RP-68U (AP mode) - edited title

[HuskyHerder]

I was hoping someone here maybe able to help me with an issue between the RT-AC5300 and my RP-AC68u.

What is happening is I am using 2 - 68U as extenders (wired backhaul) and when I reboot the 5300. The 68U always starts handing out its address as a dns to my clients.

The 5300 is using 10.x.x.1 and upon reboot, or things like flashing a new Merlin fw, the clients pickup the dns of the repeater of 10.x.x.4, or 10.x.x.5 (.2, and .3 are reserved for things like pixelserv etc.) Sometimes the clients will get the .4 address of extender a and sometimes the .5 address of extender b, with no rhyme or rhythm.

This snafu causes issues for getting my clients back online. Usually necessitating a manual release, sometimes it takes 3 or 4 times to accomplish this.

For me its not a huge issue, but it poses real havoc on the IOT devices and for the wife and kids as I travel for work. If I didn't live in a 55+ year old house with plaster walls, ceiling both with wire mesh backing, I likely wouldn't need the extra extenders. I have 1300Mbps (reported by Mac) in my living room, and directly behind the wall (the one the router is placed nearest), the speed drops to 175 Mbps.

Thats one wall away and literally 4 ' or less, add in an additional wall between the bedrooms and speeds are simply unusable without the extenders. Yes, I almost live is a Faraday Cage. Well seems that way.

I was wondering if anyone had any suggestions or if there is a way to ssh into the repeaters and code a hard set DNS of the 5300. Using merlin on the 5300 I am a little familiar, but likely could not discern the commands myself. I am trying to limp by a few months till finances are better and go with another 2 routers and not repeaters.

However if I can get this to work, then no need to waste money.

TIA for any suggestions. I hope I have made sense, it makes sense to me, but I am not the best at conveying a narrative.

 

[kfp]

Do both repeaters and 5300 all use the same SSID?

 

[HuskyHerder]

Yup, same SSID, passphrase etc, though my issue also involves wired connections on the network too. Its like the unit goes into fail safe mode and when it loses touch with the main, it freaks out and starts issuing its IP for the dns.

I bit the bullet, this evening and ordered a router, an RT-AC68U, to setup as a true AP. I would still love to get them working if possible. However if not, oh well. I have 2 days before shipment arrives. So as good a time as any to pull a rabbit out of the hat and save some money.

The new router can go in a storage area, next to the 2 problematic bedrooms, and I can achieve rather very reasonable speeds with it in that location. I tried the 5300 there today and was pleasantly surprised, but as stated before speeds drop dramatically 2 walls away. So my only option is to use 2 or possibly a 3rd unit. I am shooting for the 5300 and a single rt-68u

The 5300 will continue to service the remaining portion of the house. I may have to relocate it to the other side of the room to prevent the AP from being to close, but that's not an issue, Cat6 is already in place there.

 

[kfp]

Reason I ask is that if all of them have the same SSID, then the repeaters were likely repeating eachother when the main router is down?

So when a client connects to the .4 repeater, it will give the client .5 as (upstream) DNS.

 

[HuskyHerder]

Ah my Bad @kfp I said extender in my original post and FAILED to differentiate that and AP. They are used as AP's and in AP mode.

I found an article where another user had some of the same issues I seem to be experiencing. https://www.gcameron.org/wp/2017/10/10/asus-rp-ac68u-what-a-piece-of-crap/

 

[kfp]

It’s all good, I don’t know much about the repeaters so I assumed they operate exclusively in repeater mode, good to know that you can use them in AP mode as well.

To be honest, this sounds like a software bug more than anything :/

 

[ColinTaylor]

I found an article where another user had some of the same issues I seem to be experiencing. https://www.gcameron.org/wp/2017/10/10/asus-rp-ac68u-what-a-piece-of-crap/

I think that says it all. I couldn't work out why in your original post you said you were picking up the DNS servers of your access points. Access points shouldn't be running DNS servers!

 

[HuskyHerder]

@kfp @ColinTaylor

I wanted to again thank you both, for your time.

My 2, RT-AC68U arrived today. I figured, I would try AIMesh. So I downgraded from Merlin (previously on a beta anyway, & needed a clean slate with the latest release today) one is in Node mode and the other is in a manual configured AP mode (non AIMesh). No real difference noticed in the 2 modes, at least not yet. (Short uptime's)

The RT-AC68U has made a huge difference in the far end of the home. Even behind those wire mesh plaster walls the Mac is still reporting ~600 Mbs min in bedroom 2 and in bedroom 1, >1100 Mbps

I am pretty stuck on Merlin, so it will likely be a short time, till I head back. Thus loosing AIMesh, but oh well...

I am way more pleased after the upgrade. The finances, eh not so much.

I managed to even get ~100-175 Mbps in my detached Garage about 25 ' from the house. Respectable as the RT-AC68U, is about 50' away behind one of those PIA walls.

Thanks again,

If the mods close topics here this one can be closed !

 

[HuskyHerder]

Well one more update from me, and I will leave this topic be.

Tonight, I had a few quiet moments so, I reset one of the RP's 4 times and then configured it in media bridge mode (client) and again reset it.
Then, I configured it in AP mode. Previously I had set the unit to a manual address in the GUI, this go round I assigned it a DHCP reservation on the 5300 only.

I don't know if it was cob webs in the mix or what, but the RP is behaving exactly as it should and its not attempting to hand out any information on its own. It's passing along my 5300 DNS just as I would have expected. Even if the unit goes down (cable removed), and the comes back online (cable replaced) it will hand out the 5300 DNS.

I know, I am likely to jinx myself and a week later the whole thing goes kaboom, but right now, I am able to use it as an AP in my detached garage. Roaming assistant is working well, and I have a tinker toy to compare AiMesh (RT-AC5300 & RT-68U's) and as a AP (RP-68U's).

In the garage, it is pushing about 800/880 Mbs. Now to try the other one and see if I can replicate the great outcome.

HH


EDIT / UPDATE

In case anyone else happens upon this topic, @KevTech posted a hidden config link which does open a config page for the RP 68u, and it allows you to disable the DHCP. Some reports say it may not work. (See topic) https://www.snbforums.com/threads/r...esponding-to-dhcp-requests.48259/#post-422708

I have toggled settings in the GUI on mine, which incidentally indicated DHCP was still on. I had no indication in my limited testing in the above post.

Maybe this will help someone else.

I’ll edit this, if it works on the other RP-68U I have.