What add ons to install

[SomeWhereOverTheRainBow]

You can do whatever you want as long as you can troubleshoot it and support it yourself. Otherwise you'll be hit by WAF soon.

Your wife wants her stuff to work. What do you want? I believe you more want to tinker with settings. Get a second router and play with it.

I am starting to wonder if @Tech9 has a second profession - the wife advocacy agency president.

 

[Tech9]

Just watching how a user who basically needs nothing is pushed to install things he never even asked about.

 

[BGood]

None.

Skynet is not a firewall. It's an IP-blocker. Your router has firewall built-in.

If you use USB stick for add-ons your router becomes as reliable as the USB stick.

So if I put entware and killmon onto a USB flash drive, and that drive fails for any reason, will the "regular" devices (that don't use VPN) lose network?

 

[Viktor Jaep]

So if I put entware and killmon onto a USB flash drive, and that drive fails for any reason, will the "regular" devices (that don't use VPN) lose network?

Entware by default will live on your flashdrive. Killmon will be placed on your router's internal NVRAM, which will survive a reboot. If your flashdrive fails, your router will continue to chug along, except for any custom scripts that rely on particular entware binaries. This is why you eventually want to make sure you use an SSD, not a flashdrive... as they are more resilient in the longrun.

 

[Manvadher]

Based on what's been written here so far, there seems to be either fear of USB drive failures or actual corruption of USB drives, given the need of backupmon and using a SSD drive.
How common is a USB (non SSD type) failure?

 

[visortgw]

Based on what's been written here so far, there seems to be either fear of USB drive failures or actual corruption of USB drives, given the need of backupmon and using a SSD drive.
How common is a USB (non SSD type) failure?

Extremely common, and not only when attached to router. USB flash drives are for very temporary storage only (don't put anything on one that you'd be afraid to lose...).

 

[Viktor Jaep]

Based on what's been written here so far, there seems to be either fear of USB drive failures or actual corruption of USB drives, given the need of backupmon and using a SSD drive.
How common is a USB (non SSD type) failure?

If you're using an el-cheapo flashdrive, your days are numbered. Investing in a quality flashdrive will help extend its use. For me, I've lost about 2 flashdrives over about 3 years... each time, causing corruption in entware. Sure you can try to reformat them in the hopes that bad sectors will be marked, but at that point, it's just a matter of time that it will happen again. This last go-around, I just invested in a decent Samsung SSD with a USB3 enclosure, which is better able to handle large amounts of read/writes to minimize risk of this happening again.

 

[Manvadher]

Interesting. Thanks for that. I have a blink thingy that needs a usb and again brought a decent samsung or branded usb drive that's been connected for around 5 months with no issues. I'm hoping that the usb drive I've got for the Asus will last, again not SSD but not cheap either.
Question. The image that Backupmon creates, how big are we looking at? I understand this will vary with apps installed but, ballpark size. Just wondering if it would make that whilst storage to another device makes sense, but is it possible to have the image emailed once a week or monthly for the users who want to keep it easy (aka me).
Re the cheap usb drives. Don't trust them the slightest. Love how Amazon sell 928Gb usb 5 thumb drive for £9.99

 

[Viktor Jaep]

Interesting. Thanks for that. I have a blink thingy that needs a usb and again brought a decent samsung or branded usb drive that's been connected for around 5 months with no issues. I'm hoping that the usb drive I've got for the Asus will last, again not SSD but not cheap either.

Keep your fingers crossed!

Question. The image that Backupmon creates, how big are we looking at? I understand this will vary with apps installed but, ballpark size. Just wondering if it would make that whilst storage to another device makes sense, but is it possible to have the image emailed once a week or monthly for the users who want to keep it easy (aka me).
Re the cheap usb drives. Don't trust them the slightest. Love how Amazon sell 928Gb usb 5 thumb drive for £9.99

It really all depends. It gzip's everything, so that helps. I'm running unbound, diversion, entware, skynet... and of course my own custom scripts... I'm excluding backing up my 5GB swap file since it's transient... and my backups amount to about 20MB/day. It's pretty minimal... whether you can email that depends on your ISP. Some have 50MB limits, others are more stringent. However, if you're treating your EXT USB drive like a media server, your milage may vary on how much space your backups take up!

 

[ugandy]

Based on what's been written here so far, there seems to be either fear of USB drive failures or actual corruption of USB drives, given the need of backupmon and using a SSD drive.
How common is a USB (non SSD type) failure?

never happened to me in since i've been using my usb pen on my asus router. just dont get a cheap one. it's been years with the same one. if it fails just get a new one. couple of times i had to do hw restore of router, it was not related to usb drive, and i was done in about an hour and the netizens at home survived.

 

[Viktor Jaep]

it's not like the space station is gonna crash.

 

[ugandy]

my Phillips hue on the other hand...

 

[Manvadher]

OK, I think I'll be fine. Will skip the backupmon at my own risk and tbh the routers working fine with basic Merlin setup... Will save that config down, play around with the other stuff in the coming days and see what happens!
Also switched on aiprotect and it's been steady at zero warnings across everything

 

[Tech9]

If your router is in double NAT behind another ISP modem/router your UPnP won't work in Asuswrt-Merlin. Something you may want to know. Not a bug, but the newer version of miniupnpd used in Asuswrt-Merlin works with public WAN IP addresses only and DMZ on the ISP equipment won't help.

 

[Manvadher]

If your router is in double NAT behind another ISP modem/router your UPnP won't work in Asuswrt-Merlin. Something you may want to know. Not a bug, but the newer version of miniupnpd used in Asuswrt-Merlin works with public WAN IP addresses only and DMZ on the ISP equipment won't help.

Full disclosure. I don't understand this. I will be trying to do this - > https://support.aa.net.uk/Router_-_EchoLife_HG612 and when I used the WAN port to connect to slcheck the stats, I think the router will be double NAT'd.

Let's see. All this is down to me
Bothering to follow the steps in the link above
Installing skynet
Installing diversion

This is where going to the pub sounds a lot easier....

 

[SomeWhereOverTheRainBow]

If your router is in double NAT behind another ISP modem/router your UPnP won't work in Asuswrt-Merlin. Something you may want to know. Not a bug, but the newer version of miniupnpd used in Asuswrt-Merlin works with public WAN IP addresses only and DMZ on the ISP equipment won't help.

Yep, i may be wrong but wouldnt the recommended route in this case probably would be to put that isp modem/router in bridge mode or "bridge passthru mode", and setup the Asus router to connect over a"PPPoe/dsl" connection instead of "automatic IP" method?

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After doing some further digging that modem may require its user to get it "unlocked" which I suspect means it is isp or manufaruer locked down similar to how cellular providers may lock down certain aspects of a cellphone.

Configure HG612 so it handles the PPPOE but remains bridged

Configure HG612 so it handles the PPPOE but remains bridged

forum.kitz.co.uk

 

[Tech9]

Full disclosure. I don't understand this.

Your Skynet will be doing close to nothing in double NAT as well. Your actions so far are tinkering satisfaction related. You don't need Asuswrt-Merlin and you don't need any custom scripts. What you need is finding DMZ setting on your ISP modem/router and placing your Asus router WAN IP there. Don't touch anything after. Update the firmware when a new version is available. It may auto-update even if you don't do anything. Enjoy life.

 

[heysoundude]

This is where going to the pub sounds a lot easier....

Yup, but is it as fun?

 

[Manvadher]

Yup, but is it as fun?

Depends on how much you drink

 

[ugandy]

Depends on how much you drink

simple. configure the router at the pub!