Read USB port with CU or Minicom on the RT-AC66U

Jan van der Wal · Feb 6, 2016

I have an asus router RT-AC66U, with asuswrt-merling 378.56_2 available and want to use this router to read my smartmeter (energy). I have a P1 serial -> USB cable but not the right software to read the usb signal.

On this router is running : Linux xxxxxx 2.6.22.19 #1 Mon Nov 2 09:59:58 EST 2015 mips GNU/Linux and i am able to connect via ssh and use another usb for filestore.

How can I install / use CU or Minicom on my router ?

kvic · Feb 8, 2016

Minicom is available from Entware. Install Entware you'll get lots of extra useful apps and utilities..

Depends on your device, I think very likely you need to compile the firmware yourself by customising the kernel to support the usb to serial device.

ASAT · Feb 8, 2016

The Linux kernel in Asuswrt-Merlin firmware for RT-AC66U router is not as update-to-date compared to ASUS' ARM routers.

Here's how to enable some of the USB-to-serial drivers for RT-AC66U router. Un fortunately you must also disable USB support for GSM modems to make it work. Why?

I have not tried this because I do not own any MIPS routers except for RT-N16 which runs another custom firmware.

For MIPS routers:
~/asuswrt-merlin/release/src-rt-6.x/linux/linux-2.6/config_base

Code:

CONFIG_USB_SERIAL_CP2101=m
CONFIG_USB_SERIAL_FTDI_SIO=m
CONFIG_USB_SERIAL_PL2303=m
CONFIG_USB_SERIAL_SIERRAWIRELESS=n
CONFIG_USB_SERIAL_OPTION=n

Rebuild the Asuswrt-Merlin firmware for RT-AC66U router

Code:

cd ~/asuswrt-merlin/release/src-rt-6.x
make clean
rm .config
make rt-ac66u

My work to date for Asuswrt-Merlin firmware is for the RT-AC68U router, for various purposes. To show some examples of kernel options that may be changed for ARM routers. It is just hobby. I am not a pro.

Enables some popular USB-to-serial drivers (CH341, FTDI, PL2303, CP210X)
Enables PPS support in the kernel
Enables PPS support in the USB-to-serial FTDI driver
Enables bridge netfilter to enable the xt_physdev matching module for iptables
Enables the xt_statistic matching module for iptables
Disables USB support for GSM modems
Disables the MiniDLNA media server (DMS)
Disables the Asus NTP client service

For ARM routers:
~/asuswrt-merlin-380.57-arm-usbpps-bridgenf-nontp-nodms.patch
https://cryptobin.org/53a0v5e8, password is lol
https://151.236.7.117/53a0v5e8, password is lol

Apply patch for ARM routers and rebuild the Asuswrt-Merlin firmware

Code:

cd ~/asuswrt-merlin
patch -p2 -i ../asuswrt-merlin-380.57-arm-usbpps-bridgenf-nontp-nodms.patch
cd ~/asuswrt-merlin/release/src-rt-6.x.4708
make clean
rm .config
make rt-ac68u

Jan van der Wal · Feb 8, 2016

Thanks for replying, I am gonna try your solution.

Jan van der Wal · Feb 12, 2016

This is getting too difficult for me. I am not able to rebuild my router software. I am gonna search for another solution.

Jan van der Wal · Feb 12, 2016

Indeed sure that the current config isn't able to read my serial - to - usb cable in the right way.

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Read USB port with CU or Minicom on the RT-AC66U

Jan van der Wal

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ASAT

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Jan van der Wal

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