media bridge not working? (on both AC68U/EA6900)

[Mine Ong]

Greetings,

I have problems setting on media bridge on my (converted Asus router) merlin routers. I have set up wireless bridge on tomato routers and they work great. However, as merlin interface is somewhat limited, I have no idea how to navigate to resolve this problem. I seek your help.

First of, I have 2 routers running on merlin firmware:

t-mobile AC1900 converted to Asus AC68U, running on Asuswrt-Merlin RT-AC68U_380.68_4.trx
Linksys EA6900, running xvortex/merlin EA6900_380.68_4.trx

Both firmware were downloaded from their respective official website. Both of them runs in the default router mode with great stability for the last few months (years).

I decided to use one of them as a media bridge (aka wireless bridge). At the present, I have an Linksys EA2500 running on Shibby Tomato and is working great (minus the wireless speed). Using the EA6900 as the main router, I perform the following on the AC68U

- erased the nvram,
- set it up as media bridge using all default values.

The main router (EA6900) has the following network info:
192.168.1.254
255.255.255.0

Once the AC68U is connected to the main router wirelessly, Under AC68U's web interface, I can see other wired AND wireless client connected to EA6900. Through the network tool from AC68U, I can ping them as well.

However, using a desktop computer connected through WIRED ethernet to AC68U (in media bridge mode), I cannot get a DHCP lease. Further more, even if I manually assign an IP (as an example):

192.168.1.6
255.255.255.0
192.168.1.254 (gateway, using the main router)

I still have no network on the desktop. I cannot ping other networked device even if if my desktop has static IP.

I also tried to assign a static IP for the media bridge (making sure the netmask is correct and using the main router as the gateway). But still have no network access from a wired client connected to the media bridge.

I then swapped the two router: using AC68U as the main router and EA6900 as the media bridge, but the same result.

I searched the internet to find possible solutions but have not found an answer. My next step is to flash Shibby Tomato to EA6900 and set up the EA6900 in the wireless bridge mode (as I have done many times with other routers with good success).

My questions are:

- does the media bridge work on AsusWRT firmware?
- if so, what am I doing wrong?
- off-topic: the reason I didn't use shibby tomato on EA6900 was that, back in the day, where was problem getting the 5GHz to work. Also, according to (http://www.linksysinfo.org/index.ph...-linksys-ea6900-supports-tomato-dd-wrt.71718/), tomato/dd-wrt was "setup for the stock Linksys CFE which has 2 x firmware partitions. XVortex's has only 1". Since I did flash the EA6900 with xvortex's custom CFE, can anyone comment on the stability of tomato on EA6900?

any help is very much appreciated,

 

[JDB]

Sounds like something is set up wrong to me. Media Bridge mode does basically work.

Note this thread though, it is not without its problems RT-AC5300 x2 Wi-Fi Bridging Issue
https://r.tapatalk.com/shareLink?sh...0-x2-Wi-Fi-Bridging-Issue.37553/&share_type=t


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Mine Ong]

so I figure out the problem, but still does not have a preferred solution.

It turns out the media bridge is conflicting with the mac address filter. I have a set of "allowed" mac addresses I maintain in order to prevent unwanted access to my wireless network. If I disable the mac address filter, the media bridge from EA6900 to AC68U works as intended.

This is news to me as, on my existing EA2500 running tomato/wireless-bridge mode, it always works as long as I have the mac address of the bridge in the main router.

The problem now is, even if I have the mac address on the allowed list of the mac filter, along with the mac address of the desktop wired to the bridge, I still have NO connection as long as the mac address filter is activated on the main router.

The only way to get media bridge to work is to disable the mac address filter completely on the main router. This is in a direct contrast to how a tomato router in wireless-bridge mode would behave.

Can anyone confirm this behaviour? Is there a way to get media bridge to work while maintaining a list of "allowed" mac address filter on the main router?

thanks in advance,

 

[bROTHER]

Hi,

so I figure out the problem, but still does not have a preferred solution.

It turns out the media bridge is conflicting with the mac address filter. I have a set of "allowed" mac addresses I maintain in order to prevent unwanted access to my wireless network. If I disable the mac address filter, the media bridge from EA6900 to AC68U works as intended.

This is news to me as, on my existing EA2500 running tomato/wireless-bridge mode, it always works as long as I have the mac address of the bridge in the main router.

The problem now is, even if I have the mac address on the allowed list of the mac filter, along with the mac address of the desktop wired to the bridge, I still have NO connection as long as the mac address filter is activated on the main router.

The only way to get media bridge to work is to disable the mac address filter completely on the main router. This is in a direct contrast to how a tomato router in wireless-bridge mode would behave.

Can anyone confirm this behaviour? Is there a way to get media bridge to work while maintaining a list of "allowed" mac address filter on the main router?

thanks in advance,

Found this troubleshooting MB issues in Merlin NG firmware…

I have both AC68U as router and MB.

Be sure that both wireless interfaces are on the MAC allow table of the wireless router. 5 GHz is used for main connection and 2.4 GHz is used for connection control. In my case, you need both. On the MB wifi configuration is hide but still accessible (usual html link). Depending on the firmware version you may find "ghost wifi channels" generated by the MB that really are useless.
Also, you need to enter the MAC allow table all the interfaces that are physically connected to the MB. You need to do this before switching on MAC filtering.

Hope it helps.

Regards.

 

[bROTHER]

Also, check this out:
https://www.snbforums.com/threads/ntp-not-working-on-ac68u-384-5.47688/
Regards