disabled
https://www.base64-image.de/
- (header is "data:image/jpeg;base64," or "data:image/png;base64,")

***** /jffs/usericon/usericon_md5.json specifications
- Uses MD5 file checksum
Linux - md5sum
Web - https://emn178.github.io/online-tools/md5_checksum.html
- file starts/ends with {}
- file contains enquoted colon-separated pairs "<mac-id>":"<md5sum>", comma-separated pair entries

***** How to get .log files on to Asus /jffs/ partition:
1) extract usericon directory from jffs tar backup to public webpage
2) create script program to generate curl statements for Asus machine
3) edit/execute Asus curl script program in /jffs/usericon
4) edit usericon_md5.json and copy from backup

***** Public generation script:
CURLPROG="/usr/sbin/curl"
ICONFILE="icons.sh"
for i in * ;
do
echo $CURLPROG -Os https://www.mypublicwebpage.com/~cavalli/usericon/$i >> $ICONFILE
done

***** Hard links to icon files: (max number of icon files, so if multiple of same icon, create one, then hard link copies to main original icon file)

Hard links and soft links in Linux explained

Let's discuss when you should use hard links or soft links, and the syntax of the ln command.

www.redhat.com

The syntax is:
ln (original file path) (new file path)

JFFS Usericon icon limit?

I have just discovered that my RT-AX92U will not permit me to add more than 99 icons to its list. Is there a way top increase the limit, or a way around it? I have 50 or so Kasa light switches that all use the same custom icon. Be great if they could share one icon instead of requiring g 50...

www.snbforums.com

To create a hard link of file 112233AABBCC.log and name it 334455DDEEFF.log, you run
ln 112233AABBCC.log 334455DDEEFF.log

 

[Eric Lieb]

Isn't this literally a function of yazdhcp?