Just thought I'd drop by and share good news re latest RT-AC66U-B1 model, hardware revision B2: the 384.8 branch of Merlin works fine, as does the 380 branch. This was purchased from Amazon in early December 2018.
I'm using this router with a vintage ZyXEL P660R-D1 in PPPoE VC-mux bridge mode with the Asus handling the PPPoE authentication to the ISP. I have my router set up on 192.168.2.0/24 range and the modem's left on 192.168.1.1 - the ZyXEL's only got one ethernet port but still has inbuilt DHCP and NAT capabilities like a larger router; it was designed primarily to be connected to a single computer but people began to use them quite creatively. It's still a very stable, compact and configurable ADSL2+ modem if you're still stuck with no VDSL/cable/fibre.
Sidenote: the P660R-D1 can also do a more unusual 'half bridge' mode, where it performs PPPoA authentication but passes the WAN IP to the connected device (computer, router etc) via DHCP. This is great if you have a Tomato/DD-WRT router which can accept a DHCP IP in a different range from its 'own' range. However, a Netgear running OEM firmware was incapable of receiving the WAN IP assigned by the ISP, while my old Linksys WRT54GL running Tomato worked OK. I suspect the Asus running Merlin will also be able to handle the P660R's half-bridge WAN ISP IP getting assigned to the router's WAN interface via DHCP but I've not yet tested this.
I can still connect to the P660R modem via its web GUI on its own IP (in the 192.16.1.o/24 range) by following
@john9527's steps to
add a second IP to the router's WAN interface which persists through reboots. Fancier iptables work could NAT it through an IP in the same range but I see no reason not to keep the subnets separate given all WAN traffic routes over the PPP tunnel anyway.
I did as others have done and flashed the RT-AC68U firmware, worked fine. I accidentally (!) installed 380 first, before flashing to 384.8.
Merlin identifies the firmware as RT-AC66U_B1 on the web UI; I've since set it up to be an
NTP client for my LAN and also added the
FreshJR Adaptive QoS script to replace the default QoS rules. I'm monitoring its performance; aside from a suspected reduction of its ethernet ports to 100mbit/sec from 1gbit/sec (due to QoS being done in CPU) the router's performing stably so far, all features working great since I installed a few days ago.
If you use a downstream gigabit switch to connect the important devices on your LAN (e.g., NAS and desktop) any potential switch speed reduction caused by having QoS enabled is basically irrelevant. Admittedly I've not tested actual throughput on the switch as the only thing connected is my gig switch and all my kit hangs off that. Concensus online seems to be that unless you're running a fast fibre/cable internet connection (>120mbit/sec) the QoS CPU limitation on the WAN side won't concern you.
The box label identifies this as
Model: RT-AC66U-B1
H/W Ver: B2
F/W Ver: 3.0.0.4.384
90IG0300-BU2000, Made in China, MFG Year 2018.
Its MAC is in the D0-17-C2 range and its serial number is in the JAIUHC00 range. One USB3 on the front, two USB2 on the back.
Code:
cat /proc/cpuinfo
Processor : ARMv7 Processor rev 0 (v7l)
processor : 0
BogoMIPS : 1998.84
processor : 1
BogoMIPS : 1998.84
Features : swp half thumb fastmult edsp
CPU implementer : 0x41
CPU architecture: 7
CPU variant : 0x3
CPU part : 0xc09
CPU revision : 0
Hardware : Northstar Prototype
Revision : 0000
Serial : 0000000000000000
According to web GUI,
Temps:
2.4 GHz: 46°C -
5 GHz: 51°C -
CPU: 60°C
CPU Model ARMv7 Processor rev 0 (v7l) - Rev. c0 (Cores: 2)
CPU Frequency 1000 MHz
From System Log > General:
eth0: Broadcom BCM47XX 10/100/1000 Mbps Ethernet Controller 6.37.14.126 (r561982)
eth1: Broadcom BCM4360 802.11 Wireless Controller 6.37.14.126 (r561982)
eth2: Broadcom BCM4360 802.11 Wireless Controller 6.37.14.126 (r561982)
