Release Asuswrt-Merlin 386.2 is now available

[Magnus33]

Soooo turns out if you flash the ax86 firmware rather then the ac86 firmware onto a ac86 things get quite weird.

You can get into the router but you can no longer upgrade the firmware be it through the ui or recovery firmware.

Think it may be checking for ax firmware rather then ac firmware and failing the upgrade.

Ui kind of looks like mostly ac86 firmware with some firmware elements in it.

Whoops lol

 

[pdc]

Dirty upgrade from _2 to _4, and I am no longer seeing most of my script add-on pages. The Add-Ons page lists only Unbound (user3.asp), but there used to be pages for dn-vnstat, connmon, and scMerlin there as well, but now they do not appear. Per the log they are still there, but something didn't go quite right.

I have tried rebooting a few times but it hasn't helped. The pages are there if I manually type in the user#.asp page.

May  2 19:24:16 AC86U-MAIN custom_script: Running /jffs/scripts/service-event-end (args: restart nasapps)
May  2 19:24:16 AC86U-MAIN miniupnpd[12413]: HTTP listening on port 51813
May  2 19:24:16 AC86U-MAIN miniupnpd[12413]: Listening for NAT-PMP/PCP traffic on port 5351
May  2 19:24:17 AC86U-MAIN avahi-daemon[12410]: Server startup complete. Host name is AC86U-MAIN.local. Local service cookie is 123516084.
May  2 19:24:17 AC86U-MAIN avahi-daemon[12410]: Alias name "RT-AC86U" successfully established.
May  2 19:24:18 AC86U-MAIN crond[1282]: time disparity of 1575078 minutes detected
May  2 19:24:21 AC86U-MAIN dn-vnstat: Mounting WebUI tab for dn-vnstat
May  2 19:24:21 AC86U-MAIN dn-vnstat: Mounted dn-vnstat WebUI page as user4.asp
May  2 19:24:22 AC86U-MAIN connmon: Mounting WebUI tab for connmon
May  2 19:24:22 AC86U-MAIN connmon: Mounted connmon WebUI page as user5.asp
May  2 19:24:29 AC86U-MAIN scMerlin: Mounting WebUI tab for scMerlin
May  2 19:24:30 AC86U-MAIN scMerlin: Mounted scMerlin WebUI page as user7.asp

 

[RMerlin]

@RMerlin In your changelog jitterentropy-rngd is new , I am familiar with Jitter but can you point me somewhere as what this is and how to use ?

It`s not something the end-user has to worry about. It's just a daemon that takes care of ensuring the kernel doesn't run out of entropy, which ensures that random number generation (as used for instance with crypto generation) is always optimal.

Newer kernel versions have something similar built-in.

 

[Morac]

What kind of iptables rule is it? Which table does it use? nat, mangle, filter, raw? If it’s nat, maybe it would be better in nat-start.

INPUT table. It’s designed to whitelist ping requests from certain IP addresses.

 

[John Fitzgerald]

Soooo turns out if you flash the ax86 firmware rather then the ac86 firmware onto a ac86 things get quite weird.

You can get into the router but you can no longer upgrade the firmware be it through the ui or recovery firmware.

Think it may be checking for ax firmware rather then ac firmware and failing the upgrade.

Ui kind of looks like mostly ac86 firmware with some firmware elements in it.

Whoops lol

How did you FORCE the wrong Firmware?

It checks, and will say "Invalid Firmware Image" and kicks you out.

 

[dave14305]

INPUT table. It’s designed to whitelist ping requests from certain IP addresses.

INPUT is a chain. If you're not specifying the -t option, then it's the filter table. So nevermind.

 

[Magnus33]

How did you FORCE the wrong Firmware?

It checks, and will say "Invalid Firmware Image" and kicks you out.

I didn't force it i just uploaded like normal.

I think it because the models are so close in name that it didn't stop it.

My own fault of course with some help from the cataracts (just found out last month) i ended up not noticing the x instead of the c .

Life is never boring it seems.

 

[Tech9]

I didn't force it i just uploaded like normal.

Did you use firmware restoration tool to upgrade the firmware? You can't flash AX firmware in UI. See this thread:

Accidentally flashed RT-AX86U firmware on RT-AC86U and now unable to flash back the correct firmware

Hi, I made the mistake flashing the firmware first thing after waking up and accidentally downloaded the AX86U release (RT-AX86U_386.2_4_cferom_pureubi.w) and flashed it via the ASUS Firmware Restoration tool by putting the router into recovery mode. Since then, I'm unable to put the router...

www.snbforums.com

 

[Wisiwyg]

OT...

AI Mesh fix?

ASUS RT-AX88U Firmware version 3.0.0.4.386.42819 dropped earlier today. #3 is interesting...

1. Fix VPN GUI issues.
2. Fix WAN connection issues. Special thanks to Yulei Zhang's contribution.
3. Fix AiMesh related bugs.
4. Minor GUI issue fixes.
5. Upgrade dropbear to version 2020.81
6. Fix buffer overflow vulnerability
7. Fix slowloris denial of service attack.
8. Fix authentication bypass vulnerability.

 

[Magnus33]

Did you use firmware restoration tool to upgrade the firmware? You can't flash AX firmware in UI. See this thread:

Accidentally flashed RT-AX86U firmware on RT-AC86U and now unable to flash back the correct firmware

Hi, I made the mistake flashing the firmware first thing after waking up and accidentally downloaded the AX86U release (RT-AX86U_386.2_4_cferom_pureubi.w) and flashed it via the ASUS Firmware Restoration tool by putting the router into recovery mode. Since then, I'm unable to put the router...

www.snbforums.com

Nope although i did try restoring after the fact which of course failed not unsurprisingly.

Irony is i noticed my mistake just after i had started the flash but figured i was fine and it would just fail but boy did i get a suprise lol.

 

[Howard_inGA]

Flawless dirty upgrade for me...AC5300.

 

[John Adler]

Dirty Flash from 386.2.2 to 386.2.4 everything workin fine !

One question:
at the syslog this 2 remarks called my attention:
May 3 08:05:27 avahi-daemon[2994]: Found user 'nobody' (UID 65534) and group 'nobody' (GID 65534).
May 3 08:05:27 avahi-daemon[2994]: Successfully dropped root privileges.
what does it mean ?!

 

[Hazel]

Dirty Flash from 386.2.2 to 386.2.4 everything workin fine !

One question:
at the syslog this 2 remarks called my attention:
May 3 08:05:27 avahi-daemon[2994]: Found user 'nobody' (UID 65534) and group 'nobody' (GID 65534).
May 3 08:05:27 avahi-daemon[2994]: Successfully dropped root privileges.
what does it mean ?!

That has been there for over 2 years.
About Avahi: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avahi_(software)
About user nobody: http://www.dba-oracle.com/t_oce_27_nobody_user.htm

So basically what you're witnessing is the process avahi-daemon finding a (non-privileged) user 'nobody', which gives it the possibility to run as a non-privileged user instead of root (admin) with all its privileges. It's just a security measure.

 

[Tech9]

Nope although i did try restoring after the fact which of course failed not unsurprisingly.

UI allowed you to flash different router model firmware? If so this is a firmware bug.

 

[LimJK]

@RMerlin
Like to report a minor matter on the OpenVPN FAQ links for setting up OpenVPN clients on OpenVPN Server Page. Specifically, the FAQ link for Windows is missing.

 

[Wanabo]

Dirty upgrade from 386.2_2 to 386.2_4 on a RT-AC88U and a RT-AC86U/RT-AC2900.
Problem with USB3.0 mode is still present. (After some time the USB drive is not recognized/readable anymore by the router. Reverting to USB2.0 mode solves this problem.)

 

[Chris313AllNight]

I just checked mine (administration/system page) and while I haven't seen a captcha, mine was set to enabled. I turned it off and applied the setting. AX86U here on 386.2_4.

Also, I have had the issue of the router not logging out after the set time. May be related but will have to wait and see if things get logged out properly.

EDIT: It logged me out finally and I was required to re-authenticate with my username and password (no captcha)

Still couldn't get in, so I broke down and reset button'd it. During initial setup, no Captcha and using your instructions, I turned that exercise in irritation off. Hope I never see that damned thing again.

 

[pinkgrae]

Dirty upgrade from 386.2_2 to _4 on both AC86U and AC68U - all went smoothly and no issues for >36 hours.

 

[RMerlin]

@RMerlin
Like to report a minor matter on the OpenVPN FAQ links for setting up OpenVPN clients on OpenVPN Server Page. Specifically, the FAQ link for Windows is missing.

View attachment 33579

I removed it because Asus's FAQ was no longer there on their website, and I have no idea if they moved it elsewhere, or if it's completely missing.

 

[gmt]

Hmm, this never happened before, tried to flash my AC86U from 2_2 to 2_4 and it says "Firmware upgrade unsuccessful. This may result from incorrect image or error transmission. Please check the version of firmware and try again." I've checked the hash of the downloaded file with both Chrome and FFx and it is the same.

D:\RT-AC86U_386.2_4>certUtil -hashfile RT-AC86U_386.2_4_cferom_ubi.w SHA256
SHA256 hash of RT-AC86U_386.2_4_cferom_ubi.w:
61b3ca78da5983adc6f77d404d41e5a445684f10fd650212ae5c648cfcf93ea6
CertUtil: -hashfile command completed successfully.