Does ASUS Merlin VPN Policy Routing Work With Repeaters In The Network ?

[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-AC66U (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

 

[taylorj6]

Thanks Samosa for taking the time to respond. I will source a huawei hg612 3b modem and test it.

I think my Repeater question depends on how the Flashed Router interprets the IP address of the devices connected to the Reapter. The Repeater doesn't handle the DHCP addressing, but I concerned that it isn't always constant. That said, my AppleTV boxes won't be roaming around the house swapping from one repeater to another.