Enable AiMesh on ASUSWRT-Merlin (RMerlin) As some of you know all to well, ASUSWRT-Merlin as yet does not support AiMesh within his builds (officially) The below hack enables Aimesh on an ASUSWRT-Merlin flashed router Telnet...

[Grisu]

UK Sentinel wrote:

Maybe an option to change Primary Router to ASUSWRT and then update option may work? Same sort of option as @grisu was saying, but leaves Primary as ASUSWRT rather than RMerlin ?

Exactly what I meant as first option, only after all is done he can go back to merlin again on primary router.

Nodes must be on stock AFAICR to use them as mesh-nodes.

Firmware on nodes not relevant as they run in some kind of AP-mode with no routing, only if they fix Aimesh bugs you would like to update them.

You need to login in order to vote

[UK Sentinel]

ASUS AiMesh has been a struggle for sometime, will be interesting to see if with ASUSWRT (Primary Router) and ASUSWRT-Merlin (Node), whether the Primary will update Node ?

If @brianward317 does not have the opportunity to test this, I might give it a go later this week.

At my house I have RT-AC86U as AiMesh (Primary) with RMerlin and converted DSL-AC68U as NODE also with RMerlin, so I am sure I will have same issue ;-)

Will check when I get home tonight or sometime tomorrow ?

 

In a completely sane world, madness is the only freedom (J.G.Ballard).

You need to login in order to vote

[Grisu]

It wont make much sense for me to have stock firmware on primary router and Merlin on nodes.

All the features will get lost on nodes in AP or mesh mode, you can leave them with Asus.

Only other way round primary with Merlin and all his added functionalities beside bug fixes and even with Aimesh – while it is not supported by him – but seems to work though.

Nodes will stay with Asus configured as mesh-nodes.

I dont think it even would be possible to use Merlin on nodes, how could you connect them as nodes?

But I might be wrong, never tested such config.

 

I am interested if you can do it ;-)

You need to login in order to vote

[brianward317]

So here is what I did and this will fine for me.

Main router is Merlin firmware with aimesh enabled and the node that will connect to it will be stock firmware.  This looks like it will work and can update for future firmware.

 

Attachments:

1. 

   Capture-1.png
   

Liked by:

You need to login in order to vote

[UK Sentinel]

Opposite way to what I thought would work, thanks for checking – as far as you can tell, having the node as standard ASUSWRT does not effect the additional Merlin options available by AiMesh Router (Prime)

Thanks for update as I am sure others will find this very useful also ;)

In a completely sane world, madness is the only freedom (J.G.Ballard).

You need to login in order to vote

[brianward317]

You are welcome.  Yes, I will leave the primary as Merlin and any node I add as stock asus firmware since all the features come from the primary Merlin.

I love the features they offer and then having the add on AMTM is amazing.

Liked by:

You need to login in order to vote

[UK Sentinel]

brianward317 wrote:

You are welcome. Yes, I will leave the primary as Merlin and any node I add as stock asus firmware since all the features come from the primary Merlin. I love the features they offer and then having the add on AMTM is amazing.

;-)

In a completely sane world, madness is the only freedom (J.G.Ballard).

You need to login in order to vote

[Grisu]

This means his firmware even has this option to update nodes too after enabling Aimesh via SSH!

Almost perfect … couldnt be easier then.

You need to login in order to vote

[UK Sentinel]

As a follow on, I looked at my AiMesh set-up this morning and like @brianward317 with my AiMesh Router (Primary) being Merlin and my Node also being Merlin, I was only able to update the Router (Primary) and no options to update Node. (I enabled AiMesh on both Merlin routers via SSH)

I re-flashed Node with Stock ASUSWRT firmware and created new AiMesh pairing and now I can update both Router (Primary) and Node.

I even tried an older ASUSWRT firmware on Node that still supported AiMesh, and the AiMesh PAiring worked perfectly (well for two hours this morning so far) ;-)

 

In a completely sane world, madness is the only freedom (J.G.Ballard).

You need to login in order to vote

[Milton123]

Hi all

There’s now Merlin available for ASUS DSL modems, it’s very handy as there’s alot more compatiblity if you’re using Merlin RT and Merlin DSL

https://github.com/gnuton/asuswrt-merlin.ng/releases

 

You need to login in order to vote

[UK Sentinel]

Milton123 wrote:

Hi all There’s now Merlin available for ASUS DSL modems, it’s very handy as there’s alot more compatiblity if you’re using Merlin RT and Merlin DSL

https://github.com/gnuton/asuswrt-merlin.ng/releases

Forum Member @Grisu is a fan of GNUton and has spoke about his good work, shame really as @GNUton does not seem keen to work his magic with the ASUS DSL-AC88U ;-(

ASUSWRT-Merlin fork for DSL-AC68U "GNUton"

In a completely sane world, madness is the only freedom (J.G.Ballard).

You need to login in order to vote

[Milton123]

I do believe he is working on all builds as we speak, this forum is great to follow

http://www.snbforums.com/threads/dsl-ac68u-asuswrt-merlin-builds-for-dsl-routers.55985/

 

You need to login in order to vote

[UK Sentinel]

Milton123 wrote:

I do believe he is working on all builds as we speak, this forum is great to follow http://www.snbforums.com/threads/dsl-ac68u-asuswrt-merlin-builds-for-dsl-routers.55985/

I think @Grisu provided links a few days ago, GNUton cannot work on DSL-AC88U as DSL-AC88U code was (poor) hopefully @Grisu will be online later and help update us all ;-)

But I hope I am out of date and he has changed his mind ;-)

In a completely sane world, madness is the only freedom (J.G.Ballard).

You need to login in order to vote

[Grisu]

He probably would if possible, but hardware is much too different.

And they do NOT run AsusWRT but different firmware!!!

Similar to GT or BRT types which are not supported by Merlin for the same reason.

So it wont never ever happen …

His masters voice (Merlin): https://www.snbforums.com/threads/dsl-ac68u-asuswrt-merlin-builds-for-dsl-routers.55985/page-2#post-481013

 

DSL-AC68U is very similar to RT-AC68U, only WAN is changed to DSL.

There exists firmware for DSL-AC68U since 2 years ago, Hugo Gomes made a alpha build, but only insiders could download. It is not that much work, if you can compile it yourself just add DSL part to the RT-AC68U firmware and make ‘some’ corrections (descriptions for noobs like me).

That said GNUton is not a hero but knows a lot and did all the hard work just for fun and because he is able to and got this router too and tried it for himself . And as he is very friendly too he opened it for others with updates, and now the community keeping him in virtual chains.

DSL-AC88U is very different to RT-AC88U and do not even run tomato-based AsusWRT firmware which is similar for all other Asus routers we are speaking here about and Merlin supports.

You need to login in order to vote

[UK Sentinel]

A little off topic, but the only thread I have ever seen about DSL-AC88U alternative firmware was a couple of years ago by a guy called Ballantin, no idea what happed to him ?

https://github.com/Ballantin/dsl-ac88u-custom

In a completely sane world, madness is the only freedom (J.G.Ballard).

You need to login in order to vote

[Author]

Posts