Asuswrt-Merlin VPN Works With Repeaters ?

[taylorj6]

Guys,

I am a newbie to the Forum and need my hand held a little with a problem I have at home. I foolishly purchased an ASUS DSL-AC88U not realising that I couldn't Flash Merlin to it. My set up is as follows ...

ASUS DSL-AC88U (Main Router connecting BT Infinity)
ASUS RP-AC68U (Repeater, connecting to Main Router using 5GHz Expressway)
ASUS RP-AC68U (Repeater, connecting to Main Router using 5GHz Expressway)
ASUS RT-N66U (in Access Point mode, connected to Main Router using Devolo HomePlug)

I have x4 FireTV boxes and x4 AppleTV boxes. At present I have PIA Android VPN clients installed on all the FireTV boxes, x2 of which are connected via the Repeaters to the Main Router. Everything works pretty well, but the FireTV boxes are laggy ... which may be due to the extra VPN Client work they are undertaking. For this and ease of (family) use, I'd like to get rid of them and just use the AppleTV boxes instead. All of the AppleTV boxes are either the 4th Gen or the latest 5th Gen 4K. However, there is no way to put a VPN client on an AppleTV box.

Hence, I can either try to by a standalone VPN Router (such as the GL.iNet GL-MT300N-V2 Mini Travel Router) or I can buy a ASUS RT-AC88U, Flash Merlin to it and set up the PIA VPN using OpenVPN and take advantage of Merlin's policy based VPN routing. Assuming that if the AppleTV devices route through the Repeater, that their IP address stays constant - which concerns me !

However, before I splash out GBP240 on a new ASUS RT-AC88U, I wanted to ask for help as whether the policy based routing in my setup will work ? ... and also, if I go with the ASUS RT-AC88U then what VDSL Modem would be the best to run with BT Infinity FTTC.

Thanks in advance.

Jason

 

[yorgi]

Guys,

I am a newbie to the Forum and need my hand held a little with a problem I have at home. I foolishly purchased an ASUS DSL-AC88U not realising that I couldn't Flash Merlin to it. My set up is as follows ...

ASUS DSL-AC88U (Main Router connecting BT Infinity)
ASUS RP-AC68U (Repeater, connecting to Main Router using 5GHz Expressway)
ASUS RP-AC68U (Repeater, connecting to Main Router using 5GHz Expressway)
ASUS RT-N66U (in Access Point mode, connected to Main Router using Devolo HomePlug)

I have x4 FireTV boxes and x4 AppleTV boxes. At present I have PIA Android VPN clients installed on all the FireTV boxes, x2 of which are connected via the Repeaters to the Main Router. Everything works pretty well, but the FireTV boxes are laggy ... which may be due to the extra VPN Client work they are undertaking. For this and ease of (family) use, I'd like to get rid of them and just use the AppleTV boxes instead. All of the AppleTV boxes are either the 4th Gen or the latest 5th Gen 4K. However, there is no way to put a VPN client on an AppleTV box.

Hence, I can either try to by a standalone VPN Router (such as the GL.iNet GL-MT300N-V2 Mini Travel Router) or I can buy a ASUS RT-AC88U, Flash Merlin to it and set up the PIA VPN using OpenVPN and take advantage of Merlin's policy based VPN routing. Assuming that if the AppleTV devices route through the Repeater, that their IP address stays constant - which concerns me !

However, before I splash out GBP240 on a new ASUS RT-AC88U, I wanted to ask for help as whether the policy based routing in my setup will work ? ... and also, if I go with the ASUS RT-AC88U then what VDSL Modem would be the best to run with BT Infinity FTTC.

Thanks in advance.

Jason

Hi
You have quite a setup. the only thing I can say that is very important and you should check this is.
Make sure that your main router handles DHCP server and disable DHCP server on all repeaters and accespoints.
Have the routers DHCP server handle the static IP
if you have 4 devices go to DHCP pool and do it like this. 192.168.1.96 - 192.168.1.254
in Enable Manual Assignment find each devices IP and assign it to one of the IP addresses under .100
so device one will be 192.168.1.99
device 2 192.168.1.98
3 will be 192.168.1.97
4 will be 192.168.1.96
for every new device you add change the IP pool by 1 and add the new IP to the Enable Manual Assignment.
This way the router controls the Static IP addresses.
next make sure that your SSID is the same accross all the expanders and change the mhz to different channels. do not have all of them using the same.
also when all routers and access points are up and running, whichever wired devices are using the expanders make sure you reboot those devices so they can get a fresh IP.
if you don't reboot the device it may lag.
Let me know if you are still having problems after this.