[System] You are a professional Wi-Fi router support assistant; I will provide forum posts as background material, and you should learn from them while remaining aware that forum content may be incomplete, outdated, or incorrect — when uncertain, explicitly note that you are uncertain and refer the user to official documentation or other authoritative sources for verification.

[User]
Title: Asus Router Security Discussion

Folks, let me start out by saying that I do not own an Asus router, but have wanted one for my next upgrade. The purpose of this is not to flame anything about Asus products, it's just to serve as a discussion and info page for security issues, and maybe some people will benefit from reading it. I have read through several threads about the latest attack in October and trying to gain some more knowledge of how these happen and what Asus owners can do to minimize future attack surfaces.

People that have had Asus routers over the last several years, how many of these hacks have you seen?
When these attacks happen, does it affect all models or only some of them on the currently support firmware versions?
Do the attacks happen from infected Asus SaaS offerings that the routers use, or does code get installed onto the routers and launches from there?
If one does these things, does that shut off access to the outside for attacks and can these attacks be prevented? Disable Asus AICloud, Use only local IPs for router mgmt and not the Asus web link, Do not use WEP/WPA1 and only use WPA2/3, Disable Remote Admin, Telnet, SSH, DMZ and others.
Any other info that can help prevent future attacks for anyone reading?

[Assistant]
First, if you haven't done so already, use the forum search feature to find a number of past discussions covering malware on Asus routers. There have been a number of recent malware infections over the past few years.

See the Asus Product Security Advisory page if you haven't already, some updates there about some of the past intrusions/malware hacks:
ASUS Product Security Advisory｜ASUS Global
www.asus.com
In particular see this entry from last September:
09/06/2024 Guidance on enhancing router security ∇
We recommend regularly checking your equipment and security measures for enhanced safety. If you use an ASUS router, follow these steps:
• Update your router with the newest firmware. We encourage you to do this when new firmware becomes available. You can find the newest firmware on the ASUS support page at
https://www.asus.com/support/ or the relevant product page at
ASUS has provided a link to new firmware for some routers at the end of this notice.
• Use different passwords for your wireless network and router-administration page. Use passwords that have at least 10 characters, with a mix of capital letters, numbers and symbols. Do not use the same password for more than one device or service.

Please ensure that your login and WiFi passwords are secure if you cannot upgrade the firmware promptly. "
For further help with router setup and an introduction to network security, please visit

If your router is listed below, follow these steps to secure it:
Click to expand...
Generally, this goes for most consumer grade routers, you can limit the intrusions by not opening up any ports or services to the internet on the router (or to clients behind the router via port forwarding). This includes disabling WAN admin access among other things.

Understand that no matter how much you harden the router, if your clients on the local network become infected the router itself can become compromised or infected. This is why good security is a layered approach. Not only do you harden the router, you also need to harden the computers and devices on the local network. More often then not it is the human inside the network that compromises their network or router either by clicking on malware, visiting malware sites, opening an infected email/file, or simply opening up the router to external access through router internet facing services/features.

You have 2 options. Buy something that works out of the box or build our own and secure it.

The wifi settings only matter locally and within RF range for anything to be impacted.

The problem with most consumer routers is you don't know what's running in the background most of the time and sometimes can't even control it if the firmware is closed sourced. When you have things running in the background they will pinhole the security to get out to the internet.

I went DIY about 10 years ago now and my motivation was to get away from over priced cheap boxes with crappy updates. I've upgrade/rebuilt the setup a few time over the years for other tasks the box is performing but, the router function remains the same from one version to another and is quick to port from one system to the next. The only downside is WIFI not having as many options to internalize within the box as things progress. For AC I was able to use an internal card for the AP portion but, AX/E was dominated by Intel and that doesn't work well as an AP. BE has some promise though with a few Qualcomm options for about $35 M2. Right now it's just a matter of waiting on the devs to release the pieces of code to bring it up into operation.

Besides all of this running a DIY configuration allows you to manage things how you want. If you want more security monitoring you just install the SW. If you just want something simple to monitor things then just install it. If you start out with 1GE ports and decide you need to upgrade or add 2.5GE for an AP then you just get a NIC instead of a new router. When I was running spinner disks for the "NAS" portion I tested the speeds and found that 5GE would be sufficient to max them out over the network which prompted adding a 5GE NIC. I swapped out the disks though last year for a NVME U.3 drive that does 6.5GB/s which means the need for more speed. I pondered 10GE as one device is a laptop and that's the most you can get over the USB/TB port for a dongle. Instead for the rare need to connect for a large data copy I just use the TB cable between them and sync at 20gbps and saved some money on more HW.

For protecting the system you also have the ability to update the kernel weekly which applies the patches to the system for new CVE's as they come along instead of relying on a router OEM to release a patch based on a kernel that's over 5 years old. Besides this though if you setup the firewall rules to protect traffic it really shouldn't be an issue unless a client triggers opening a flood of ports or is infected and sends your data out without permission. Using something like pihole to block traffic based on the DNS also helps squash some of the threats or privacy issues.

Basically you have options by DIY that you don't with a prepackaged box. Put it to work for more than just internet as the router impact is very little.

On this latest round of Asus malware, how did the code get into the router? Was it through something launched in clients internally or did it come through for only people who had certain services open external?

Are there online security sites that can scan against your router from the outside to determine if there are any holes?


[System] You are a professional Wi-Fi router support assistant; I will provide forum posts as background material, and you should learn from them while remaining aware that forum content may be incomplete, outdated, or incorrect — when uncertain, explicitly note that you are uncertain and refer the user to official documentation or other authoritative sources for verification.

[User]
Title: New Asus Guest Network Pro router interacting over AiMesh with older ASUS non-vlan offering node

Asus Guest Network Pro router interacting over AiMesh with ASUS non-vlan node

Considering new ASUS AX88U Pro as front end router to existing GS-AX5400 move to node status. I will update with subsequent experience. The fallback is to put the AX5400 in WAN NAT mode behind a LAN port on the AX88U Pro.

I can only find side issues discussed but not this use case. I believe that by default the backhaul Ethernet will handle only one vlan/SSID combination per channel (WIFI frequency). Planning on dedicating 2.4G to IOT and 5G to Media Clients in AiMesh. Both the dedicated media server and the Homelab Promox/NAS server will be on VLAN controlled Ethernet ports on the main router. No smart switches in middle but might explore later. Further Guest or VPN SSID, etc will live in primary router as even the AX5400 range is pretty good. Redesign to be anticipated.

At this point it is not clear if and how well this will work especially VLAN isolation/bridging. Lessons learned from first hand experience is most welcome.

[Assistant]
CornfieldWin said:
Asus Guest Network Pro router interacting over AiMesh with ASUS non-vlan node

Considering new ASUS AX88U Pro as front end router to existing GS-AX5400 move to node status. I will update with subsequent experience. The fallback is to put the AX5400 in WAN NAT mode behind a LAN port on the AX88U Pro.

I can only find side issues discussed but not this use case. I believe that by default the backhaul Ethernet will handle only one vlan/SSID combination per channel (WIFI frequency). Planning on dedicating 2.4G to IOT and 5G to Media Clients in AiMesh. Both the dedicated media server and the Homelab Promox/NAS server will be on VLAN controlled Ethernet ports on the main router. No smart switches in middle but might explore later. Further Guest or VPN SSID, etc will live in primary router as even the AX5400 range is pretty good. Redesign to be anticipated.

At this point it is not clear if and how well this will work especially VLAN isolation/bridging. Lessons learned from first hand experience is most welcome.
Click to expand...
You should be able to get one guest WIFI to propagate to the AX5400 connected as an AiMesh node. Likely only one WIFI band, though, You will not be able to get a wired VLAN to the AiMesh node. It needs another "Pro" router as an AiMesh node to do VLAN on the node.

I am guessing that I could SSH to configure or script fancier arrangements with Linux networking like the Merlin documentation suggests. But I would have to be either really bored or fishing in waters best left alone with so much other to learn about Promox, Home Assistant, and Jellyfin, Tablo integration, etc


[System] You are a professional Wi-Fi router support assistant; I will provide forum posts as background material, and you should learn from them while remaining aware that forum content may be incomplete, outdated, or incorrect — when uncertain, explicitly note that you are uncertain and refer the user to official documentation or other authoritative sources for verification.

[User]
Title: How do I configure asus smartconnect RT-BE92U kicking off devices from 6ghz

How can I configure my laptop to stop switching off the 6 ghz band? When I leave or put my computer to sleep and come back, it is on the 5ghz band and not the 6 ghz band. I have the default configuration enabled for Smart Connect rule but I want to know what I should change so it makes my laptop switch to 6 ghz more often.

For reference, when I have the problem, I use my laptop when the 6 ghz band is at -64 dbm and the 5ghz Band is at -48dbm. I still want to use the 6 ghz band despite that. I also have 6ghz preference set in device manager as well.

[Assistant]
jimmysofat6864 said:
How can I configure my laptop to stop switching off the 6 ghz band? When I leave or put my computer to sleep and come back, it is on the 5ghz band and not the 6 ghz band. I have the default configuration enabled for Smart Connect rule but I want to know what I should change so it makes my laptop switch to 6 ghz more often.

For reference, when I have the problem, I use my laptop when the 6 ghz band is at -64 dbm and the 5ghz Band is at -48dbm. I still want to use the 6 ghz band despite that. I also have 6ghz preference set in device manager as well.

Click to expand...

Disable Smart Connect, define separate SSIDs, and connect the client to the preferred SSID. Know that a 6GHz connection will weaken more rapidly at distance... not the best for roaming.

OE

OzarkEdge said:
Disable Smart Connect, define separate SSIDs, and connect the client to the preferred SSID. Know that a 6GHz connection will weaken more rapidly at distance... not the best for roaming.

OE

Yea thought about that but my phones and other devices are terrible at roaming and get stuck at the 2.4ghz band. Odd as my previous router the RT-AX58U did a pretty decent job at forcing devices to roam to 2.4ghz and the 5ghz band but it seems like my new one is just a wee bit off to my liking.

jimmysofat6864 said:
Yea thought about that but my phones and other devices are terrible at roaming and get stuck at the 2.4ghz band. Odd as my previous router the RT-AX58U did a pretty decent job at forcing devices to roam to 2.4ghz and the 5ghz band but it seems like my new one is just a wee bit off to my liking.

The issue was your laptop not liking 6GHz and you wanting to keep it there. My guess is that your laptop prefers a better 5GHz connection... this is more likely farther from the AP since 6GHz does not travel as well as 5 and 2.4GHz. Monitor client connection in the router Wireless Log to see how well they are connecting at various distances.

OE


[System] You are a professional Wi-Fi router support assistant; I will provide forum posts as background material, and you should learn from them while remaining aware that forum content may be incomplete, outdated, or incorrect — when uncertain, explicitly note that you are uncertain and refer the user to official documentation or other authoritative sources for verification.

[User]
Title: Just curious about Smart Connect - does it cause interruptions

I'm not intending to switch on Smart Connect, but I'm just curious to know if it causes any loss of service, however brief, when a network device is bumped onto the alternate Wi-Fi band, or is it completely seamless?

[Assistant]
Not seamless since the client has to disconnect from one radio and re-connect to another. How much time it will take depends on the client. The process will disrupt time sensitive applications like voice and video calls. Seamless - in advertising only.

Usually it's so fast that you wouldn't notice. If for some bizarre reason, let's say your HP printer decides for no good reason to jump from one band to the other halfway through, it can cause the print job to fail! So if that's likely to be an issue I'd use the guest networks to set up band specific SSIDs and if you have any mesh units another 5GHz SSID that only connects to the router and not the mesh!

In my own experience with my own clients switching between 5GHz radios (roaming) is faster than switching between 2.4/5GHz bands (band steering). For that reason on my own system 2.4/5GHz bands range is set approximately equal (-7dBm on 2.4GHz) and my APs have "Prefer 5GHz" setting enabled. In result I have single SSID, but whatever is capable of 5GHz stays there and never switches bands.


[System] You are a professional Wi-Fi router support assistant; I will provide forum posts as background material, and you should learn from them while remaining aware that forum content may be incomplete, outdated, or incorrect — when uncertain, explicitly note that you are uncertain and refer the user to official documentation or other authoritative sources for verification.

[User]
Title: Question about guest network 1 and VLAN 501

Hi everyone.

When I enable guest network 1 on my AC68U (on the 2.4 band only) with access intranet disabled it creates a new virtual interface called wl0.1 and it appears to set up a 501 vlan and a new bridge (br1) that includes wl0.1 (guest network) , eth0.501 (wan), eth1.501 (2.4ghz interface), and eth2.501 (5ghz interface).

Based on this and what I read, I'm assuming that the isolation mechanism (for guest network slot 1 specifically) is based on all the guest traffic contained in vlan 501. Therefore, I expected client traffic coming in from wl0.1 to be tagged for vlan 501. However, when running tcpdump for wl0.1 and generating client traffic I can see that all the frames coming in it are untagged.

Trying to understand the mechanism here. Why aren't the frames tagged? If they're not part of vlan 501, what creates the separation?

Thanks for anyone who can help explain!

[Assistant]
Adding - I thought my mistake was looking at the traffic of wl0.1 instead of looking at br1.
But even if I look at the tcpdump of br1, the ethertype shows regular IPv4 and I see no 501-tagged frames at all.

Very confused here. The router went through all the trouble of defining a vlan for the guest network and it's not even tagging anything? I must be missing something.

Any help will be appreciated!

I think vlan is used for the AiMesh backhaul traffic so the packets get properly routed to the main lan bridge br0 or guest virtual bridges br1 or br2.


[System] You are a professional Wi-Fi router support assistant; I will provide forum posts as background material, and you should learn from them while remaining aware that forum content may be incomplete, outdated, or incorrect — when uncertain, explicitly note that you are uncertain and refer the user to official documentation or other authoritative sources for verification.

[User]
Title: AI mesh and Pihole DNS spam: what I found out and where I’m stuck

Hi,

So I’ve done some digging to the best of my abilities, but I can’t fix the problem so here I am.

Ever since I hooked up my new router (RT-BE86U running the latest merlin) my previous one (RT-AX86U running the latest merlin) has been placed upstairs as a wired backhaul AI mesh. My router is set up to direct all DNS traffic to my two raspberry pi’s running pihole+unbound. I have it setup in the LAN-> DHCP settings.

Ever since the old router became a mesh node I see the dns.msftncsi.com domain being request to my pihole every minute. Searching led me to this very forum, and it seems to be a check if the internet connection is there. (Why the MS domain for that though…). My router without AImesh never did this, and the local IP that is requesting it IS the AImesh router so that has be the issue.

I want this not to happen, but again this forum test me to go to Administration -> System, and check under network monitoring. It can use dns for that. But it’s turned off on my main router. Makes sense: I don’t see the queries coming from there. If I check the box, I see the dns.msftncsi.com domain as a default so my conclusion is:

The AI mesh router DOES have the checkbox checked, and thus it’s sending out those DNS requests constantly. But again this forum (so much good info here) tells me I can’t login to the AImesh node separately. Which is true: i get redirected if I enter the local IP of the AImesh node.

So is there any way to get into those settings and turn off that DNS check? I don’t care if the ‘internet is up’ function doesn’t work anymore, I just want that DNS spam gone.

Thanks in advance for any help. (Hopefully the English is ok, not a native speaker).

[Assistant]
Put the AX86U back on Asus firmware. I did not see those requests when I was running a Pi-Hole as a test a week ago.

vmachiel said:
My router without AImesh never did this, and the local IP that is requesting it IS the AImesh router so that has be the issue.

This is what most likely happened - your router uses WAN DNS servers for own needs, it was still querying Microsoft connectivity check even when DNS check is disabled in firmware, but it was not registered to your Pi-holes. Now your AiMesh node is a client on the network and you see the queries. To me - there is no real problem and nothing to solve. Just the way connectivity check works on Asus routers.

So the disabling the DNS check does nothing? Maybe I’ll ask about this in the Merlin forums.


[System] You are a professional Wi-Fi router support assistant; I will provide forum posts as background material, and you should learn from them while remaining aware that forum content may be incomplete, outdated, or incorrect — when uncertain, explicitly note that you are uncertain and refer the user to official documentation or other authoritative sources for verification.

[User]
Title: Time based parental controls without entirely blocking device

Hi,
I have the GT-AX6000 router. I'm able to enable the parental controls and block certain types of content on specific devices with no issues. However having used a TP-Link router in the past, I recall this was able to set times for when restrictions would apply, which I found really useful.

I want to avoid outright blocking a device from connecting, or blocking certain types of content all the time, but instead have the affected devices connect at all times for legitimate purposes (for children), but then be blocked from certain types of content/sites/services (games, social media, streaming) except for during certain preset time windows.

This could be achieved with the rather basic parental controls on my TPLink Archer router, but I can't seem to find a way to achieve this with my new Asus router. I don't have Merlin installed and not sure if this would be of help in this instance?

Many thanks in advance for your help!

[Assistant]
What firmware are you running on the GT-AX6000?
In addition to being able to configure the Parental Controls to block by specific time blocks, Asus includes the ability to block by "Web & Apps Filters".
[Wireless Router] How to set up Parental Controls?(WebGUI) | Official Support | ASUS Global
Web & Apps Filters allows you to block access to unwanted websites and apps.

If you need additional blocking capability then one may want to look into using Add-On scripts (if running Asus-Merlin firmware) and or using DNS based filtering like Skynet or Pi-Hole.
Asuswrt-Merlin Addon Software Catalog
Asus-Merlin Addon Software Catalog This sticky post functions as a software catalog (with links to threads, scripts, and author names), grouped by functionality, to make it easier for Asus-Merlin users to find and install addons for their Asus routers without having to search through massive...
www.snbforums.com

bennor said:
What firmware are you running on the GT-AX6000?
In addition to being able to configure the Parental Controls to block by specific time blocks, Asus includes the ability to block by "Web & Apps Filters".
[Wireless Router] How to set up Parental Controls?(WebGUI) | Official Support | ASUS Global

If you need additional blocking capability then one may want to look into using Add-On scripts (if running Asus-Merlin firmware) and or using DNS based filtering like Skynet or .
Click to expand...
I'm on the latest firmware... 3.0.0.6.102_34810_404. While there is a time schedule function, that seems to be as I described, a schedule of when the selected devices can and cannot access the internet, not time blocks that control when the finer grained site/app/service access are effective. I believe the web & app filters also don't have a dimension of time/schedule to them?

Can someone please confirm the scripting capability offered through Merlin would allow me to achieve the desired effect?


[System] You are a professional Wi-Fi router support assistant; I will provide forum posts as background material, and you should learn from them while remaining aware that forum content may be incomplete, outdated, or incorrect — when uncertain, explicitly note that you are uncertain and refer the user to official documentation or other authoritative sources for verification.

[User]
Title: Device suggestions for AiMesh node just for 2.4ghz IoT with a Pro primary

Looking for advice on a device to get as well as if what I'm trying to do is even possible. I've currently got a RT-AX88U Pro as my primary network device that replaced a AC86U+AC68U AiMesh. I was hoping it would provide enough coverage but it doesn't just on the 2.4 ghz network where all my IoT devices are. So I'm now looking for another device to add to remake an AiMesh again and was looking for suggestions. Would have a hard wired backhaul. Stock firmware.

But since I have a Pro device I started making a bunch of dedicated virtual networks for different types of IoT devices so I wasn't also sure if those even work with AiMesh and if they do if that meant the node had to be a Pro device or not?

Primarily only used for 2.4 ghz IoT so doesn't need to be WiFi 6 or 7
Actively support by Asus hopefully for several more years
Works with Pro virtual networks on the mesh nodes
Not expensive and available in US market

[Assistant]
If you still have the RT-AC86U and RT-AC68U, why not turn those into AP nodes (connected to the main router using Ethernet Backhaul) and configure the AP nodes for 2.4 Ghz only. Then connect the IoT devices to those AP nodes rather than the main router.

brentil said:
Looking for advice on a device to get as well as if what I'm trying to do is even possible. I've currently got a RT-AX88U Pro as my primary network device that replaced a AC86U+AC68U AiMesh. I was hoping it would provide enough coverage but it doesn't just on the 2.4 ghz network where all my IoT devices are. So I'm now looking for another device to add to remake an AiMesh again and was looking for suggestions. Would have a hard wired backhaul. Stock firmware.

But since I have a Pro device I started making a bunch of dedicated virtual networks for different types of IoT devices so I wasn't also sure if those even work with AiMesh and if they do if that meant the node had to be a Pro device or not?

Click to expand...
You could try either or both of your old routers. I feel that the 2.4 GHz would work and maybe allow a single guest network as well. You can disable the 5 GHz network on the node.

One caution: using those old routers as nodes on the AX88U Pro may limit the channels and bandwidth available. I had this happen when I tested an AC66U B1 on my AX86U Pro.

brentil said:
Looking for advice on a device to get as well as if what I'm trying to do is even possible. I've currently got a RT-AX88U Pro as my primary network device that replaced a AC86U+AC68U AiMesh. I was hoping it would provide enough coverage but it doesn't just on the 2.4 ghz network where all my IoT devices are. So I'm now looking for another device to add to remake an AiMesh again and was looking for suggestions. Would have a hard wired backhaul. Stock firmware.

But since I have a Pro device I started making a bunch of dedicated virtual networks for different types of IoT devices so I wasn't also sure if those even work with AiMesh and if they do if that meant the node had to be a Pro device or not?

Click to expand...

RT-AX86U Pro is going for $185. Trade-in your AC68U at Best Buy and get another 15% discount. ASUSWRT 5.0 (3.0.0.6.*) firmware runs on Pro models and will let you move forward with next gen firmware... today.

What I did.

OE


[System] You are a professional Wi-Fi router support assistant; I will provide forum posts as background material, and you should learn from them while remaining aware that forum content may be incomplete, outdated, or incorrect — when uncertain, explicitly note that you are uncertain and refer the user to official documentation or other authoritative sources for verification.

[User]
Title: Hard Drive is always active when formatted to EXT4.

Router Asus AX86U, firmware Merlin 3004.388.8_4

I have a HDD connected to the router via USB port and it was formatted to NTFS.

Today I formatted the drive to EXT4 and now the HDD is constantly active. There is nothing on the HDD it self, I even performed factory reset of the router, deleting all the settings and the issue is still there. I disconnected all devices from the router and disconnected router from WAN, but HDD light keep blinking. But when I go back to using NTFS, HDD is not active. I tried both USB ports.

Nothing is being written to the drive, I checked for hidden files and folders.

As a test I used a USB Thumb Drive. Formatted the thumb drive to NTFS and there is no activity while plugged in to a router. So I formatted the thumb drive to EXT4 same way as I did HDD, via AMTM. And there is constant activity now as well ( it has an led light ). And now thumb drive is constantly active.

Anyone has any idea what it could be?

[Assistant]
KGB7 said:
Anyone has any idea what it could be?

Another good reason to not trust router storage with your data.

/snark

OE

KGB7 said:
Anyone has any idea what it could be?

TLDR
Journal initialization on first mount.

Can't remember how long it was on my recent upgrade on external WD 5T. Not used for router though, but for laptop. I'd say under 1 hr, I really didn't care for initialization and did wait before it finished before I started a large backup. Not sure if it would have affected write speed if I started the backup right away, but I didn't care to find out.

If you care for docs.
ref. Ext4 Filesystem

You can use "Find in page" for
Data Mode
initializ (typo intentional)
first mounted
mount, mounting
etc.

For web search
ext4 what is journal
initialization on first mount after formatting external hdd with ext4
etc.

Response was not checked for accuracy

GPT4All

When you format an external HDD with ext4, there are a few things that happen to prepare the drive for use. Here's what might be causing the activity:

1. Initializing the file system: When you create an ext4 file system on a fresh drive, it needs to initialize some internal structures and data blocks. This process is called "journaling" or "superblock initialization." It creates the necessary metadata, such as the superblock (containing information about the file system), inode tables, and block bitmaps.
2. Creating an empty journal: ext4 uses a transactional file system approach, which means it maintains a log of all changes made to the file system. This is called the "journal." When you format the drive with ext4, it creates an empty journal to record future transactions (i.e., writes) on the file system.
3. Writing metadata: The file system needs to write its own metadata, such as the superblock and inode tables, onto the disk. This process is called "writing the file system's internal data."
4. Initializing block allocation: ext4 uses a technique called "block allocation" to manage free space on the drive. When you format the drive with ext4, it initializes this mechanism by allocating blocks for future use.
5. Performing disk checks (optional): Depending on your Linux distribution and the `mkfs.ext4` command options used during formatting, there might be additional disk checks performed to ensure the integrity of the file system.

These activities are normal and necessary to create a functional ext4 file system on a fresh drive. The "activity" you're observing is likely due to one or more of these processes running in the background as the file system initializes itself.

Keep in mind that some of this activity might be visible through tools like `dmesg` (kernel messages) or `fsck` (file system check), which can provide detailed information about what's happening during the initialization process.

OzarkEdge said:
Another good reason to not trust router storage with your data.

/snark

OE
Expectations need to be modified and you'll be fine. Like with a plastic or steel knife.


[System] You are a professional Wi-Fi router support assistant; I will provide forum posts as background material, and you should learn from them while remaining aware that forum content may be incomplete, outdated, or incorrect — when uncertain, explicitly note that you are uncertain and refer the user to official documentation or other authoritative sources for verification.

[User]
Title: I can still access my router via a deregistered DDNS

Hi,

I just deregistered a DDNS on my ASUS 6000 gaming router, and I can still access my routers GUI via the deregistered domain name. (DDNS)

I wonder if it is bc it takes a couple of days before the cached DNS will take effect?

I have turned DDNS off both from the APP and the browser.

I followed these instrctions:

[ASUS DDNS] How do I remove the registered DDNS name from my previous ASUS router? | Official Support | ASUS Global

Thanks!

[Assistant]
If you have a way to change your WAN IP (depending on ISP connection type) the old DDNS record will become unusable right away.

If your concern is that your router GUI is accessible via WAN, you need to disable the GUI being made available via WAN interface. Otherwise it will still be open via browsing to your IP even after your DDNS gets de-registered. You need to set the GUI settings to only be accessible via the LAN if that's what you want.


[System] You are a professional Wi-Fi router support assistant; I will provide forum posts as background material, and you should learn from them while remaining aware that forum content may be incomplete, outdated, or incorrect — when uncertain, explicitly note that you are uncertain and refer the user to official documentation or other authoritative sources for verification.

[User]
Title: AP v AiMesh?

I have GT-AX6000 as main router and RT-AX58U as node (connected via MoCA ethernet). I had it setup in AiMesh. I checked with ChatGPT and asked best optimization configuration and it suggested to put the RT-AX58U in "AP" mode. I did that and it seems to be better. What is the difference between AiMesh and AP mode if any? Thanks

[Assistant]
BeachGuy said:
What is the difference between AiMesh and AP mode if any?

Check with ChatGPT.

Tech9 said:
Check with ChatGPT.
It gave me a list of reasons such as less overhead communicating the AiMesh stuff but I was wondering from the "experts" on here and if anybody has an opinion on it. Why would ASUS even have that functionality if AP mode is better?

BeachGuy said:
I have GT-AX6000 as main router and RT-AX58U as node (connected via MoCA ethernet). I had it setup in AiMesh. I checked with ChatGPT and asked best optimization configuration and it suggested to put the RT-AX58U in "AP" mode. I did that and it seems to be better. What is the difference between AiMesh and AP mode if any? Thanks
Im sure this has been asked before multiple times....Check out this thread:

Disadvantages of Access Points vs, AiMesh
What would be the disadvantages of setting up my ASUS Zenwifi XT8 router and node as access points? I suppose that would not permit it to be setup as a Mesh network? What about Guest Wifi network? I’m assuming guests would only be able to connect to the primary router?
www.snbforums.com


[System] You are a professional Wi-Fi router support assistant; I will provide forum posts as background material, and you should learn from them while remaining aware that forum content may be incomplete, outdated, or incorrect — when uncertain, explicitly note that you are uncertain and refer the user to official documentation or other authoritative sources for verification.

[User]
Title: Asus XT9 WAN question

I'm thinking about how to speed up the backhaul from 1G to 2.5G to 2 Ethernet connected XT9 mesh satellites.
In the manual I found an option to use LAN3 (1G) as a new WAN, then connect a 2.5G switch to the original 2.5G WAN port to which the backhauls of 2 nodes + a 1G link would go.
The manual describes how to set up a dual WAN, with one option being to set LAN3 as the primary WAN and USB as the secondary. I don't intend to connect anything to the USB port. Will this work? My internet plan is 1000/300.

[Assistant]
Sure, it would work and you are more than welcome to try it (always good to try new things).

However, unless the cable used for the Ethernet backhaul is a tested CAT 5e or better you may experience connectivity issues. My AX86U Pro and AX86U have 2.5 GB ports and I have had problems maintaining a full bandwidth connection especially when I select the Ethernet backhaul mode. Often the node would go completely off line and with the WIFI backhaul disabled the node would loose connection.

And I ask: Why do you need a backhaul tha exceeds the WAN connection bandwidth? 1 GB is adequate for most home network use. Keep it simple...don't change things!

Thanks for your reply.
The cabling (cat5e) should be fine, as the 2.5G switch connecting the two nodes reports a 2.5G speed, as does the GUI, and another connection to a 1G switch reports as 1G.
What's wrong with wanting a higher backhaul speed?
I was just hoping for a simpler solution as enabling dual WAN with unknown consequence's.

If the use case is just traffic out to the internet, then having faster backhaul gains you nothing except a traffic jam at the slowest device in the pipeline. Of course that is what buffers are for to a limited extent. If the use case is communicating with a server on your internal LAN, then yes, having faster backhaul can make that feel "snappier" if the server can keep up (internal storage transfer speed is one issue). If the use case is editing video to and from network attached storage, then you want the fastest possible LAN including all switches and cabling as well as the storage..


[System] You are a professional Wi-Fi router support assistant; I will provide forum posts as background material, and you should learn from them while remaining aware that forum content may be incomplete, outdated, or incorrect — when uncertain, explicitly note that you are uncertain and refer the user to official documentation or other authoritative sources for verification.

[User]
Title: Asus BE96U Initial setup

I have upgraded to the Asus RT BE96U from the RT AC5300 I use just under 70 Manually assigned IP Addresses. I entered these as well as about 25 Port forwarded devices. I have noticed that I am now at 62% Memory at 1263 MB That is about twice of my old 5300 with the Mac Filter List completed.. about 25 entries. My Question
1. Have I done something wrong to create high memory useage?
2. I can not locate the Mac Filtering list under Wi Fi....There is no Header for it!
3. I have used the Merlin Firmware on my 5300 for Years.... am I correct that there is not one available at this point for the RT BE96U?
4. I have on this router 2 lan10G ports... can I use them to connect to my 2 main switches which are only Gig switches.?
My devices consist mostly IP Cameras..Sonos & Google speakers and the usual tablets & phones. at most 2 users sometimes. Cat 5e & 6a wiring.

Firmware 3006.102.37038

Any help is appreciated.

[Assistant]
waldo142 said:
3. I have used the Merlin Firmware on my 5300 for Years.... am I correct that there is not one available at this point for the RT BE96U?
The Asus-Merlin supported routers are listed on the Asus Merlin website:
Home | Asuswrt-Merlin
www.asuswrt-merlin.net
RT-BE96U 3006.102.2_2
Asuswrt-Merlin - Browse /RT-BE96U/Release at SourceForge.net
Alternative firmware for Asus wireless routers
sourceforge.net
Release - Asuswrt-Merlin 3006.102.2 is now available for Wifi 7 devices
Asuswrt-Merlin 3006.102.2 is now available for Wifi 7 devices. This release adds support for the RT-BE86U and RT-BE88U, changes the behaviour of the VPN killswitch, and fixes a number of issues present in 3006.102.1. Note that the RT-BE86U and RT-BE88U are based on separate GPL versions, and...
www.snbforums.com

waldo142 said:
1. Have I done something wrong to create high memory useage?

No, your new router has different hardware, run on different firmware and needs more RAM. The reason it comes with 2GB RAM.


[System] You are a professional Wi-Fi router support assistant; I will provide forum posts as background material, and you should learn from them while remaining aware that forum content may be incomplete, outdated, or incorrect — when uncertain, explicitly note that you are uncertain and refer the user to official documentation or other authoritative sources for verification.

[User]
Title: Asus ET12 all devices connecting to just one node

Hi, does anyone have any idea why my clients are connecting to just one node? Is this because that one has still enough range?

How to fix this? I have like 25 devices in house and 22 of them are connected to the main router.

[Assistant]
Are you using ethernet backhaul or wireless backhaul ?

That load should not be an issue for the single wifi router. The client determines where it wants to connect.

The first thing to do is make a wireless strength map where each of the clients are located. Turn off the second wifi router.
Use something like Apple's Airport Utility and change in settings to allow wifi scan. Do a 20 sec scan at each wifi client. Write down the signal strength at each location, channel number, for each SSID visible. Record for both 2.4GHz and 5 GHz and 6 GHz ( if you have) . Ignore any below -75 dB
Wire as many of the clients as you can with ethernet cables.

The issue is most likely on the 2.4 GHz band since it penetrates walls better. Reduce the TX power to the lowest possible setting on the main wireless router.
Go back and do the survey. See who drops below -65 to -67 dB

If all the clients see -67 dB or higher (smaller number) in the original survey , then you probably don't need the second wireless router at all. Set your 2.4 GHz channel width to 20 MHz or 20/40 if no interference from neighbors. Set the 5 GHz channel to 80 MHz or lower. Call it a day.

The solution for me was: https://www.snbforums.com/threads/et12-all-guest-iot-devices-go-to-main-router.91284/#post-937369

rsnhakan said:
The solution for me was: https://www.snbforums.com/threads/et12-all-guest-iot-devices-go-to-main-router.91284/#post-937369
You are welcome!


[System] You are a professional Wi-Fi router support assistant; I will provide forum posts as background material, and you should learn from them while remaining aware that forum content may be incomplete, outdated, or incorrect — when uncertain, explicitly note that you are uncertain and refer the user to official documentation or other authoritative sources for verification.

[User]
Title: Aimesh with a mix of devices - reduced functionality?

I have an Aimesh which includes a Zenwifi ET12 AiMesh router, and an RT-AX88U Pro and Zenwifi AX AiMesh nodes. It seems that the WiFi 6E band of the ET12 router and the USB port functionality on the RT-AX88U Pro are not available. Is this as expected? Anything I should confirm?

[Assistant]
tokyo_networking said:
I have an Aimesh which includes a Zenwifi ET12 AiMesh router, and an RT-AX88U Pro and Zenwifi AX AiMesh nodes. It seems that the WiFi 6E band of the ET12 router and the USB port functionality on the RT-AX88U Pro are not available. Is this as expected? Anything I should confirm?
It has been noted that some functions are lost with a mix of routers and nodes in AiMesh. One solution is to use the nodes as AP's. Are all your devices up to date with firmware?


[System] You are a professional Wi-Fi router support assistant; I will provide forum posts as background material, and you should learn from them while remaining aware that forum content may be incomplete, outdated, or incorrect — when uncertain, explicitly note that you are uncertain and refer the user to official documentation or other authoritative sources for verification.

[User]
Title: CES 2025

CES 2025 Countown Ticker for January

Source:
Always Incredible｜CES 2025 ASUS Online Launch Event｜ASUS
Discover how ASUS is redefining and democratizing AI at CES 2025, unveiling a groundbreaking lineup of more affordable Copilot+ PCs to make AI for everyone, everywhere.
www.asus.com

[Assistant]
At Asus now AI means Always Incredible? Like SDN means Self-Defined Network?

Like Microsoft, everything is going into the cloud sooner or later..
..from this Board (XenForo) wich maybe costs arround 180$ for a single license for a year, without the cloud i think ?!

Cloud Website costs would be arround 60$ for a month, still one of the best providers but a lot of money which sleeps through the hands,
even if 6 users donate 10$ every month, even with the ADs wich makes arround 20-30$ a month.

I personally would move to a better or board software, even Woltlab has better board software with cronjobs and free plugins.
Also, I mean "snbforums.com" and Higgins "smallnetbuilders.com" are not the same ?, and if they would provide a Board, and Website together (with a amazon link to get paid),
it would be cheaper as they pay twice, if I regoniced it right (german, sorry for my bad english) ?

Like you said Tech9, there are better Options from Free Boards Software and the Users on this Board are giving me right when I need to say MERLIN is
one of the best in coding and with`in it his freetime it`s worth every cent in my eyes !

Would love to spend 10$ every month, that`s peanuts for everything MERLIN is looking into !

PR3MIUM said:
Like you said Tech9

Are you sure the post above belongs to this thread?


[System] You are a professional Wi-Fi router support assistant; I will provide forum posts as background material, and you should learn from them while remaining aware that forum content may be incomplete, outdated, or incorrect — when uncertain, explicitly note that you are uncertain and refer the user to official documentation or other authoritative sources for verification.

[User]
Title: Merlin bandwidth limiter over-limiting: GT-AX11000-Pro with Merlin 3004.388.8_4

I have 1.2G-down/40M-up Xfinity service with a GT-AX11000-Pro router with Merlin 3004.388.8_4. I know that at those speeds Cake will overload the cpu. Hence I’m using the QoS bandwidth limiter.

I have my machine on Ethernet connected directly to the router. The bandwidth limit is set to 1000/35.

Yet I’m getting consistently around 370/34. Why?
If I disable QoS I get full speed. I’ve tried different Ethernet cables and different Ethernet-USB adapters (my MacBook Pro doesn’t have an Ethernet port) and different USB-C ports.

[Assistant]
Bandwidth limiter, traditional QoS, and CAKE all require HW acceleration to be disabled to be effective. That’s why your rates suffer.

OK next question. Is there a way to shut off hw acceleration?

ssm1234 said:
OK next question. Is there a way to shut off hw acceleration?
It is shut off when those QoS types are enabled. Only Adaptive QoS works while HW acceleration is active.


[System] You are a professional Wi-Fi router support assistant; I will provide forum posts as background material, and you should learn from them while remaining aware that forum content may be incomplete, outdated, or incorrect — when uncertain, explicitly note that you are uncertain and refer the user to official documentation or other authoritative sources for verification.

[User]
Title: AX86U changing channel no wifi?

If I change my channel on the 5Ghz band (to 116) I get no wifi on 5Ghz but 2.4Ghz works.
When I set it back to auto it works again.
Latest Asus firmware

[Assistant]
How long did you wait for the channel to appear? If you're in the EU it will take 10 minutes, most other places only 1 minute.

Thanks, I'm in EU it took about 10 minutes. I've done it a few weeks back when the change happened instantly.

Polle said:
Thanks, I'm in EU it took about 10 minutes. I've done it a few weeks back when the change happened instantly.
Not all of the channels have the 10 minute wait time, only those effected by weather radar. It's likely you were using a different channel before, or the router had already monitored the radar channels prior to your change.


[System] You are a professional Wi-Fi router support assistant; I will provide forum posts as background material, and you should learn from them while remaining aware that forum content may be incomplete, outdated, or incorrect — when uncertain, explicitly note that you are uncertain and refer the user to official documentation or other authoritative sources for verification.

[User]
Title: How to route VPN clients through VPN local DNS address

ProtonVPN uses local IP address 10.2.0.1 for its WireGuard clients. How do I force ASUS RT-AX86U Pro router's VPN Fusion clients to use such DNS IP? If my guest VLAN subnet gateway is 172.16.0.1/12 and I enable DNS forwarding, then using 172.16.0.1/12 for guest VLAN DNS does not result in DNS being forwarded through WireGuard tunnel. I can use custom DNS on each clients' device on 172.16.0.1/12 VLAN subnet, but VPN providers sometimes route clients through reserved IP ranges accessible only through their VPN and VPN DNS servers in order to unlock services that typically dislike VPN, such as Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime Video, etc. NordVPN does that kind of routing has specific DNS addresses (103.86.96.100 and 103.86.99.100). ProtonVPN does not use reserved ranges for routing for public IP, but ProtonVPN does not have any kind of non-local DNS server address...

[Assistant]
Morning.

You don't provide info about your firmware or model router.

In my case, I solved the issue going to LAN -> DNS Director, and tweaking there my own preferred values.

As you can see in my signature, I'm using Asus Wrt Merlin.

Regards.

ASUS RT-AX86U Pro with stock 3.0.0.6 firmware, but waiting for Merlin's release after recent good news regarding ETA.


[System] You are a professional Wi-Fi router support assistant; I will provide forum posts as background material, and you should learn from them while remaining aware that forum content may be incomplete, outdated, or incorrect — when uncertain, explicitly note that you are uncertain and refer the user to official documentation or other authoritative sources for verification.

[User]
Title: RT-AC86U Connecting to mobile hotspot?

Due to personal circumstances I am temporarily (6 months or so) moving to a house without any broadband connection.

Currently I am using my phone as portable hotspot but it's a bit of a pain as I want to regularly connect a few devices (console, smart tv, a couple of laptops etc.)
Is there any way I can connect my ASUS router (RT-AC86U) to my phone or mobile data package?

I know I could buy another sim such as smarty and a dongle but looking to minimise costs at the moment.

[Assistant] Connect the phone to the router with a USB cable. The router has USB teathering installed.


[System] You are a professional Wi-Fi router support assistant; I will provide forum posts as background material, and you should learn from them while remaining aware that forum content may be incomplete, outdated, or incorrect — when uncertain, explicitly note that you are uncertain and refer the user to official documentation or other authoritative sources for verification.

[User]
Title: AiMesh - ASUS Gt-AX6000 and ASUS ExpertWiFi

I have a ASUS Gt-AX6000 as my main router and it works fine, I am planning to add a new node as AIMesh and also planning to wire/power my ip cameras with PoE. It seems ASUS ExpertWiFi EBG19P or even ASUS ExpertWiFi EBP15 would fit perfectly, adding a new node to the network + the PoE feature.

Now the question is, is this possible to mix ExpertWiFi with other "common" ASUS router using AIMesh?
this link to the ASUS ExpertWiFi EBG19P says it could be used as node with no further details

but this other for ASUS ExpertWiFi EBP15 says it needs a ExpertWifi router only, that ASUS Gt-AX6000 is not, perhaps the EBG19P missed to add this information

Now the question is, can I mix my ASUS Gt-AX6000 with ASUS ExpertWiFi (any of them) to create AIMesh?

[Assistant] Just get a PoE switch for your cameras. Make IoT Network from Guest Network Pro features, assign a LAN port to it, connect your PoE switch there. Hopefully it works on your router because we have reports it doesn't on other models. 3006 firmware is not ready for prime time yet. Don't mix consumer RT/GT with "business" ExpertWiFi, nothing is guaranteed to work. If it works now Asus may restrict it in the future separating the product lines.


[System] You are a professional Wi-Fi router support assistant; I will provide forum posts as background material, and you should learn from them while remaining aware that forum content may be incomplete, outdated, or incorrect — when uncertain, explicitly note that you are uncertain and refer the user to official documentation or other authoritative sources for verification.

[User]
Title: Asus ax86u pro

Ok, first timer here and I thank you all in advance. I want to upgrade my router and have been eyeing the ax86u, but since the ax86u pro is newer, I am now eyeing that. Of course I was reading reviews and noticed the asus malware thread and am wondering few things… if I get the router, am I automatically going to be enabling this “malware” by setting it up with its current firmware from an out of box state, prior to running a firmware update? I hope that makes sense.

[Assistant]
Asus has released updated firmware to supposedly plug the malware vulnerability with the AiCloud feature. The vulneratibly is generally just a broadband (WAN) exploitable hole. Its simple, don't enable AiCloud features when you first setup the router and before updating the firmware. Otherwise just setup the router as normal then update the firmware on it. If you are really worried about it, download the router firmware to a computer first, don't connect the broadband to the Asus router, connect the computer to the router then setup the router and perform a firmware upgrade. Then connect the WAN. Use the forum search if you haven't done so already. Plenty of discussion on the malware and ways to prevent it.
Malware damaging ASUS routers?
This malware damaging Asus routers has to be described in a sticky thread with a warning sign! Update: Asus is releasing patched firmware for multiple models. Check for firmware updates! The changelog for most firmware releases contains the following: 1. Strengthened input validation and data...
www.snbforums.com
Release - RT-AX86U_Pro : 3.0.0.6.102_34334 2024/11/06
ASUS RT-AX86U Pro Firmware version 3.0.0.6.102_34334 Version 3.0.0.6.102_34334 58.23 MB 2024/11/06 1. Strengthened input validation and data processing workflows to further protect information security. 2. Enhanced AiCloud password protection mechanisms, safeguarding...
www.snbforums.com
Release - Asuswrt-Merlin 3004.388.8_4 is now available
Asuswrt-Merlin 3004.388.8_4 is now available for all Wifi 6 models. 3004.388.8_4 (17-Nov-2024) - CHANGED: VPN killswitch will now only be active if the VPN client itself is enabled. If you stop/start the client yourself over SSH, you need to also...
www.snbforums.com

Thank you, I’ve read a lot about it on the other post but the info gets “lost “page after page! Normally I would connect to to the router, change admin credentials update firmware then reset it to factory, if that’s not enough that’s awful, I mean 95% of people wouldn’t even think about stuff like this and set it up from scratch.

I remember a windows desktop that would get popups immediately when connecting to the internet prior to updating to the latest service pack, hopefully this is not the case

Just boot the router, go through the QIS setup, then update the firmware to the latest on the router's GUI Administration > Firmware Update page. Generally the AiCloud features should be disabled by default when first setting up the router.


[System] You are a professional Wi-Fi router support assistant; I will provide forum posts as background material, and you should learn from them while remaining aware that forum content may be incomplete, outdated, or incorrect — when uncertain, explicitly note that you are uncertain and refer the user to official documentation or other authoritative sources for verification.

[User]
Title: Different speed?

My main router used to be the AX86U, but now it’s the AX86U Pro. I use the AC68U as a media bridge, to which my computer is connected. I decided to test the AX86U as a media bridge. Before the malware situation, I used to see speeds of 400+ Mbps on my AC68U.

Now, I’m wondering why I’m no longer getting 400+ Mbps speeds with the AC68U unless I connect directly to the AX86U.

Hope that makes sense.

[Assistant]
ohbreeeezy said:
My main router used to be the AX86U, but now it’s the AX86U Pro. I use the AC68U as a media bridge, to which my computer is connected. I decided to test the AX86U as a media bridge. Before the malware situation, I used to see speeds of 400+ Mbps on my AC68U.

Now, I’m wondering why I’m no longer getting 400+ Mbps speeds with the AC68U unless I connect directly to the AX86U.

Hope that makes sense.

Click to expand...

I wonder... did you test the AC68U bridge with the AX86U bridge turned OFF?

OE

Yes I have.

Now I'm not sure if I actually did a speed test on the AC68U when we switched over to 500 (we had 200 before). I only did an internet speed test on the ASUS website.

You can't just do a single run with the Ookla speedtest though, as it has too high variability.
Try something like iPerf instead, it should be part of the new firmwares on the AX models at least, but you have to SSH in to the router to run it.


[System] You are a professional Wi-Fi router support assistant; I will provide forum posts as background material, and you should learn from them while remaining aware that forum content may be incomplete, outdated, or incorrect — when uncertain, explicitly note that you are uncertain and refer the user to official documentation or other authoritative sources for verification.

[User]
Title: Bought AX88U Pro need AP suggestions

Just pulled the trigger on the 88 pro to replace my dual AC 68P (One as an AP). Plan to run the 88 as a router with wifi off

Should I just get another cheap router that does Wi-Fi 6 and run it in AP mode? I don't really care about mesh; this will be ethernet. If there's another Asus to get that seems to work, can someone recommend one?

[Assistant]
Any Asus router would do, why do you not want to use the AX88U Pro wifi?

You can use your old routers as AP's, using a wired backhaul from the 88. On each node you can configure the channels to use and use the same wifi name (SSID) and password.

If you want something faster than your old AC routers: get a 2nd hand AX or BE router from Asus and use that as an AP. Then again, AC is still rather fast, just no WPA3 though so a bit more vulnerable on that front, nevertheless, a lot of clients also do not support WPA3

workingStorage said:
Just pulled the trigger on the 88 pro to replace my dual AC 68P (One as an AP). Plan to run the 88 as a router with wifi off

One AX88U Pro could actually "replace" your two AC68Us. Can't say without knowing what your network requirements are.

workingStorage said:
Should I just get another cheap router that does Wi-Fi 6 and run it in AP mode? I don't really care about mesh; this will be ethernet. If there's another Asus to get that seems to work, can someone recommend one?

If you don't really care, just get whatever you want and wire it to your new router as an AP like you've been doing. Done.

OE

Ah, sorry.

I have an AC68P currently in the basement with 4 ethernet cables coming out - one upstairs to tv, one upstairs to the other AC68P which is acting as an AP on floor 1, one upstairs to an office, and one downstairs for the PC's there.

I don't actually need wireless in the basement (yet), so I figured I'd turn WIFI off on that router and replace the AC68p that's the current access point with something that could do wifi6 clients (like my Pixel 6, etc).

I was wondering if it mattered what AP I got there, and if it operated independently of the router handling DHCP (Which I presume I'd have my 88U do).

Am I missing anything basic?


[System] You are a professional Wi-Fi router support assistant; I will provide forum posts as background material, and you should learn from them while remaining aware that forum content may be incomplete, outdated, or incorrect — when uncertain, explicitly note that you are uncertain and refer the user to official documentation or other authoritative sources for verification.

[User]
Title: How to hide WiFi passwords and WireGuard keys in ASUS GUI?

ASUS router GUI has a major issue of displaying WiFi passwords in cleartext when performing mouse clicks in WiFi password field. It keeps WiFi passwords masked with asterisks (*), but the act of clicking in that field unmasks password characters. That makes it impossible to paste a new password into that field without at least some characters unmasked... That's a security/privacy issue as anyone walking by can learn some secrets that way.

VPN Fusion WireGuard profile fields don't hide private keys at all. They are displays in cleartext without being masked with asterisks (*). Just about every site and password-management application out there hides passwords with asterisks. Its a good default practice.

How can I make WiFi passwords masked with asterisks at all times and do the same for WireGuard private keys? Does Merlin firmware have an option for that?

[Assistant]
SDF07S said:
ASUS router GUI has a major issue of displaying WiFi passwords in cleartext when performing mouse clicks in WiFi password field. It keeps WiFi passwords masked with asterisks (*), but the act of clicking in that field unmasks password characters. That makes it impossible to paste a new password into that field without at least some characters unmasked... That's a security/privacy issue as anyone walking by can learn some secrets that way.
Click to expand...

For the WLAN passwords, get in and get out... shifting focus with tab or cursor hides them fast enough.

OE


[System] You are a professional Wi-Fi router support assistant; I will provide forum posts as background material, and you should learn from them while remaining aware that forum content may be incomplete, outdated, or incorrect — when uncertain, explicitly note that you are uncertain and refer the user to official documentation or other authoritative sources for verification.

[User]
Title: Mesh but wired?

Hi,

I have a RT-AX86U running Merlin. Soon I’ll have access to a second one.

I have a switch which I can use to hook up the second router, and I know I can run it in AP mode. But can I create a proper Mesh network this way? So one ssid which devices will use and switch between the router one and the AP one? Or will that thing happen were one device will keep using the further away AP?

That’s what can happen if you just blindly set the same ssid/password right? But AI Mesh is only for wireless right? Not a wired backhaul? Or is it?

Thanks!

[Assistant]
If you read the user guide and many of the threads here you will discover you can use ethernet backhaul in AiMesh. This is useful for devices that do not have a dedicated radio for backhaul. You can also repurpose the second device as an AP (AP mode). This is not "AiMesh", but traditional single router + APs. The switch is also available so the ethernet ports are active when in AP mode for devices that can be hardwired with ethernet cable.

Just to add to the first reply - Yes you can use Ethernet backhaul. But, if you have a switch in between the router and AiMesh node it should be an unmanaged switch. You can use a managed switch in between but you would have to set up VLAN on the switch and get the settings right.

@vmachiel
[AiMesh] Can I set up wired connection between AiMesh routers (Ethernet backhaul)? | Official Support | ASUS Global


[System] You are a professional Wi-Fi router support assistant; I will provide forum posts as background material, and you should learn from them while remaining aware that forum content may be incomplete, outdated, or incorrect — when uncertain, explicitly note that you are uncertain and refer the user to official documentation or other authoritative sources for verification.

[User]
Title: RT AX88u pro | 2.4GHz Band Disconnecting Clients Until the Network Fails

I experienced the same issue with an AX82U router and replaced it (after consulting with ASUS) with an AX88U Pro, but the problem persists.
Typically, one client keeps disconnecting and reconnecting every few seconds until the entire 2.4GHz band fails.
When I disconnected the problematic client from the network, the issue started happening with another client.
Seems it's likely an issue with the Asus router itself.
I've come across many posts reporting the same problem, but there doesn't seem to be a definitive solution.
I've tried almost everything: adjusting every possible setting, moving the client to a separate IoT network, but nothing has worked.
The 5Ghz network works fine.

Frustrating :|

[Assistant]
It may help provide context if you include your RT-AX88U Pro firmware version. Your Wireless settings, the WiFi client that is having the issue and if you are using a Guest Network (or Guest Network Pro).

Firmware Version:3.0.0.6.102_33340
The clients are different, it's a boiler smart switch and once I disconnected it I got the same behaviour for my robot vacuum (dreame x40 ultra), i didn't try to disconnect both to see if it goes on.

Guest Network Pro.

For the settings I tried various different settings, today I changed the Channel bandwidth to 20Mhz to see if it helps

For 2.4 use Channel 1, 6, or 11. Preamble type: short, disable TX bursting. Disable Universal Beamforming.


[System] You are a professional Wi-Fi router support assistant; I will provide forum posts as background material, and you should learn from them while remaining aware that forum content may be incomplete, outdated, or incorrect — when uncertain, explicitly note that you are uncertain and refer the user to official documentation or other authoritative sources for verification.

[User]
Title: Some wireless devices are unreachable from clients but are reachable from the router itself

Hi all, I'm recently having a weird issue with my ax88u and I don't even know where to begin diagnosing it.

Most of my IOT devices like Shelly and Reolink cameras are usually unreachable by devices in my network.
They sometimes are reachable, especially after a router restart but most of the time they're not. Ping doesn't work from clients in the network however if I ping the unreachable devices from the Asus UI I always get a ping back so the devices are in fact online and operating, this is also confirmed by the fact that I can reach them remotely if I don't block their wan access
Any idea what I should be checking to solve this?

[Assistant]
It may help if you include the firmware running on the router.
Are the problematic devices on the Guest Network?
Are you using VPN?
Have you assigned manual IP addresses for the problematic WiFi devices?
Does rebooting help?
What other troubleshooting steps have you tried?

If you haven't done so already, use the forum search feature and search the forum. There are a number of past discussions on "Shelly" devices having WiFi issues with Asus routers.

bennor said:
It may help if you include the firmware running on the router.
Are the problematic devices on the Guest Network?
Are you using VPN?
Have you assigned manual IP addresses for the problematic WiFi devices?
Does rebooting help?
What other troubleshooting steps have you tried?

If you haven't done so already, use the forum search feature and search the forum. There are a number of past discussions on "Shelly" devices having WiFi issues with Asus routers.
Click to expand...
I'm running Merlin 3004.388.8_4
The problematic devices are in the regular 2.4GHz network, they're not in the guest network.
I'm not using a VPN
All problematic devices have manually assigned IPs. None of my IOT devices have DHCP assigned addresses
Yes, rebooting helps but only for an hour or two
I've tried a factory reset and restoring from a backup, I've tried disabling parental control and making sure the iptables rules have no drop rules for said devices but other than that I'm not quite sure where to look.

I gave Shelly as an example but as stated it happens with all of my IOT devices, including Reolink cameras and some tuya wifi switches - they're all pingable and reachable from the router itself but not from any client within the network.

EDIT: Looks like a restart no longer helps the situation

Is the setting for Auto channel selection on for the 2.4GHz bands ?
If so, try manually setting it , re-boot, and see if the behavior changes.


[System] You are a professional Wi-Fi router support assistant; I will provide forum posts as background material, and you should learn from them while remaining aware that forum content may be incomplete, outdated, or incorrect — when uncertain, explicitly note that you are uncertain and refer the user to official documentation or other authoritative sources for verification.

[User]
Title: Need SSH-customizable security-oriented router with strong firmware, drivers, and kernel support

Hi,

I need a security-oriented WiFi 6E/7 router with 1/2.5/10Gbps Ethernet ports for home that meets the following criteria:
- Capable of creating Layer-2-Isolated VLAN's for 4+ LAN clients
- Capable of creating Layer-2-Isolated VLAN's for 4+ WLAN clients
- Allows for SSH-based cusotmizations, such as wiriting, saving, and applying custom IPTables, EBTables, and/or ARPTables
- Allows for SSH-based customizations to execute on boot via a script with assumption there is some guidance on how to do that
- Allows for disablement of sending any and all telemetry to router maker/manufacturer or whichever 3rd party, which should be each to accomplish with custom IPTables
- No in-bound traffic is to be allowed onto the router itself from WAN, which should be easy to accomplish with custom IPTables
- Continued strong support from router makers in regards to firmware, hardware drivers, and kernel
- Allow application of router firmware updates and router application updates manually via SSH
- Preferably follows strict secure design where each internal application runs in user mode and in its own container/sandbox
- Preferably can run DNSCrypt-Proxy, and/or OpenVPN, and/or WireGuard for all clients

I don't care for AI features, meshes, throughput-improveming traffic schedulers, and intrusion prevision systems because none of the clients host for LAN or WAN and each client exclusively uses OpenVPN and/or WireGuard VPN.

My threat model involves those who are able to get past any SNORT and/or SURICATA based intrusion system and prefer to exploit hardware via drivers and other low level methods, with which I am not familiar. That is why "Continued strong support from router makers in regards to hardware drivers and kernel" is very important to me.

[Assistant]
Your question is phrased in such a way that it sounds like you're viewing this from an Asus owner's point of view, and you've posted it in the Asus forum. No Asus router will provide you with what you want. You should be looking at Linux/BSD based solutions (e.g. OPNsense, pfSense, etc. ) for the router together with separate access points for Wi-Fi.

SDF07S said:
I need a security-oriented WiFi 6E router

Posting this in ASUS Wireless forum - I'm afraid none from Asus, unless you want to play beta tester with Wi-Fi 7 products.

RT-AXE7800 - weak hardware, weak 2x2 Wi-Fi 6E radio, no Asuswrt 5.0 support, no 3rd party firmware support
GT-AXE11000 - old hardware, no Asuswrt 5.0 support, Asuswrt-Merlin on Asuswrt 4.0 base, will get EOL perhaps first
GT-AXE16000 - expensive with slow firmware support, no Asuswrt 5.0 support yet, Asuswrt-Merlin on Asuswrt 4.0 base
ZenWiFi Pro ET12 - expensive with slow firmware support, no Asuswrt 5.0 support yet, no 3rd party firmware support yet

With such requirements I would look at x86 hardware running pfSense with switching and access point whatever you prefer.

SDF07S said:
My threat model involves those who are able to get past any SNORT and/or SURICATA based intrusion system

It's basically anything encrypted Snort/Suricata can't see. Includes all HTTPS and VPN traffic. If you want to inspect SSL you need a proxy like Squid, but some surprises are waiting along the way. No home router can do it for Gigabit with the processing power and RAM available even in high-end models. It has to be fast enough x86 core CPU or multicore IPS/IDS on more power-efficient options. It won't be very user friendly nor cheap solution.


[System] You are a professional Wi-Fi router support assistant; I will provide forum posts as background material, and you should learn from them while remaining aware that forum content may be incomplete, outdated, or incorrect — when uncertain, explicitly note that you are uncertain and refer the user to official documentation or other authoritative sources for verification.

[User]
Title: Better 3 BE98 or 2 BQ16?

Hello, I'm about to activate a 10Gb connection, I wanted to know if in your opinion (as for speed, coverage, settings, etc) it is better to have 1 GT-BE98 as a router and 2 BQ16 to use as satellites connected in backhaul via cable or better to have 3 GT-BE98 all connected in backhaul via cable?
I read that BQ16 take a long time to reboot.
There is Black Friday and I found the be98 at a great price.

Thanks in advance

[Assistant]
Whirlo said:
I'm about to activate a 10Gb connection

What is the purpose and expectations from this 10Gbps connection?

Where is it going after the ONT and the first WAN port, to what wired or wireless clients?

Tech9 said:
What is the purpose and expectations from this 10Gbps connection?

Where is it going after the ONT and the first WAN port, to what wired or wireless clients?
Work (on cloud) very large files, etc. It doesn't matter. What I would like to know is if there is a difference between wiring 3 be98 or a be98 as a router and 2 bq16 (all this on 3 floors of the house)

For best results get identical hardware units. They will have identical radios and the firmware will be the same and updated at the same time.


[System] You are a professional Wi-Fi router support assistant; I will provide forum posts as background material, and you should learn from them while remaining aware that forum content may be incomplete, outdated, or incorrect — when uncertain, explicitly note that you are uncertain and refer the user to official documentation or other authoritative sources for verification.

[User]
Title: RT-AX88U Pro admin console and Safari

Hi team,

I've recently upgraded to macOS Sequoia and have found that I now get "Cannot parse response NSURLErrorDomain:1,017" when I try to access the router admin console via Safari (v18.0) (same issue with IOS), works fine in Chrome. If I clear the browser cache I can access the console, but it seems to be a malformed console and then gives the error when I logout.

Is anyone else having any issues with Safari?

[Assistant]
WildWeasel109 said:
Hi team,

I've recently upgraded to macOS Sequoia and have found that I now get "Cannot parse response NSURLErrorDomain:1,017" when I try to access the router admin console via Safari (v18.0) (same issue with IOS), works fine in Chrome. If I clear the browser cache I can access the console, but it seems to be a malformed console and then gives the error when I logout.

Is anyone else having any issues with Safari?
Click to expand...
Is your router at 192.168.1.254? That's what you are trying to connect to. I believe default will be 192.168.50.1 or 192.168.1.1 unless you have changed it.

Hi, it’s been working for years. Only started failing after the macOS upgrade. It works if I clear the Safari cache.

I've had a discussion with Apple Support and provided loads of diagnostics, they've come back and stated that the issue is with the ASUS route. So reported to ASUS support and there response was reset the router. Did this and issue still exists, and they intro'd a new problem via a firmware update. I now cannot access the AiMesh settings (using any browsers).

Starting to think about a complete switch away from ASUS and to another brand....


[System] You are a professional Wi-Fi router support assistant; I will provide forum posts as background material, and you should learn from them while remaining aware that forum content may be incomplete, outdated, or incorrect — when uncertain, explicitly note that you are uncertain and refer the user to official documentation or other authoritative sources for verification.

[User]
Title: Solved WireGuard VPN issues on Asus Router

Hi all,

So, I am running a wireguard vpn on an asus router. Windows11 as a client. However, my IP mapped SMB folder will not connect. Nor can I ping the 192.168.1.22 IP address. However, when entering that IP in chrome I can see the self hosted software I run on it. I did a traceroute, and first of all it gets the hostname, 1st hop it shows 10.6.0.1 and after that, it times out.

I am completely out of ideas. What did I do wrong? Access Intranet is enabled in the router settings.

[Assistant]
It may add context if you provide your router model and firmware version running on the router.

Routify said:
I am completely out of ideas.

You have marked the thread as "Solved". Share your solution, someone else may have the same question. Thank you!


[System] You are a professional Wi-Fi router support assistant; I will provide forum posts as background material, and you should learn from them while remaining aware that forum content may be incomplete, outdated, or incorrect — when uncertain, explicitly note that you are uncertain and refer the user to official documentation or other authoritative sources for verification.

[User]
Title: Solved VLAN speed?

Hello, I noticed that on my Asus VLAN board, all 4 ports are green and showing 1GBPS but when I hover over two of them, one is 100MBPs and the other is 10MBPS. Is it because of the cable or the other end of the LAN cable? Thanks!

[Assistant]
Be careful with your Bs and bs . Model? Firmware? You can try a new cable. Sounds bug-ish to me.
Try a reboot.

Mercador said:
I noticed that on my Asus VLAN board

Is the connection speed on this VLAN page consistent with the port status on the main GUI page?

It's an RX-86 Pro, probably the cables, I'll change the two culprits and see if it changes anything. Moreover, my gaming PC got a 2.5Gbps port as well so I'll change that as well (Cat 6 is enough right?)


[System] You are a professional Wi-Fi router support assistant; I will provide forum posts as background material, and you should learn from them while remaining aware that forum content may be incomplete, outdated, or incorrect — when uncertain, explicitly note that you are uncertain and refer the user to official documentation or other authoritative sources for verification.

[User]
Title: New router: AX or BE if long time support (maintenance, FW updates, etc.) wanted?

How do you see it: in buying a new router, AX or BE generation router if long time support (firmwares etc.) wanted?

As we (wife and I) mainly work from home, with sensitive material (using company VPN's of course on our work-laptops) - a working, reliable, supported router is a must for us.
We have currently no direct need for Wifi7 nor wifi6E, but planning to add a new device and build a iMesh setup (RT-AX86U in use already) to better cover all house. Besides normal devices, we now have 30+ IoT devices in use and some have occasional signal problems.... Cellar being the worst area. So planning to get a new main-router and setting up a iMesh in our home with our "old" RT-AX86U in cellar.

Primarily now thinking AX86U Pro vs BE86U (or 88-models of these)

[Assistant]
AiMesh works the most reliably if identical hardware and firmware revisions are used for all nodes.
Wired backhaul instead of wired is usually most reliable, highest bandwidth. Wireless backhaul has best chance if using dedicated, additional radio.

If you need to isolate IOT devices from the rest of your lan/wireless equipment, then verify that your router, APs, AiMesh devices all support VLANs. Some IOT devices may have issues with using Guest wireless network if i remember correctly.

If you have or can install either CAT5e or CAT6 ethernet cabling, that will be the highest bandwidth, most reliable setup for AiMesh, APs , and connection to your laptops. Existing RG59 or RG6 coax cabling can be used to provide the same backbone using MOCA modems unless your ISP is using DocCIS 3.1 modems. If DocCIS3.1, then more difficult to do.

Well my original question still holds... Length of support I was asking for... and still am...

Got in another forum an interesting pointer that in UK vendors must tell how long they support devices at launch of product... and Asus has therefore a page for this
[Networking Product] Duration of Security Update Support (only for UK) | Official Support | ASUS Global
Worth noticing that this is just the minimum promise of support - it can be longer than this as well.
(And have to say that not seeing the RT-AX86U at all on this list is also worth noticing.)

And just for record: The IoT devices & wireless measurements I have attached to the guest network and they all work just fine - except that in cellar there are occasionally complaints about week signal. But I do get good signals from rest of premises, even our yard.

Unless declared or regulated, like in the UK, no way to tell. Consumer gear is generally 1 year warranty. Beyond that, up to the whim of the manufacturer regarding updates. AND they do not publish that unless required by regulation. So maybe you get 5 years in UK, but the US only 3 as a hypothetical example.


[System] You are a professional Wi-Fi router support assistant; I will provide forum posts as background material, and you should learn from them while remaining aware that forum content may be incomplete, outdated, or incorrect — when uncertain, explicitly note that you are uncertain and refer the user to official documentation or other authoritative sources for verification.

[User]
Title: RT-AX86u Wifi Stopped working Questions.

Hello,
First off I would like to say hello new to this forum but have done a lot of research on this forum for answers and more. Thanks

So here we go, I have a RT-AX86u running as my primary router, I have 2 RT-AC68U's running as wired access points off the primary router the AX86u.
The other day I could not log into the primary router the AX86U. So I had to do a hard reset.
Once I did the hard reset my wifi light never came back on but on the router homepage showed it running as normal with the correct SSID.
So tried to use the recovery rescue software from Asus still didn't work.
So after a lot of messing around found by looking in my log that my MTD10 partition was not present.
I read on other threads in the forum this has happened to others and mention someone who could maybe sort it out. I however decide to buy another router. We'll that was the plan.
Decided to set the AX86u up again this time after I setup the wireless information and the SSID I disabled both the 2.4ghz and the 5ghz wifi radios. I the connected my access points backup to the AX86U. Surprisingly everything worked with the wifi disabled on the AX86U. What I don't understand is why?
When you set up access points you match everything to the primary router except the wifi channels need to be different but if the wifi doesn't work as in my case how do the access points work? I also was very impressed the primary router wasn't so stressed as it was when the wifi worked. I would see spikes go really high where at some points the memory was maxed out. Any feedback would be great.
Also forgot to mention currently running Merlin RT-AX86U_3004_388.8_2.

[Assistant]
Sparkytech said:
When you set up access points you match everything to the primary router except the wifi channels need to be different but if the wifi doesn't work as in my case how do the access points work?

You already know from other threads your router was hit by malware. Wi-Fi on it won't work because of deleted and missing files. The AP is a separate device with good radios. It works properly as expected to a wired (in your case) router. APs don't have to have different SSID or channels. They can be the same as your main router (like the way wired AiMesh works, nodes are APs).

So it never does matter then if they never match the primary router SSID as long as the wifi is turned off on the main router. Correct?
In your opinion should I keep the setup I have or replace the AX86u?

Your main router doesn't have Wi-Fi at the moment. Whatever is set on the AP is independent. Main router's CPU was previously partially involved in wireless traffic processing. Now all the processing is done on the AP - the reason you see less CPU load on the main router.

Keep or replace - up to you. If the workaround with additional AP works well for you - perhaps all good. One thing I don't know is if the malware is still present on your router. Factory reset may have removed it, but unless we know more details about how it works - mostly guessing.


[System] You are a professional Wi-Fi router support assistant; I will provide forum posts as background material, and you should learn from them while remaining aware that forum content may be incomplete, outdated, or incorrect — when uncertain, explicitly note that you are uncertain and refer the user to official documentation or other authoritative sources for verification.

[User]
Title: Asus Routers Extension Proper Set-up Using Ethernet Cable

Hello. I understand very little about networking and routers and I'd like to get some help connecting my Asus AX1000 router to my Asus AX82U. So my ISP modem is connected to my AX1000 then the AX82U is an aiMesh node. The AX11000 is on the 1st floor. I also have an ethernet cable connected to it going to my PC via the 2.5g port. WAN port going to the modem, LAN 1 is not used, LAN 2 is being used by another PC, then there's LAN 3 used as a failback, then LAN 4 is empty.

What I would like to know is how do I do a proper setup of my main router going to the node using an ethernet cable. I do not want to lose the wifi connectivity of the main router, I only want to enhance the reliability of the 2nd node. Is it a simple plug and play to one of the ethernet ports of the AX1000 going to the AX82U WAN slot?

[Assistant]
I have a similar configuration (but different model numbers). My RT-AX86U is the gateway router, and an RT-AC86U hardwired to it is configured as an access point. Works flawlessly, been doing so ever since first installed.

You can give them both the same SSID or separate, your choice.

dlandiss said:
I have a similar configuration (but different model numbers). My RT-AX86U is the gateway router, and an RT-AC86U hardwired to it is configured as an access point. Works flawlessly, been doing so ever since first installed.

You can give them both the same SSID or separate, your choice.
Awesome. So to be clear about it, one AC86U is directly connected to the modem then the other AC86U is an extension of the main router? Sorry, I'm still trying to get used to some terminologies. In that case, if let's say my mobile phone is connected to "router 1" initially, will it get connected to "router 2" if my device is closer to that one?

niccofox said:
Hello. I understand very little about networking and routers and I'd like to get some help connecting my Asus AX1000 router to my Asus AX82U. So my ISP modem is connected to my AX1000 then the AX82U is an aiMesh node. The AX11000 is on the 1st floor. I also have an ethernet cable connected to it going to my PC via the 2.5g port. WAN port going to the modem, LAN 1 is not used, LAN 2 is being used by another PC, then there's LAN 3 used as a failback, then LAN 4 is empty.

What I would like to know is how do I do a proper setup of my main router going to the node using an ethernet cable. I do not want to lose the wifi connectivity of the main router, I only want to enhance the reliability of the 2nd node. Is it a simple plug and play to one of the ethernet ports of the AX1000 going to the AX82U WAN slot?
Click to expand...

Your AiMesh node can be connected wired or wirelessly. To wire it, connect the node WAN to the router LAN. The node should prefer the wired backhaul and not use its wireless backhaul. You can inspect for this in the router webUI AiMesh page and in the Wireless Log... there should be no wireless backhaul connection established between the node and router when the wired backhaul is being used by AiMesh. If there is a wireless backhaul in the Wireless Log when using a wired backhaul, toggle Ethernet Backhaul Mode ON/OFF to see if it turns the wireless backhaul OFF.

OE


[System] You are a professional Wi-Fi router support assistant; I will provide forum posts as background material, and you should learn from them while remaining aware that forum content may be incomplete, outdated, or incorrect — when uncertain, explicitly note that you are uncertain and refer the user to official documentation or other authoritative sources for verification.

[User]
Title: Asus Routers to Keep

I currently have an AX11000 which is my main router on the 1st floor then an AiMesh node which is the AX82U on the 2nd floor. I also bought cheap routers around < $35 which are the RT-AC5300, TUF-AX3000, and AX55. I live in a 500sqm lot and the house is around 300sqm. What would be the best routers to keep? Definitely my AX11000 will stay. I don't know if I should still keep the AC5300 as it has a wide coverage but no wi-fi 6. Maybe its either I keep that then flip the other two used routers OR I keep the two used routers then sell the AC5300. What could I do with those?

[Assistant] My own choice would be to keep the ones with the widest range. Coverage is an issue in my 122-year-old house, and I see no use for Wi-Fi 6.


[System] You are a professional Wi-Fi router support assistant; I will provide forum posts as background material, and you should learn from them while remaining aware that forum content may be incomplete, outdated, or incorrect — when uncertain, explicitly note that you are uncertain and refer the user to official documentation or other authoritative sources for verification.

[User]
Title: Asus mesh advice

I’m currently running a Asus be98 pro with a AXE16000 with inconsistent results out of my mesh node (16000). Lacking coverage in certain areas and drops in areas I shouldn’t have any. I’m considering buying a second be98 pro or BQ16 pro (dual pack). Anyone finding either setup works better with the be98 pro?

[Assistant]
Least issue solution with asus is to have all nodes the same and on the same firmware.
Coverage is a different issue entirely. But beware, consumer gear is typically of the blast them out variety. Sometimes, reducing power levels on the radios is the better solution.

Think I’ll take that advice and buy a new be98 pro. They are basically the same price. Maybe I’ll test the radio adjustment since I have a few weeks before I can buy it.

KDem43 said:
and buy a new be98 pro

Wired or wireless AiMesh? If wired - read this. If wireless - good luck.


[System] You are a professional Wi-Fi router support assistant; I will provide forum posts as background material, and you should learn from them while remaining aware that forum content may be incomplete, outdated, or incorrect — when uncertain, explicitly note that you are uncertain and refer the user to official documentation or other authoritative sources for verification.

[User]
Title: Are all ASUS routers on the 3.0.0.6.102 codebase guaranteed to support VLAN Management & Guest Network Pro?

1. Looking for a simple and 100% reliable way to determine if an Asus router supports VLAN management and Guest Network Pro. Is that the case with any and all models that are on the v3.0.0.6.102 codebase, or are there models that lack such functionality?

Why not just look at the specs? Well, they are lacking. Case in point: the ASUS RT-BE86U page advertises Guest Network Pro, while the ASUS RT-BE92U and RT-BE58U do not. However all three advertise "LAN Link Aggregation". Which brings me to question no. 2:

2. Is "LAN Link Aggregation" a reliable indicator that an Asus router supports VLAN management and Guest Network Pro? Can there be routers that support "LAN Link Aggregation" while lacking explicit VLAN support?

Thank you!

p.s. aside:
Would have been great if they put "Pro" at the end of all models that have this, like they did for the AX models. But, hey!

[Assistant]
Per the following Asus Support link that explains what Guest Network Pro is.
[Guest Network Pro] What is Guest Network Pro? | Official Support | ASUS USA

Notes:
1. Adding a Guest Network Pro also creates a new VLAN network.
2. Guest Network Pro is supported on WiFi 7 ROG series models and select WiFi 6 models.
3. This feature requires upgrading your ASUS router to firmware version 3.0.0.6.102_34312 or above.

Edit to add: VLAN...
[Wireless Router] What is VLAN and how to setup in ASUS Wireless Router? | Official Support | ASUS USA

Note:
1). By creating a Guest network pro, a VLAN will be created as well in VLAN settings.
2). VLAN supported models:
GT-AX11000 Pro, GT-AX6000, GT-AXE16000, RT-AX86U Pro, RT-AX88U Pro
ZenWiFi Pro ET12, ZenWIFI Pro XT12(only provide beta firmware)
3). The following feature requires router firmware version later than version 3.0.0.6.102_xxxx or above. Some models provide beta firmware (9.0.0.6.102_xxxx) to experience this feature.

@bennor Thank you, but I am well aware of everything you have posted, Including the fact that 9.0.0.6.102_xxxx is required for VLAN support. However, my question was whether a router having the 9.0.0.6.102_xxxx firmware in and of itself guarantees said functionality.

bennor said:
firmware version 3.0.0.6.102_34312 or above.

The information on Asus website is a mess. Asus ZenWiFi BQ16 doesn't have VLANs and runs firmware >34312 as an example.

YRTFS said:
9.0.0.6.102_xxxx firmware

This is a beta firmware number. Official releases are 3.0.0.6 and nothing guarantees features. Whatever the marketing decides.


[System] You are a professional Wi-Fi router support assistant; I will provide forum posts as background material, and you should learn from them while remaining aware that forum content may be incomplete, outdated, or incorrect — when uncertain, explicitly note that you are uncertain and refer the user to official documentation or other authoritative sources for verification.

[User]
Title: EOL ASUS routers affected by TheMoon malware

EOL ASUS routers affected by TheMoon malware:

The Darkside of TheMoon - Lumen
Executive Summary The Black Lotus Labs team at Lumen Technologies has identified a multi-year campaign targeting end-of-life (EoL) small home/small office (SOHO) routers and IoT devices, associated with an updated version of “TheMoon” malware. TheMoon, which emerged in 2014, has been operating...
blog.lumen.com

[Assistant]
Yeah was mentioned in the RT-AC68U EOL thread earlier:
https://www.snbforums.com/threads/rt-ac68u-end-of-life-announced-by-asus.89314/post-899793
The BleepingComputer article in that post indicated; "researchers do not specify the exact method used to breach the ASUS routers".

That article contains zero information as to what devices are susceptible. An RT-N16 also counts as an EOL device, for that matter.

If the author was able to state that EOL devices are targeted, then he should be able to state actual model names, unless he is only speculating...

RMerlin said:
That article contains zero information as to what devices are susceptible.
I was also disappointed about that.

They did mention this:
Through Lumen’s global network visibility, Black Lotus Labs has identified the logical map of the Faceless proxy service, including a campaign that began in the first week of March 2024 that targeted over 6,000 ASUS routers in less than 72 hours.
I wonder how they measured that.


[System] You are a professional Wi-Fi router support assistant; I will provide forum posts as background material, and you should learn from them while remaining aware that forum content may be incomplete, outdated, or incorrect — when uncertain, explicitly note that you are uncertain and refer the user to official documentation or other authoritative sources for verification.

[User]
Title: Replacing an AX86U Pro - GT-AX11000/GT-AXE16000/Asus RT-BE86U?

My connection is 900mb fiber line, I mostly use ethernet wifi is just for phones etc.
I have a 100TB Unraid server for Plex, but since I watch everything via LAN the connection for me is more for downloading/uploading fast.

What should I get? Thanks in advance.

[Assistant]
What’s wrong with AX86 Pro? It should handle your needs fine.

Only have 1 working WAN port and can't resolve this issue where none of my wifi clients have WAN access (except oddly my laptop works fine on it) so just gonna upgrade.