New Asus RT-N66U Router

[!gm]

wuuuuhuuuu PARTY

[hggomes]

We want a overclock > 1GHZ loooooooool :P

[wpte]

ok, I did some benchmarks with a proper usb harddrive. On a pc it can go 40MB/s
The filesystem I used was EXT3
first the intel nas benchmark:


and some fily copy benchmarks:

I took the highest stable speed from a network tool, not the software itself. With highest stable I mean the same value for over 10 seconds... it tends to go up and down a lot, not a big difference, just very frequently

I noticed that samba has some low cpu usage on the rt-n66u... asus made some "optimal" settings it seems?
smb.cfg:

[global]
workgroup = MSHOME
netbios name = RT-N66U
server string = RT-N66U
unix charset = UTF8
display charset = UTF8
log file = /var/log.samba
log level = 0
max log size = 5
security = SHARE
guest only = yes
encrypt passwords = yes
pam password change = no
null passwords = yes
force directory mode = 0777
force create mode = 0777
max connections = 5
socket options = TCP_NODELAY SO_KEEPALIVE SO_RCVBUF=32768 SO_SNDBUF=32768
obey pam restrictions = no
use spne go = no
client use spnego = no
disable spoolss = yes
host msdfs = no
strict allocate = No
bind interfaces only = yes
interfaces = lo br0
use sendfile = yes
map archive = no
map hidden = no
map read only = no
map system = no
store dos attributes = yes
dos filemode = yes
dos filetimes = yes
dos filetime resolution = yes
[backup]
comment = WD 5000AAJ External's backup
path = /tmp/mnt/backup
writeable = yes

I don't really like those socket options imho... they usually slow stuff down on the rt-n16 for me.
edit: socket options off make no difference...


Wireless... well I didn't really test it properly yet. But since I'm king of the wifi hill in my neighborhood with my fancy 5GHz network, I can get some pretty nice speeds
I'm easily able to get over 70Mbit/s throughput, but my laptops cpu is the limiting factor (atom). as soon as I do something like that it will max out a core
pings are also really good on wifi: ~1.8ms very stable as well.

[wpte]

dd-wrt seems to have a build ready: ftp://dd-wrt.com/others/eko/BrainSla...ig_RT-N66U.trx
beta still...
not sure If I'd want to check that out

[wpte]

I decided to install the download master on a harddisk, and guess what?
I discovered (but I guess someone else must have seen this as well) that asus uses ipkg to install this app.
I took a quick look at the ipkg.conf, and even a bigger suprise

#Uncomment the following line for native packages feed (if any)
src/gz optware.oleg http://ipkg.nslu2-linux.org/feeds/op...g/cross/stable
src/gz optware.asus http://dlcdnet.asus.com/pub/ASUS/wireless/ASUSWRT
dest /opt/ /
#option verbose-wget

by default they use the ipkg repository of the oleg packages
Seems like asus favours oleg?

I played around with it a bit, but it doesn't work as well as on oleg
I installed samba35 instead of the build in samba and managed to add another 2MB/s on the windows 7 transfer speeds!

[hggomes]

This is weird:

Version 3.1.0.3.90
Description The GPL (source code) of ASUS RT-N66U B1 for firmware version 3.1.0.3.90
File Size
298,6 (MBytes) 2012.02.02 update

Version 3.0.0.3.90
Description The GPL (source code) of ASUS RT-N66U B1 for firmware version 3.0.0.3.90
File Size
298,6 (MBytes) 2012.01.16 update

Version 3.0.0.3.72
Description ASUS RT-N66U B1 GPL for Firmware version 3.0.0.3.72
File Size
340 (MBytes) 2011.12.22 update

42MB less is a lot !?!?!?!?

[wpte]

I tried tomato today... hmm... imho it's a bit like dd-wrt, not my style at least.
I flashed back to the stock firmware in the end

[thE_29]

Where did you buy the router?!

[hggomes]

http://wl500g.info/showpost.php?p=244652&postcount=175

[Mektub]

I decided to install the download master on a harddisk, and guess what?
I discovered (but I guess someone else must have seen this as well) that asus uses ipkg to install this app.
I took a quick look at the ipkg.conf, and even a bigger suprise


by default they use the ipkg repository of the oleg packages
Seems like asus favours oleg?

I played around with it a bit, but it doesn't work as well as on oleg
I installed samba35 instead of the build in samba and managed to add another 2MB/s on the windows 7 transfer speeds!

I am using Firmware Version:3.0.0.3.102 on the ASUS RT-N66U, and at first ipkg seemed to work well, I could install openssh, bash and a couple of other things.

But as soon as I rebooted some changes disappeared which was to be expected since I have not yet found how to save volatile changes.

Did you make some progress on the matter or found more information on it ?

Mektub

[hggomes]

You can try use flashfs if available on that fw, or wait for TheMiron & lly fw since i'm not sure that other fws can use it

[Mektub]

You can try use flashfs if available on that fw, or wait for TheMiron & lly fw since i'm not sure that other fws can use it

Thanks, hggomes. No flashfs.

You are right, I will wait.

Mektub

[wpte]

But as soon as I rebooted some changes disappeared which was to be expected since I have not yet found how to save volatile changes.

I had the same problem, no idea how to fix it.
the asus firmware is still quite a bit locked down, and requires different rights for some files.

[hggomes]

That's really bad news, ASUS should be shame of such anoying FW problems from the beginning and we don't know how much more will last, it's riddiculous that 3rd party FWs work better / more stable than the official ASUS FW.

Only the HW part its good here, what a disapointment ASUS software development, specially from a "High End" product support, 150€ its alot for a router with so much problems

If we take a look in the past we can see the RT-N56U example, that at this current date continues with random WAN disconnects and other problems never solved by ASUS so far, it was a 3rd party FW from Padavan that fixed it and others more. I'm afraid thats the same destiny of RT-N66U development will be, a real fiasco.

[wpte]

That's really bad news, ASUS should be shame of such anoying FW problems from the beginning and we don't know how much more will last, it's riddiculous that 3rd party FWs work better / more stable than the official ASUS FW.

Only the HW part its good here, what a disapointment ASUS software development, specially from a "High End" product support, 150€ its alot for a router with so much problems

If we take a look in the past we can see the RT-N56U example, that at this current date continues with random WAN disconnects and other problems never solved by ASUS so far, it was a 3rd party FW from Padavan that fixed it and others more. I'm afraid thats the same destiny of RT-N66U development will be, a real fiasco.

well it runs stable mr gomes
it's just that it's locked down. also the mounting of the opt partition is not like in oleg or any other wrt firmware.
instead of using a partition asus uses a folder on the drive as mountpoint. since this firmware is ment for people that don't use alternative firmwares it is the correct choice, since they won't know how to make partitions etc.
it's the easiest, and a sufficient solution for this group of people.

the firmware is still a bit beta-ish, but still, most of it works. as an engineer you can test a lot, but not everything. real feedback comes in as soon as a product is released. and you can see asus is working on it.

so I really do have to defend asus here on this: the firmware is quite allright, and is perfect for the market (people) the firmware was designed for.
so far it hasn't crashed, or anything, so I'm happy with it so far