RT-AC87U with RT-AC66U repeater

[highwire]

I just bought a RT-AC87U today and upgraded it to RMerlin's 378.50Beta1 firmware. Everything (except openVPN) is working great. I repurposed the RT-AC66U as a repeater and it's also working great.

I have a couple of questions I hope the community here can help me with.
1) I don't see a repeater mode in the Administration -> Operation Mode page of the RT-AC87U. Is that normal? It's there on the RT-AC66U.
2) I'm using Asus' DDNS service. On the RT-AC87U, even though registration is succeeding, I get a yellow exclamation point on the main Network Map page. If I click on it, a popup says "the domain name xxx.asuscomm.com is registered". That didn't happen on the RT-AC66U. Is this normal now?
3) When in repeater mode, is there a way to tweak the wireless parameters like, for example, channel width? The only thing I can tweak is 'roaming assistant' - everything else is hidden.

As for openVPN, I set it up exactly the same way on the RT-AC87U as I had on the RT-AC66U, but it doesn't seem to work. The client can connect to the server, but it appears the server isn't providing a IP address (10.8.0.x). I created a new .ovpn file and imported it to the client, but no luck. Any help is appreciated.

Thanks.

 

[Stp]

I think RT-AC87U firmware not support Repeater mode. I use same you but RT-AC87U is main router, RT-AC66U is repeater. I suggest you to use RT-AC87U as main because it's newer than RT-AC66U.

In Repeater mode, Can't config Wireless Settings in firmware.

 

[ejackson]

The "registered" message is short for "this host name is already registered by another router, sorry but I won't re-register it." (I think the new Merlin firmware will have an improved message.)

As I understand it, the registration of host names for asuscomm.com is tied to the MAC of the router, so the new router will not be able to replace the current registration. I have no personal experience with ASUS tech support, but it has been reported that they have refused to move the old registration to one's new router. Of course, that could just be one lazy call center drone and not ASUS policy, YMMV.

 

[jmone]

I'm on my third ASUS router (with the others being repurposed as AP). The AUSUS DNS is tied to the MAC addres and while I was told that after XX Months the of inactivity in would become available they never seem to, so I'm gone from Name, Name1, Name2 so far.

 

[chele809]

RE-register the 66u with another name... so the one been used currently by 66u can be released and used on the 87u. This is what I have done on 5he same Routers 6 hat I own as you. The only difference is 6 hat I use my 66u as a Media instead of Repeater or AP

 

[highwire]

The "registered" message is short for "this host name is already registered by another router, sorry but I won't re-register it." (I think the new Merlin firmware will have an improved message.)

As I understand it, the registration of host names for asuscomm.com is tied to the MAC of the router, so the new router will not be able to replace the current registration. I have no personal experience with ASUS tech support, but it has been reported that they have refused to move the old registration to one's new router. Of course, that could just be one lazy call center drone and not ASUS policy, YMMV.

Thanks! It all makes sense now. I had registered that name against the MAC address of my RT-AC66U. I guess I can't continue to use that name with the RT-AC87U.

 

[highwire]

RE-register the 66u with another name... so the one been used currently by 66u can be released and used on the 87u. This is what I have done on 5he same Routers 6 hat I own as you. The only difference is 6 hat I use my 66u as a Media instead of Repeater or AP

That's a good idea, but I already set up the RT-AC66U as a repeater, and I'm too lazy to hook it back up as the main router, change the registration, then change it back to a repeater. I resorted to adding a 1 to the end of the existing name which fixed the issue.