MerlinAU MerlinAU v1.1.2 - The Ultimate Firmware Auto-Updater (Now available in AMTM)

[jksmurf]

Seems to have reached a mature enough stage for even me to give it a try, thanks for all the hard work by the authors.

One question if I may, I understand the firmware downloads to a drive, is unzipped then uploaded as if via the WebGui. Are the downloaded files deleted after the successful install?

I searched the thread on the separate terms ‘delete’ and ‘clean’ (clean up) and also the GitHub entry, but could not see anything that confirmed this? Apologies in advance and I hold my hand up if I missed it.

K.

 

[ExtremeFiretop]

The firmware update has occurred at the scheduled time this morning:

2024-03-06 05:00:03 Required RAM: 86584 KB - RAM Free: 392136 KB - RAM Available: 421432 KB
2024-03-06 05:00:03 Backup Started (by BACKUPMON)
2024-03-06 05:00:24 Backup Finished
2024-03-06 05:00:24 Backup Completed Successfully
2024-03-06 05:00:24 Latest release version is 3004.388.6.2.
2024-03-06 05:00:24 Downloading https://sourceforge.net/projects/as...86U_PRO/Release/RT-AX86U_PRO_3004_388.6_2.zip
2024-03-06 05:00:27 Required RAM: 86584 KB - RAM Free: 332588 KB - RAM Available: 420160 KB
2024-03-06 05:00:27 -----------------------------------------------------------
2024-03-06 05:00:27 Archive: /tmp/mnt/FLASHDRIVE/MerlinAU.d/RT-AX86U_PRO_firmware/RT-AX86U_PRO_firmware.zip
2024-03-06 05:00:27 Length Date Time Name
2024-03-06 05:00:27 --------- ---------- ----- ----
2024-03-06 05:00:27 62783960 02-26-2024 23:05 RT-AX86U_PRO_3004_388.6_2_nand_squashfs.pkgtb
2024-03-06 05:00:27 9645 02-26-2024 21:20 README-merlin.txt
2024-03-06 05:00:27 94437 02-26-2024 22:21 Changelog-386.txt
2024-03-06 05:00:27 99381 02-26-2024 21:20 Changelog-NG.txt
2024-03-06 05:00:27 112 02-26-2024 23:05 sha256sum.sha256
2024-03-06 05:00:27 -------- -------
2024-03-06 05:00:27 62987535 5 files
2024-03-06 05:00:27 -----------------------------------------------------------
2024-03-06 05:00:30 Archive: /tmp/mnt/FLASHDRIVE/MerlinAU.d/RT-AX86U_PRO_firmware/RT-AX86U_PRO_firmware.zip
2024-03-06 05:00:30 inflating: RT-AX86U_PRO_3004_388.6_2_nand_squashfs.pkgtb
2024-03-06 05:00:30 inflating: Changelog-386.txt
2024-03-06 05:00:30 inflating: Changelog-NG.txt
2024-03-06 05:00:30 inflating: sha256sum.sha256
2024-03-06 05:00:30 -----------------------------------------------------------
2024-03-06 05:00:30 Required RAM: 86584 KB - RAM Free: 271240 KB - RAM Available: 359172 KB
2024-03-06 05:00:30 No high-risk phrases found in the change-logs.
2024-03-06 05:00:30 Required RAM: 86584 KB - RAM Free: 270932 KB - RAM Available: 358612 KB
2024-03-06 05:00:30 No ROG Build detected. Skipping.
2024-03-06 05:00:30 Required RAM: 86584 KB - RAM Free: 270536 KB - RAM Available: 358488 KB
2024-03-06 05:00:30 Router Web URL is: http://192.168.50.1
2024-03-06 05:00:38 The email notification was sent successfully [START_FW_UPDATE_STATUS].
2024-03-06 05:00:38 Post-update email notification hook was added successfully to '/jffs/scripts/services-start' script.
2024-03-06 05:00:38 Flashing RT-AX86U_PRO_3004_388.6_2_nand_squashfs.pkgtb... Please wait for reboot in about 4 minutes or less.

Looks beautiful, love to see the flow work as designed on a endpoint device. Worked like a charm! Thank you for confirming!

 

[ExtremeFiretop]

One question if I may, I understand the firmware downloads to a drive, is unzipped then uploaded as if via the an WebGui.

All Correct.

This is assuming you have a USB drive and it's selected as the download location for the ZIP.
A USB drive is not required. A USB drive is so you can keep a version of the firmware offline in a disaster situation.

At least you'll have a USB with the firmware .zip already loaded and ready. (without having to hotspot to download a new copy.)
The copy on the USB would of already gone through the checksum validation, etc.

Are the downloaded files deleted after the successful install

Yes and No.

As per my answer above, only if it's setup without a USB. It instantly cleans up the files zip files.
Even if you stopped the script mid-way before it rebooted, and checked the zip file would already be gone. The only thing left would be the actual firmware file itself in the root directories of the router.

However, if you have it setup for a USB. It does not instantly clean up the files, and instead will over-write the existing copy on the USB on every run.
The firmware .zip is stored on the USB, but the firmware file is unzipped locally into the root folder for flashing.

I searched the thread on the separate terms ‘delete’ and ‘clean’ (clean up) and also the GitHub entry, but could not see anything that confirmed this? Apologies in advance and I hold my hand up if I missed it.

This has not been asked before, don't worry if it's not in my FAQ in page one your probably safe to ask it

 

[TheLyppardMan]

Looks beautiful, love to see the flow work as designed on a endpoint device. Worked like a charm! Thank you for confirming!

You're welcome. Thank you for your hard work in providing such a useful utility

 

[jksmurf]

All Correct.

This has not been asked before, don't worry if it's not in my FAQ in page one your probably safe to ask it

Thank you very much, I have installed it and it did indeed set it up to my USB, great stuff.

As regards email notifications, in the FAQ you note:

"Email notifications if you configured email options in AMTM."

"This menu item will be displayed only IF the "Email Notifications" setting has been ENABLED; otherwise, it's hidden.)"

For clarity please, as the amtm menu ew "email settings" does not appear verbatim in the FAQ, the latter which refers to "Email Notifications".
I ask as there is actually a menu for "Firmware update notification" so wanted to make sur eit is "em", which I 99% believe to be correct?

i.e. I assume you mean "em" (same menu code as in amtm/MerlinAU) and not "fw", the Firmware update notification.

 

[ExtremeFiretop]

Thank you very much, I have installed it and it did indeed set it up to my USB, great stuff.

As regards email notifications, in the FAQ you note:

"Email notifications if you configured email options in AMTM."

"This menu item will be displayed only IF the "Email Notifications" setting has been ENABLED; otherwise, it's hidden.)"

For clarity please, as the amtm menu ew "email settings" does not appear verbatim in the FAQ, the latter which refers to "Email Notifications".
I ask as there is actually a menu for "Firmware update notification" so wanted to make sur eit is "em", which I 99% believe to be correct?

i.e. I assume you mean "em" (same menu code as in amtm/MerlinAU) and not "fw", the Firmware update notification.

The option in AMTM is "em" to configure email notifications.

I'm pretty sure the Firmware update notification script is for people who only want notifications without the auto-update.

It would only send an email. Which you would need to configure the "em" option in AMTM anyways for the "fw" to function. At least that's always how I pictured it working.

(The @thelonelycoder can correct me here if I'm wrong, I actually haven't installed it and have no connection to that firmware update notification script)

 

[jksmurf]

The option in AMTM is "em" to configure email notifications.

I'm pretty sure the Firmware update notification script is for people who only want notifications without the auto-update.

It would only send an email. Which you would need to configure the "em" option in AMTM anyways for the "fw" to function. At least that's always how I pictured it working.

(The @thelonelycoder can correct me here if I'm wrong, I actually haven't installed it and have no connection to that firmware update notification script)

The "em" option seems to work for MerlinAU thanks.
[Not with gmail though, kept getting curl 67 login errors, so reverted to another email address]

 

[ExtremeFiretop]

The "em" option seems to work for MerlinAU thanks.
[Not with gmail though, kept getting curl 67 login errors, so reverted ot another email address]

Happy to help. I have Gmail working for mine. Did you enable 2FA and generate an app password? (No need for the --insecure flag when I use that setup). Asides from that you would probably need to ask thelonelycoder.

I'll update the FAQ with better answers to your questions later this evening when I'm back at my desk

 

[jksmurf]

Happy to help. I have Gmail working for mine. Did you enable 2FA and generate an app password? (No need for the --insecure flag when I use that setup). Asides from that you would probably need to ask thelonelycoder.

No I must admit I did see that 2FA advice when I searched the curl error and went down the menus in GMail, but was not quite ready to go 2FA at the moment. I am not sure what it means to my accessing emails, if it means FaceID I can live with that, if it's getting sent a code and typing a number in every time I check email... yeah_nah, not right now.

I'll update the FAQ with better answers to your questions later this evening when I'm back at my desk

Cheers, not being a smarty-pants btw, just like clarity .

k.

 

[ExtremeFiretop]

No I must admit I did see that 2FA advice when I searched the curl error and went down the menus in GMail, but was not quite ready to go 2FA at the moment. I am not sure what it means to my accessing emails, if it means FacID I can live with that, if it's getting sent a code and typing a numebr in every time I check email... yeah_nah, not right now.

I honestly forget I have 2FA enabled. You do set it up to generate a code in the Google authenticator app. But the code is rarely used since I never sign out of my Gmail and all my devices with access to my Gmail are "Trusted" devices which means after signing in the first time they don't require a code again.

The Google authenticator app is even backed up with my Google account so at times when I factory reset my phone for Android development, it comes back on its own as soon as I relink my Google account.

But my understanding is to use an App password you need to have a Google account with 2FA enabled.

Cheers, not being a smarty-pants btw, just like clarity .

k.

No worries, I'm all for better documentation, if there is somewhere to clarify I am more than happy to do so.

 

[ExtremeFiretop]

No I must admit I did see that 2FA advice when I searched the curl error and went down the menus in GMail, but was not quite ready to go 2FA at the moment. I am not sure what it means to my accessing emails, if it means FacID I can live with that, if it's getting sent a code and typing a numebr in every time I check email... yeah_nah, not right now.



Cheers, not being a smarty-pants btw, just like clarity .

k.

Question 4 Updated.
Question 20 Added.

Thanks!

 

[ExtremeFiretop]

MerlinAU Version 1.0.7 released.

What's Changed/Fixed?:

PR: 159 - Bug fix in Password input function
(Bug fix, if a user were to type the keypress pattern "<ESC>[X" where X indicates any printable char, the Left Square Bracket and the following char were also suppressed.)

As always, we highly recommend you update whenever possible. Enjoy the new release!

 

[Yaffle]

Apologies if this has been mentioned already as I've not had chance to look back through all the threads but I'm not having much joy with my AX86S due to lack of RAM. It starts running and has just enough free RAM:-

It then runs Backupmon and completes a backup to my server and downloads the update. At this point it doesn't have enough free RAM by quite an amount:-

It then extracts the update resulting in even less free RAM:-

It then offers to reboot the router which it does but that's as far as I've got. I guess this can be added to the Doesn't work due to lack of RAM list?

 

[ExtremeFiretop]

I guess this can be added to the Doesn't work due to lack of RAM list?

We would need more info to make a proper assessment, just because it didn't have enough RAM on one router once, does not mean it would be the case on every router of that model.
Can you send me your log file for MerlinAU please? It doesn't look like you did the reboot? Why not?

How many add-ons do you have installed? Also did it work when you rebooted? This is important to test.
Did that successfully clear enough RAM to do the update?

If it does, then it's just an example how I can't limit the model based on the amount of add-ins you installed/using at the time.

When it says "Attempting to free up memory" it runs a: sync; echo 1 > /proc/sys/vm/drop_caches command which should give back the router some memory, it then rechecks, and if that still wasn't enough then it prompts for a reboot as you see above.
This tells me you had enough "things" running that even when doing sync; echo 1 > /proc/sys/vm/drop_caches it still was not sufficient to continue.

Please try to reboot the router, send me the logs when you can, and try to list all your other add-ins or scripts running.
Thanks!

 

[ExtremeFiretop]

Apologies if this has been mentioned already as I've not had chance to look back through all the threads but I'm not having much joy with my AX86S due to lack of RAM. It starts running and has just enough free RAM:-

View attachment 57184

It then runs Backupmon and completes a backup to my server and downloads the update. At this point it doesn't have enough free RAM by quite an amount:-

View attachment 57185

It then extracts the update resulting in even less free RAM:-

View attachment 57186


It then offers to reboot the router which it does but that's as far as I've got. I guess this can be added to the Doesn't work due to lack of RAM list?

Doing a bit of research and going back through our models that had success in the past.

We had models such as the: RT-AC86U which also has 512MB of RAM (same as yours) which updated using MerlinAU.

I feel this would likely work correctly if it was rebooted, if it does, maybe with a better idea of what scripts or add-ons was running on the router at the time, we can maybe address some of the non-required services running.

 

[ExtremeFiretop]

Apologies if this has been mentioned already as I've not had chance to look back through all the threads but I'm not having much joy with my AX86S due to lack of RAM. It starts running and has just enough free RAM:-

View attachment 57184

It then runs Backupmon and completes a backup to my server and downloads the update. At this point it doesn't have enough free RAM by quite an amount:-

View attachment 57185

It then extracts the update resulting in even less free RAM:-

View attachment 57186


It then offers to reboot the router which it does but that's as far as I've got. I guess this can be added to the Doesn't work due to lack of RAM list?

@Yaffle

As documented in PR: 163 https://github.com/ExtremeFiretop/MerlinAutoUpdate-Router/pull/163

I have addressed memory management the best I can with the information I have.

Going back through past PRs, this is the 5th time I've revisited the memory management solution, it's hard to get something that will work for each device and each use-case.

This next PR is pretty much my best attempt at memory management universally, and will be included in the next release to address your situation.

Thanks for reporting! Please let us know if you have any better luck after the 1.0.8 release.

 

[Martinski]

Apologies if this has been mentioned already as I've not had chance to look back through all the threads but I'm not having much joy with my AX86S due to lack of RAM. It starts running and has just enough free RAM:-
...
It then offers to reboot the router which it does but that's as far as I've got. I guess this can be added to the Doesn't work due to lack of RAM list?

One of my cousins has the RT-AX86S router and he had no trouble doing the latest F/W update via MerlinAU.

Here's a screenshot showing the lines in the logfile that captured the RAM info as the script ran successfully:

Notice that the amount of "RAM Available" (which is what actually matters) remained above the "Required RAM" during the entire run.

Context:
The router has only two 3rd-party add-ons installed (YazFi & YazDHCP). The OpenVPN Servers & SSH Server are enabled - nothing else. AiMesh, Traffic Monitor/Analyzer, Web History, QOS, Samba, FTP, Media Server, etc. are all disabled. USB-attached disk drive with Entware installed. 1.0GB swap file.

FYI.

 

[nlurker]

RT-AX58U auto-updated to 3004.388.6_2 without a hitch last night. Thank you!

 

[ExtremeFiretop]

RT-AX58U auto-updated to 3004.388.6_2 without a hitch last night. Thank you!

Thank you for confirming @nlurker !!
I have updated the supported list to include:

• RT-AX86S (Tested)
• RT-AX58U (Tested)
• GT-AX11000 (Tested)

 

[ExtremeFiretop]

MerlinAU Version 1.0.8 released.

What's Changed/Fixed?:

PR: 162 - In response to a report #161 made by @DanielJonesEB on Github, we have added code to report found Mount Points if a mountpoint is not correctly setup. (Many thanks @Martinski4GitHub )

PR: 163: Improved Memory Management in response to a report made by @Yaffle in the forums:

Apologies if this has been mentioned already as I've not had chance to look back through all the threads but I'm not having much joy with my AX86S due to lack of RAM.

PR: 164: resolve a bug when multiple changelog files are included in the .zip such as the last release, it now correctly selects the changelog file based on the build number.
(Many thanks @Martinski4GitHub )

As always, we highly recommend you update whenever possible. Enjoy the new release!

Significant screenshots: