I've had an ASUS RT-N56U for a couple of years, but right from the beginning (ASUS firmware version 1.0.1.3; thru 1.0.1.8b and on into ASUS 3.0.0.4.360) I couldn't get the Network Services Filter (NSFilter) aka (LAN to WAN Filter) to work. I wanted to try Merlin, but apparently he doesn't support RT-N56U yet.
Here's the story so far: all comments/ideas welcome:
Recently I was messing with NSFilter issue again, couldn't google find anything or find bug report so; got fed up and moved on to reassigning my DNS resolver settings to OpenDNS. I was working on an old Dell XPsp3 machine I use for dev & test and instead of changing the router DNS assignments, I just punched the OpenDNS resolver server IP addresses into the Windows XPsp3: LAN Connection Properties\TCP/IPv4 Properties page as my preferred DNS server. See TCP-IPprops.PNG attachment below:
The Win XPsp3 machine gets it's IP address, mask, gateway etc from my router as I have my RT-N56U router DHCP server enabled and have 4 LAN devices manually pre-assigned IP addresses; including the XPsp3 machine.
Typically all LAN devices including the pre-assigned IPs would get their DNS resolver addresses from my router (now pointing to OpenDNS).
The interesting bit is that once I set the Win XPsp3 machine to have preferred DNS addresses, re-booted and tried Firefox and other attempts to access the Internet/WAN; I was surprised to find I had no Internet/WAN access.
The reason was; at some time in the past I had assigned the XPsp3 machine to the Network Services Filter(NSFilter) black list, but as it had never previously been effective I'd forgotten to disable NSFilter or remove the XPsp3 machine from the black list.
I went into the router and switched the NSFilter OFF, and I got Internet/WAN access again. I ran the same sequence on my Win7 Machine and again I can switch the problem on and off - but only if I manually assign the DNS resolver addresses at the machine, it doesn't seem to to matter what DNS addresses I assign in the router, they seem to be over-ridden by the machine settings.
This bug/feature seems to have been around forever, I hope someone with knowledge about the router firmware might make some connections that explains this behavior.
Thanks in advance - Latco
.
Here's the story so far: all comments/ideas welcome:
Recently I was messing with NSFilter issue again, couldn't google find anything or find bug report so; got fed up and moved on to reassigning my DNS resolver settings to OpenDNS. I was working on an old Dell XPsp3 machine I use for dev & test and instead of changing the router DNS assignments, I just punched the OpenDNS resolver server IP addresses into the Windows XPsp3: LAN Connection Properties\TCP/IPv4 Properties page as my preferred DNS server. See TCP-IPprops.PNG attachment below:
The Win XPsp3 machine gets it's IP address, mask, gateway etc from my router as I have my RT-N56U router DHCP server enabled and have 4 LAN devices manually pre-assigned IP addresses; including the XPsp3 machine.
Typically all LAN devices including the pre-assigned IPs would get their DNS resolver addresses from my router (now pointing to OpenDNS).
The interesting bit is that once I set the Win XPsp3 machine to have preferred DNS addresses, re-booted and tried Firefox and other attempts to access the Internet/WAN; I was surprised to find I had no Internet/WAN access.
The reason was; at some time in the past I had assigned the XPsp3 machine to the Network Services Filter(NSFilter) black list, but as it had never previously been effective I'd forgotten to disable NSFilter or remove the XPsp3 machine from the black list.
I went into the router and switched the NSFilter OFF, and I got Internet/WAN access again. I ran the same sequence on my Win7 Machine and again I can switch the problem on and off - but only if I manually assign the DNS resolver addresses at the machine, it doesn't seem to to matter what DNS addresses I assign in the router, they seem to be over-ridden by the machine settings.
This bug/feature seems to have been around forever, I hope someone with knowledge about the router firmware might make some connections that explains this behavior.
Thanks in advance - Latco
.