What fills NVRAM?- some stats

[martinr]

Following a problem displaying some router setting pages, possibly related to an NVRAM running close to its limit , listed at:

http://www.snbforums.com/threads/problems-displaying-some-webui-settings-pages.24209/

I had a look at moving the NVRAM to the jffs partition but found the wiki guide to be not the step-by-step, how-to guide that I would need. Consequently, I decided to slim down my NVRAM by removing one of the 2 OpenVPN servers I was running. When manually resetting the various pages in the router GUI, I watched how NVRAM was filling up - stats below for interest's sake.

Beforehand, I was running .53, with ssh and 2 OpenVPN servers. NVRAM at 59805 bytes =89%

There may have been an easier way to do this, but I carried out a factory default restore from the Admin page and then powered the router off, waited a minute and then powered on. Here are the stats (NVRAM in bytes). Percentages are of total NVRAM (66536 bytes)

Factory Default Restore

After wireless encryption and new router login credentials set 40416 61%

After 10 manual LAN IPs assigned 41197 62%

After one OpenVPN server set up username/password auth only 48077 72%

After ssh set up 52032 78%

After guest wireless network setup (AES) 52328 79%


(Doing the sums on the space one OpenVPN server takes up, and adding it to the total, if I had continued and set up the second OpenVPN server , it would have brought the total up to 59k or 88%, which is just about where I was before the factory restore, so I'm happy the maths is consistent.)

 

[ryzhov_al]

You may gather some stats this way. If VPN settings will be on the top of NVRAM-eaters chart, you can move it from NVRAM to JFFS.

 

[martinr]

You may gather some stats this way. If VPN settings will be on the top of NVRAM-eaters chart, you can move it from NVRAM to JFFS.

Thank you. I'd intended to move NVRAM and I read that wiki page, and, whilst I'm not unhappy with the Linux command line, I found that the link assumes a background knowledge that is just a bit more than I have. Nevertheless, I really didn't need both VPN servers running, and I'm happy that a 79%-full NVRAM shouldn't cause me any problems. And it gives me breathing space to Google at my leisure for other articles on transferring NVRAM to jffs. But many thanks for your kind reply.

 

[martinr]

You may gather some stats this way. .......

That's some command (# nvram show | awk '{print length(), $0 | "sort -n -r"}' | cut -d"=" -f 1 | head)! (If I can summon up the courage, I might try and dissect it as a learning exercise.) I ran it and got:

And when I add up all the bytes associated with vpn-crt and also those associated with sshd, they're practically identical to those I got - reassuring. I wonder if there's a similar command that usefully shows, by grouping, what's clogging up 60% of NVRAM post factory reset, before anything other than the wireless and router login passwords has been added.

 

[ColinTaylor]

I wonder if there's a similar command that usefully shows, by grouping, what's clogging up 60% of NVRAM post factory reset, before anything other than the wireless and router login passwords has been added.

I don't think there's anything "clogging up" the NVRAM. It's not like you can get rid of any of the NVRAM variables to save space.

 

[bbunge]

Seems that lots of us are having issues with full NVRAM! Here are a couple of links:

https://github.com/RMerl/asuswrt-merlin/wiki/reducing-nvram-for-openvpn-certs

http://www.snbforums.com/threads/nmp_client_list-eating-up-all-nvram-space.20491/

I have contributed to the second link and can report that my two AC68U's are doing much better since I created the CRON job to delete data from NVRAM. I have also moved OpenVPN certs to JFFS on one router. Should note that I an running the task every two hours during the day just to keep the NVRAM down.

Would like to know the best way to let Asus know that this is a BIG deal and needs to be fixed. Sure, you will tell me that these are home routers and should not be use even for small businesses. To that I would tell you that I ran a Netgear WNR2000 and a WNDR3800 on these networks with no issues!

Bill