RT-AC86U reboots everyday evening for no reason

[old_router]

First of all, I completely understand that the RT-AC86U is EOL for Asus/Merlin, but this router still runs solid—except for the fact that it auto-reboots every day.

Ever since update checks have been blocked by the upstream Merlin server, the router has been rebooting at 7:15 PM Central Time daily. I’ve checked everything—from cron jobs and Entware scripts to the web interface for any reboot scheduler—but I can’t find anything that would cause this scheduled reboot behavior.

I read somewhere that if update checks fail, Asus routers might reboot for security reasons. I also cleaned up the /jffs/asd directory and enabled the 'Security Upgrade' option after accepting the Asus privacy policy, but it only reinstated the /jffs/asd files. At this point, I’m not sure what else to try, especially since I have the 'Scheduled check for new firmware' option disabled.

Any ideas on what could be causing this?

 

[dave14305]

Ever since update checks have been blocked by the upstream Merlin server

Why do think this is true?

but I can’t find anything that would cause this scheduled reboot behavior.

Post the system log if you want more assistance.

 

[bennor]

Have you checked the router log to see if there are any indicators there of the reboot cause?

Have you considered a router reset ?

 

[old_router]

Why do think this is true?

That's just an observation.

Please see attached syslog.

 

[old_router]

Have you checked the router log to see if there are any indicators there of the reboot cause?

Yes, but could not find anything related.

Have you considered a router reset ?

Not yet, but might do a reset this weekend.

 

[bennor]

Please see attached syslog.

Right off the bat you have a number of custom scripts (service-event, service-event-end, nat-start, firewall-start) being run. Have you checked each one? For example, right at the top of your log file: "May 11 11:04:43 custom_script: Running /jffs/scripts/service-event (args: restart time)"

As a troubleshooting step, clean out all of the custom scripting you've added, reboot the router and see if the spontaneous reboot issue persists.

And per the log you are running WireGuard. If you disable Wireguard does the router spontaneously reboot as previous?

And is what you posted the entire log or just a portion of it?

 

[dave14305]

Please see attached syslog.

You have likely modified the syslog levels in the past (probably Sunday), since many messages are being suppressed. Set the two options to “notice” and “debug” respectively. Wait for the next reboot and repost the log tomorrow.

 

[old_router]

Right off the bat you have a number of custom scripts (service-event, service-event-end, nat-start, firewall-start) being run. Have you checked each one? For example, right at the top of your log file: "May 11 11:04:43 custom_script: Running /jffs/scripts/service-event (args: restart time)"

Yes, all of my custom scripts have been there for over a year and the reboots started recently. Here is the content of service-event:

# cat /jffs/scripts/service-event
#!/bin/sh

if echo "$2" | /bin/grep -q "scmerlin"; then { /jffs/scripts/scmerlin service_event "$@" & }; fi # scMerlin
if echo "$2" | /bin/grep -q "wg_manager"; then { /jffs/addons/wireguard/wg_manager.sh service_event "$@" & }; fi # WireGuard WebUI
if [ "$1" = "start" ] && [ "$2" = "SkynetStats" ]; then sh /jffs/scripts/firewall debug genstats; fi # Skynet

Above script seems to be managed by 'amtm'

And per the log you are running WireGuard. If you disable Wireguard does the router spontaneously reboot as previous?

Haven't checked that yet, and the reboot is exactly at 7:15PM central, so I can only check it tomorrow.

And is what you posted the entire log or just a portion of it?

Yes it was full log with 'info' and 'warning' levels only. I have updated the log setting to 'notice' and 'debug' as suggested by @dave14305 . I will post the full logs tomorrow when it reboots.

 

[old_router]

Please see attached syslog from yesterday's reboot and all available logs from today. The reboot likely happened between these two events:

May 16 19:14:13 dnsmasq-dhcp[19661]: DHCPACK(br0) 192.168.0.227 [MAC_REDACTED]
May 16 18:45:00 syslogd started: BusyBox v1.25.1

Unfortunately this happens every day at 7:15PM and I can't find any cron or web config that would suggest a scheduled reboot. See my crontab below:

router:/tmp/home/root# crontab -l
45 */6 * * * /jffs/addons/amtm/routerdate cron #amtm_RouterDate#
30 2 * * * sh /jffs/scripts/backupmon.sh #RunBackupMon#
25 1 * * * sh /jffs/scripts/firewall banmalware #Skynet_banmalware#
16 1 * * Mon sh /jffs/scripts/firewall update #Skynet_autoupdate#
0 * * * * sh /jffs/scripts/firewall save #Skynet_save#
59 * * * * /jffs/addons/wireguard/wg_manager.sh generatestats #WireGuard#
0 7 * * 6 /jffs/addons/wireguard/wg_manager.sh trimdb 99 #WireGuard_DB#
43 */12 * * * sh /jffs/scripts/firewall debug genstats #Skynet_genstats#

Interestingly I don't lose WAP IP during such reboots, which happens all the time in manual restart because my ISP does not provide static IP. I do lose internet connectivity along with wired-lan and wifi.

 

[dave14305]

Why do you have your lease time set for 1 hour? Seems short for the main network. Creates a lot of renewal noise in the log.

There’s nothing obvious in the log. No preceding event, no crash dump after the reboot. Maybe power related, but odd that it happens at the same time every day. No outlet timer anywhere?

 

[dave14305]

Odd that you’re seeing DHCP renewals for 192.168.1.0/24 IPs when it isn’t a configured range in dnsmasq. How is your network setup?

 

[old_router]

Why do you have your lease time set for 1 hour? Seems short for the main network. Creates a lot of renewal noise in the log.

There’s nothing obvious in the log. No preceding event, no crash dump after the reboot. Maybe power related, but odd that it happens at the same time every day. No outlet timer anywhere?

Lease time is set to 3600 for long time, I think I lowered it long back from 24 hrs for some static IP conflict in past. Nevertheless, I have changed it to 86400. We will see if that has anything to do with reboots today.
As far as outlet power is concerned, I don't have any timer attached to it. Also please note that any moment my WAN port power goes down, I get a new WAN IP from my ISP. During the reboots we are discussing, no WAN IP is changed, so I assume that WAN port is always up.

Odd that you’re seeing DHCP renewals for 192.168.1.0/24 IPs when it isn’t a configured range in dnsmasq. How is your network setup?

My network is '192.168.0.0/22' out of which '192.168.0.0/24' is for DHCP, see the attached images. I use '192.168.1.0 - 192.168.3.254' is for static assignment via web interface (from 192.168.1.0/24), for guest network (192.168.2.0/24), and for underlying Kubernetes/ MetalLB (192.168.3.254). Kubernetes and Guest network is not live as we speak, so only 192.168.1.0/24 is being used outside DHCP for static assignment to my wired devices.

See below my route table:

router:/tmp/home/root# route -n
Kernel IP routing table
Destination     Gateway         Genmask         Flags Metric Ref    Use Iface
0.0.0.0         [WAN_GATEWAY]   0.0.0.0         UG    0      0        0 eth0
10.50.1.0       0.0.0.0         255.255.255.0   U     0      0        0 wg21
10.50.1.2       0.0.0.0         255.255.255.255 UH    0      0        0 wg21
10.50.1.3       0.0.0.0         255.255.255.255 UH    0      0        0 wg21
10.50.1.4       0.0.0.0         255.255.255.255 UH    0      0        0 wg21
10.50.1.5       0.0.0.0         255.255.255.255 UH    0      0        0 wg21
[WAN_NETWORK]   0.0.0.0         255.255.255.0   U     0      0        0 eth0
[WAN_GATEWAY]   0.0.0.0         255.255.255.255 UH    0      0        0 eth0
127.0.0.0       0.0.0.0         255.0.0.0       U     0      0        0 lo
192.168.0.0     0.0.0.0         255.255.252.0   U     0      0        0 br0
208.67.222.222  [WAN_GATEWAY]   255.255.255.255 UGH   1      0        0 eth0

 

[dave14305]

Since you seem to be no stranger to scripts, it might be useful to start capturing to /jffs ps ww output every few seconds starting at 19:14. Maybe we’ll see something useful. How are the temperatures?

 

[old_router]

Since you seem to be no stranger to scripts, it might be useful to start capturing to /jffs ps ww output every few seconds starting at 19:14. Maybe we’ll see something useful. How are the temperatures?

Legend: 2.4 GHz - 5 GHz - CPU
Current Temperatures: 109 °F - 118 °F - 151 °F

See attached logs from today's reboot and the script for ps-ww.

Interestingly the crontab for ps-ww did not persist during reboot:

user@router:/tmp/home/root# cru l
45 */6 * * * /jffs/addons/amtm/routerdate cron #amtm_RouterDate#
30 2 * * * sh /jffs/scripts/backupmon.sh #RunBackupMon#
25 9 * * * sh /jffs/scripts/firewall banmalware #Skynet_banmalware#
16 1 * * Mon sh /jffs/scripts/firewall update #Skynet_autoupdate#
0 * * * * sh /jffs/scripts/firewall save #Skynet_save#
59 * * * * /jffs/addons/wireguard/wg_manager.sh generatestats #WireGuard#
0 7 * * 6 /jffs/addons/wireguard/wg_manager.sh trimdb 99 #WireGuard_DB#
39 */12 * * * sh /jffs/scripts/firewall debug genstats #Skynet_genstats#

 

[original-birdman]

Silly thought....
Have you accidentally enabled the "Enable Reboot Scheduler" under Administration/System?

 

[old_router]

Silly thought....
Have you accidentally enabled the "Enable Reboot Scheduler" under Administration/System?

No. Even factory reseting the router did not help... I just got RT-AX86U Pro and added this RT-AC86U as an AiMesh node.