Suggestions on how to get back into router

[Donkomo]

Hi All,

I think I may have locked myself out of my router. I have a ASUS RT-AC68U. I only use the 2.4 ghz radio in my house and decided to try the 5 ghz radio and turned off the 2.4 ghz radio.

Well I forgot that I had enabled allow only specified IP address of my devices connected to my 2.4 WiFi. I can connect to the 5 ghz WiFi networ and seems the 5 ghz assigned new ip addresses for all the devices. But I cannot connect to the asusRouter app or connect through the web GUI.

And all my devices are connected through WiFi. I have a laptop that I can connect through Ethernet, would that work? I Will need to purchase a usb to Ethernet adapter though.

My last option would be to reset to factory settings which I don’t want to do.

Any help and suggestions appreciated.

Thank you.

 

[L&LD]

Welcome to the forums @Donkomo.

Yes, connecting via Ethernet should get you in.

 

[Donkomo]

Hi L&LD

Thank you so much. Was sweating for a second didn’t want to have to setup from scratch all over again since I dont know much about networking but still learning. Now off to get an adapter.

 

[Donkomo]

Good news
I was able to find an Ethernet adapter I had. Plugged into ASUS router with Ethernet cable internet works.

Not so good news. But upon attempting to load the web login to ASUS.router.com/8443 and other variations. It will not load. It says this site cannot be reached.

 

[CaptainSTX]

Connect using the router's IP instead of name. Most likely 192.168.1.1 or perhaps 192.168.50.1.

You only need to tack on the port /8443 if you enabled secure logon using https.

If those addresses fail start a command session on the PC the run the command ipconfig and see what it says the IP address of your router is.

 

[KevTech]

Not so good news. But upon attempting to load the web login to ASUS.router.com/8443 and other variations. It will not load. It says this site cannot be reached.

I think it is router.asus.com

 

[EmeraldDeer]

Is it plausible that your browser has a new default to use DOH (DNS over HTTPS)? That would explain why router.asus.com is not being picked up by your router. Your browser would be circumventing your router's DNS UDP port 53 and going straight to, for example, Cloudflare DNS TCP port 443. This may be confirmed if IP address access works but FQDN does not. If HTTPS, you may get a certificate warning using IP address.

https://router.asus.com:8443/

http://router.asus.com/

https://192.168.50.1:8443/

http://192.168.50.1/

https://192.168.1.1:8443/

http://192.168.1.1/

 

[Donkomo]

So router ip was 192.168.2.1 and it still did not connect.

And yes i do have https only setup on my web gui login settings.

@EmeraldDeer thanks for the links. But still no luck. Those were the links I tried beside the router ip ones which mine end in 2.1

I was thinking since I only allowed IP addresses of my phones and my laptop connected to my 2.4 ghz Wi-Fi which the radio is now off and no way to turn it back on without getting back into the app or web settings, wouldnt it lock me out on all those devices since It gives a new ip when connecting to the 5ghz Wi-Fi radio?

 

[EmeraldDeer]

So router ip was 192.168.2.1 and it still did not connect.

And yes i do have https only setup on my web gui login settings.

Then this should work unless you changed the port as well
https://192.168.2.1:8443/

 

[Donkomo]

Then this should work unless you changed the port as well
https://192.168.2.1:8443/

I’m pretty sure my port was the default setting. I don’t recall ever changing it. And no luck with that link either still the same hmm can’t reach this page took too long to respond.

I checked my browser and it’s using the my ISPs DNS so no third party DNS providers on the browser

 

[Tech9]

Well I forgot that I had enabled allow only specified IP address

If you have set Enable Access Restrictions in Administration, System - only a device with the specified internal IP will be allowed connection. Wired connection won't help you. You may get lucky, if you have no DHCP reservations set and you use the same static IP on your wired device.

 

[Donkomo]

If you have set Enable Access Restrictions in Administration, System - only a device with the specified internal IP will be allowed connection. Wired connection won't help you. You may get lucky, if you have no DHCP reservations set and you use the same static IP on your wired device.

Yeah no static IP set I was afraid of this. So looks like I will have to reset it and maybe restore from backup on the app.

 

[Tech9]

Also, there is no need to use HTTPS on your internal network where all the devices connected are yours.

 

[EmeraldDeer]

Wow, I had not been aware of restricted Admin access before. If you know what IPs you restricted Admin access to and it is on subnet 192.168.2.x and it is not already in use, then Tech9 suggested setting your wired IP to that address manually and you should be able to connect.

 

[Justinh]

If the enabled client IP address is not known/remembered, could he manually set (spoof) the MAC address on the Ethernet NIC to be the same as the 2.4GHz NIC, so that the router might still associate that lease and hand him the correct IP?

 

[EmeraldDeer]

Yes, assuming you had configured the IP by Ethernet MAC

 

[andyross]

There is a thread where Firefox is using a list compiled by Google and updated by company requests of web sites to force https. In the case of asus, that is causing issues with router.asus.com. You can always verify if you have the right address by simply trying to ping router.asus.com from a command prompt. You can then use that IP to access the GUI. No need to specify a port or anything. Just type in the IP as a normal name.

 

[Donkomo]

Forgot to update in case anyone was wondering.

With my limited knowledge I ended up resetting the router back to factory default settings and restored my previous router settings back with the ASUS router app which lets you create multiple backups for your router settings and restore.
It went smoothly and everything is just as it was before I locked myself out.
Thanks again for all the suggestion’s and help. It will definitely help prevent this the next time.