Skynet Skynet v8 - Router Firewall & Security Enhancements

[Adamm]

Skynet v8 - Router Firewall & Security Enhancements

The largest upgrade in Skynet’s 11-year history

Built exclusively for ASUSWRT-Merlin, Skynet v8 delivers a fully modernised codebase with major performance, reliability, and maintainability improvements - while keeping the familiar interface users already know.

What’s New in v8 (full list of changes available on GitHub)

Firewall, DNS, and IPSet improvements

• Unified IPSet handling through new IPSet_Wrapper()
• Converted core ipset code to wrapper (rollout ongoing)
• Domain lookup timeout control - prevents long stalls
• CIDR attribution accuracy improved in stats
• Country lookup only when enabled, with safer handling of malformed data

Race condition & concurrency fixes

• New lock management using flock
• Runtime/age of locks shown in logs for easier diagnosis
• Safe stale lock cleanup with ownership checks
• Trap-based cleanup on exit to prevent orphaned locks
• Race conditions reduced in parallel execution paths

Stability & network hardening

• Refactored Check_Connection() and DNS lookups
• Reduced IPTables workload (no more process flooding)
• Improved NTP sync validation

Menu system modernisation (in active development)

• Show_Menu() - easier, more consistent menu creation
• Prompt_Input() / Prompt_Typed() - validated user input
• Unified navigation and clearer error handling
• Reduced nesting for simpler, more readable flow

Stats & event logging enhancements

• New Run_Stats() system for cleaner statistics
• Added Show_Associated_Domains()
• Improved block reasons, including CIDR correlation
• Startup banners preserved (last 3) instead of being purged immediately
• Custom log size support:
  

  sh /jffs/scripts/firewall settings logsize 20

Code quality & compatibility

• ShellCheck compliance improvements across the script
• Shorter curl paths and safer download logic
• VSCode formatting / phrasing issues resolved
• "debug run xxx" now supports arguments for easier testing
• Improved internal documentation and function comments

Swap + storage handling

• Simplified swap detection logic
• Detect and repair dnsmasq additional config permissions
• New find_install_dir() helper for locating the install path

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How To Install

SSH:

/usr/sbin/curl -fsL "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Adamm00/IPSet_ASUS/master/firewall.sh" -o "/jffs/scripts/firewall" && chmod 755 /jffs/scripts/firewall && sh /jffs/scripts/firewall install

Or install from AMTM:

amtm

Example startup output:

Nov 15 10:26:54 Skynet: [i] Startup Initiated... ( skynetloc=/tmp/mnt/USB/skynet )
Nov 15 10:27:15 Skynet: [#] 33467 IPs (+0) -- 2365 Ranges Banned (+0) || 0 Inbound -- 0 Outbound Connections Blocked! [start] [20s]

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Support & issue tracking

For reproducible issues, enhancement requests, or deeper technical investigation:

Please use the GitHub Issue Tracker where development is active and changes are tracked.

General questions and discussion are welcome in this thread.

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Open Source - Free Forever

Skynet is hosted on GitHub.

If you'd like to support ongoing development:

• PayPal donation link

Every contribution helps - from funding test hardware to covering development time.

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Looking ahead

• Full IPv6 Support
• Continued menu modernisation
• Improved WebUI (Community assistance required)

 

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