Thinking of switching to Merlin - 3 questions

[oscarcpa]

Hi, all - first-time poster here. I have the AC68U with the latest stock Asus firmware. 3 nitpicky things bug me about it, and they haven't changed it in any release since the original version my router shipped with. I'm wondering if the Merlin version addresses these things:

1. Various areas like the DHCP reservation (static IP), and Wake On LAN pages rely only on MAC address for the user to select the target client, with no field for the client name. In some cases the IP address is there, but with 20+ clients connected, I can't remember those, either. Does the Merlin firmware include name fields in these areas?

2. Does the Merlin firmware have an easier way to kick/ban/delete a client from my network? My old router, which was a sucky Comcast gateway, had an "X" next to each client in the table, for easy, one-step kicking. (Please note, yes, I use security on each of my wireless networks, but you never know...) I haven't been able to figure out how to accomplish this - should I ever need to - on the Asus.

3. Ideally, I'd like a client table that gives me more info about how each is connected to the router - i.e. LAN port or which radio they're on. Is this something which is in, or planned for, Merlin?

Thanks for your patience with me, an Asus and Merlin n00b, and thanks for keeping some great forums here.

-Oscar

 

[saintdev]

1. Various areas like the DHCP reservation (static IP), and Wake On LAN pages rely only on MAC address for the user to select the target client, with no field for the client name. In some cases the IP address is there, but with 20+ clients connected, I can't remember those, either. Does the Merlin firmware include name fields in these areas?

Yes.

2. Does the Merlin firmware have an easier way to kick/ban/delete a client from my network? My old router, which was a sucky Comcast gateway, had an "X" next to each client in the table, for easy, one-step kicking. (Please note, yes, I use security on each of my wireless networks, but you never know...) I haven't been able to figure out how to accomplish this - should I ever need to - on the Asus.

Not quite that easy. There is a Wireless MAC Filter tab under under the Wireless settings page. It lets you select a MAC from a dropdown you would like to block from connecting. I'm pretty sure this is in the stock Asus firmware, but is definitely in Merlin's.

3. Ideally, I'd like a client table that gives me more info about how each is connected to the router - i.e. LAN port or which radio they're on. Is this something which is in, or planned for, Merlin?

There's the Wireless Log tab on the System Log page. This shows info about how wireless clients are connected. Nothing quite like what you're looking for LAN ports, there's a page in Merlin's build that shows the last seen MAC on that port. So if you have a switch connected to a port with multiple devices, it will only show one of the devices connected to the switch (the most recent one).

 

[oscarcpa]

Thank you, saintdev, that's very helpful. I don't have a switch (yet) but it's on its way from Amazon, so it's good to know that I won't see all the MAC addresses at once after I work the switch in. I didn't know that.

I think I'll be putting Merlin's firmware on pretty soon.

Thank again.

-Oscar

 

[saintdev]

Thank you, saintdev, that's very helpful. I don't have a switch (yet) but it's on its way from Amazon, so it's good to know that I won't see all the MAC addresses at once after I work the switch in. I didn't know that.

You will still see them all on the Network Map/DHCP client list. It's just the page that shows which MAC is on which port only shows the most recent MAC.

 

[oscarcpa]

Got it. Double thanks - and good night.

 

[tomicjr]

MAC filter

Related question regarding granular control of MAC filtering....

Can MAC address whitelist / blacklist be defined per interface?

I would like to define a list of client MAC IDs to allow access to primary WiFi networks.

For guest networks, I do not want MAC ID required - but would like to be able to define blacklist.

This was possible and quite easy with OpenWRT, but I cannot figure out how to accomplish it with ASUSWRT.

Thank you!

 

[RMerlin]

Related question regarding granular control of MAC filtering....

Can MAC address whitelist / blacklist be defined per interface?

I would like to define a list of client MAC IDs to allow access to primary WiFi networks.

For guest networks, I do not want MAC ID required - but would like to be able to define blacklist.

This was possible and quite easy with OpenWRT, but I cannot figure out how to accomplish it with ASUSWRT.

Thank you!

Can't be done at the webui level, you would have to manually implement it through iptables.