ASUS EA-N66/EA-N66R - does anyone know how to set time/date?

[Almighty1]

Greetings everyone:

I have the ASUS EA-N66/EA-N66R Range Extender/Access Point/Wi-Fi Bridge. Does anyone happen to know where to set the date/time as there is no entry for the ntp server to use, etc. Thanks!

 

[ColinTaylor]

as there is no entry for the ntp server to use, etc.

According to the manual it's on the Administration page.

 

[Almighty1]

Yes, except it only works and can be seen in the Access Point and Extender mode, not in the Ethernet mode. Is there a way to do it from the command line?

 

[ColinTaylor]

This works on my RT-AC68U

admin@RT-AC68U:/# date -s "1998-09-03 14:21:05"
Thu Sep  3 14:21:05 DST 1998
admin@RT-AC68U:/# date
Thu Sep  3 14:21:16 DST 1998


admin@RT-AC68U:/# ntpd -q -p pool.ntp.org
admin@RT-AC68U:/# date
Thu Sep  3 14:21:24 DST 1998
admin@RT-AC68U:/# ntpd -q -p pool.ntp.org
admin@RT-AC68U:/# date
Thu Jun 22 15:39:02 DST 2017

 

[Almighty1]

There is no ntpd on the EA-N66R, there is ntpclient but the problem is it seems like when one runs in Ethernet mode, there is no DNS so it is not able to do hostname lookups and ntpclient doesn't seem to work with using the IP.

I created /etc/resolv.conf but still doesn't work...

# cat /etc/resolv.conf
nameserver 8.8.8.8
nameserver 8.8.4.4
# traceroute www.google.com
traceroute: www.google.com: Unknown host
#

 

[ColinTaylor]

How about

# ntpclient -s -h 216.229.0.179
setup_receive:: bind...
setup_transmit:: connect...

send packet OK!
Recvfrom pack_len= 48, incoming= 1500
call udp_handle
UDP_handle: 48
[ntpclient] set time to 1498145139.186083

 

[Almighty1]

It sat after the ntpclient for about 10 seconds...
# ntpclient -s -h 216.229.0.179
# date
Sat Jan 1 13:24:40 UTC 2011
#

Somehow it seems like unless the thing is in Access Point or Extender mode, a lot of the things are turned off somewhere and I just need to figure out how to turn it on.

 

[ColinTaylor]

I think it's been mentioned before. If I remember correctly the issue is that in AP mode the router doesn't know where the default gateway is because there's no "WAN" interface.

Try typing this and see what you get, you probably have to manually add the gateway.

route -n -e

You could then try something like this (assuming your router is 192.168.1.1):

route add default gw 192.168.1.1

 

[Almighty1]

Thanks, that worked, I thought the default route was there since how else would it get the packet to the router as wouldn't it DHCP the info?

# route -n -e
Kernel IP routing table
Destination     Gateway         Genmask         Flags   MSS Window  irtt Iface
192.168.2.0     0.0.0.0         255.255.255.0   U         0 0          0 br0
127.0.0.0       0.0.0.0         255.0.0.0       U         0 0          0 lo
0.0.0.0         0.0.0.0         0.0.0.0         U         0 0          0 br0
# route add default gw 192.168.2.1
# ntpclient -s -h 216.229.0.179
# date
Thu Jun 22 20:04:15 UTC 2017
#

Now where do I put the default gw so that when I reboot, it will stick instead of having to do it manually each time? Thanks!

 

[ColinTaylor]

Thanks, that worked, I thought the default route was there since how else would it get the packet to the router as wouldn't it DHCP the info?

I don't really understand your device configuration as you called it "Ethernet mode". But I'd guess that the client data is just traversing the bridge (br0) so it's not really going "through" the Asus. And hence the Asus itself doesn't really need to be particularly functional.

Now where do I put the default gw so that when I reboot, it will stick instead of having to do it manually each time? Thanks!

I'm not aware of any way to do that with stock Asus firmware.

 

[Almighty1]

There are 3 modes for the ASUS EA-N66/N66R, one is the Access Point, one is the Wireless Extender and the default is Ethernet mode which just allows you to use it as a Wireless Ethernet bridge for anything that has a Ethernet port but no WiFi so basically it allows you to connect that device to the WiFi network. Maybe this will explain it a little better:

I thought there was a way to do it by editing one of the script config startup files. Also, since you have the ASUS router, do you happen to know if I wanted to give a secondary alias IP as 192.168.100.8 so that it talks to the cable modem using the 192.168.100.8 instead of the primary LAN IP, which interface would I put it on as it seems br0 is the LAN IP, vlan2 seems to have the WAN IP.

 

[ColinTaylor]

Regarding Asus routers, as far as I know custom configurations are only possible by using a 3rd party firmware like Merlin or Tomato.

The WAN port is usually eth0 but sometimes there is a VLAN associated with it. Depending on the model and firmware the WAN interface could be referred to by either.

There is then another VLAN that groups together all the wired LAN ports. This VLAN is then attached to a bridge (br0) together with the wireless interfaces. That way all the LAN-side stuff can be accessed on br0.

 

[Almighty1]

You're right, I am referring to Merlin and not the standard ASUS firmware when it comes to the AC68R. The WAN port on that one is actually vlan2 while br0 has the LAN IP. I'm still trying to see how one uses ifconfig to add a alias or a secondary IP.

 

[Almighty1]

Was looking at this, does your "flash" command actually have all the options?
https://mycyberuniverse.com/linux/full-controling-the-asus-router-via-command-line.html

 

[ColinTaylor]

Was looking at this, does your "flash" command actually have all the options?
https://mycyberuniverse.com/linux/full-controling-the-asus-router-via-command-line.html

The flash command doesn't exist on Merlin supported routers because they use a completely different code base. There is however an "nvram" command.

 

[Almighty1]

I meant with the original ASUS firmware. The EA-N66R does have the flash command but it's way different as flash all does not do anything.

# flash
Usage:
  flash -r <offset> -c <count> - read <count> bytes from <offset>
  flash -w <offset> -o <value> - write <offset> with <value>
  flash -f <start> -l <end>    - erase from <start> to <end>
Note:
  <count> is decimal, the other parameters are hexadecimal
# flash all
Usage:
  flash -r <offset> -c <count> - read <count> bytes from <offset>
  flash -w <offset> -o <value> - write <offset> with <value>
  flash -f <start> -l <end>    - erase from <start> to <end>
Note:
  <count> is decimal, the other parameters are hexadecimal
#

It seems there is a gateway already when I rebooted the EA-N66R:

# nvram show | grep gateway
size: 10937 bytes (21831 left)
lan_gateway_now=192.168.2.1
lan_gateway=
wan_gateway=
dr_staticgateway_x=
wan_gateway_t=
wan0_gateway_t=
wan0_gateway=
lan_gateway_t=
dhcp_gateway_x=
sr_gateway_x=

The /etc/resolv.conf I added is gone and seems like the default route is not added, so I have to use what you provided earlier of doing the "route add default gw 192.168.2.1" and creating a /etc/resolv.conf each time along with manually running ntpclient which hopefully will cause the timestamps to be correct in the GUI's system log. I think the only thing that I need to figure out is how to set the timezone as it's defaulting to the GMT/UTC.

 

[ColinTaylor]

I meant with the original ASUS firmware.

Yes that's what I was referring to. The routers that Merlin supports (whether using his or stock firmware) is based on Broadcom chipsets. Your EA-N66R uses Ralink, it's a different code base.

 

[Almighty1]

Good point, I kept thinking that ASUS basically just uses the same firmware and just modifies it for the chipset in question.

 

[sfx2000]

Your EA-N66R uses Ralink, it's a different code base.

Indeed - and even within the different branches - functionality and bug fixes are not evenly applied - and some bugs are not totally fixed - there's still a couple of obscure URL's on the current Broadcom firmware that are still present, and a security risk... the links were removed from the WebGUI, but the pages still exist.

 

[Almighty1]

Interesting. I thought they would basically just use the main codebase and then modify it for the minority devices such as this one.