Which user script is called when in Access Point mode?

[Wrong World]

One month or so ago I asked regarding user scripts not properly called (in my own view, of course) when changing guest Wi-Fi networks settings. I hoped in an answer from RMerlin, but...

In the meantime, I decided to dump much of my lengthy script and to move the routing stuff to an EdgeRouter Lite, I really needed to have a more comfortable place where to deal with VLANs and firewall rules. I still need to have some Wi-Fi SSIDs distributed on different VLANs, and I decided to stick to my Merlin-modified ASUS RT-AC66U_B1 to do the job. I explored some alternative firmware, TomatoUSB (which I know pretty well) and DD-/OpenWRT, but it seems that they are still missing the latest patched (Krack), or fully functional, Wi-Fi driver, hence Merlin.

Question 1: Access Point mode in Asuswrt-Merlin is limited. In theory it could be more than sufficient for my needs, but is missing the VLAN configuration. I have a trunk running various VLANs on the cable connecting the ASUS to the ERL, and I know how to deal with robocfg / brctl / wl / etc. to create the VLAN environment by script. The problem is that it's not clear which user script (if any) is still fired when the ASUS router is running in Access Point mode. For instance, I have learnt reading this forum that firewall-start will not be called, as the firewall is disabled, and so it is for nat-start (?), same reason. What about the other scripts? Which one is the "proper" one to shuffle eth1 / eth2/ wl0.x / wl1.x in the correct VLAN?

Another possibility is to leave the ASUS router running in Wireless Router Mode, I can just disable all the services I don't need (firewall, NAT, ...), ignore the WAN side and deal with other ASUS nuisances (ntp and dnsmasq when WAN is not connected). Will the scripts, and which of them, still be called?

Question 2: actually, it is a rehash of my previous post. To deal correctly with virtual Wi-Fi (guest WLAN), since the GUI does not provide any aid to setup the VLANs, there should be a user script run whenever the status of the three (six if dual-band) guest Wi-Fi has been changed. That would be the correct moment to "hack" the WLANs, but as I noticed firewall-start is not called (but ebtables may have been touched by the GUI nevertheless). Someone came up with the suggestion of putting a cron job to check periodically the status and act accordingly, thank you but I still think it would be a kludge.

Will it be possible to add such functionality in a future version of Asuswrt-Merlin? Is there a thread for feature requests?

Thanks!

 

[guho]

Great request, my RT-AC3200 is functionally an access point but runs in router mode to allow all the goodies to be used: guest network with access to some LAN resources (printers, Google ChromeCast ), 6in4 tunnel & OpenVPN servers. Lots of tweaking required to get it to work well.

 

[RMerlin]

You could try services-start, it should in theory be late enough in the boot process to let you manage VLANs, however they might get lost when making configuration changes. I can't think of any way at this time for you to insert yourself in the existing scripts to keep your AP config up-to-date.

 

[Wrong World]

You could try services-start, it should in theory be late enough in the boot process to let you manage VLANs, however they might get lost when making configuration changes.

That's what I'll do, indeed I suspected already there was no other practical solution apart from having some kind of "fix" implented in the future. It would not even be a real problem to have a single script doing all the stuff at boot, and forgetting about it after, if not for the fact I don't want to run "real" guest SSIDs unless when they are needed. There is where a reboot, or a script run via ssh, will be called for.

Thanks for the answer.