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This is the official Wiki/documentation for Asuswrt-merlin, a custom firmware designed for Asus routers.

Note: As with any Wiki, this documentation is a constant work-in-progress. Most of the content is contributed by the community - anyone with a Github account can edit it.

About

1. About Asuswrt and Asuswrt-merlin
2. Features (External link)
3. Screenshots (External link)
4. Supported devices
5. Changelog - Legacy (380.x) (External link)
6. Changelog - Current (382.x and newer) (External link)
7. Installation
8. Reverting

Usage

1. User scripts
2. JFFS
3. Customizing configuration files
4. DDNS Services
5. Custom DDNS support
6. SSHD
7. Scheduled tasks (Cron jobs)
8. Enhanced traffic monitoring
9. Adjustable TCP/IP connection tracking setting
10. Mounting remote CIFS shares
11. Disk Spindown when idle
12. NFS Exports
13. DNS Director
14. Using a custom webui/FTP SSL certificate
15. Wi-Fi Radar
16. DNS Privacy (DNS-over-TLS)
17. AiMesh
18. AMTM - Asuswrt-Merlin Terminal Menu
19. Policy-based routing through VPN Director

OpenVPN

1. About OpenVPN
2. Setting up OpenVPN
3. Generating certs with Easy-RSA
4. Policy-based routing (Before version 386.3)
5. Policy-based routing - manual method v380.xx firmware or later now DEPRECATED
6. Policy-based Port (or MAC address) routing - manual method
7. Static ip for OpenVPN clients

External software repositories

Entware

1. Setting up Entware (Optware alternative)
2. Setting up Entware (External link)
3. Installing Transmission through Entware
4. Lighttpd web server with PHP support through Entware
5. Installing RTorrent through Entware (External link)
6. Installing Deluge through Entware
7. Webcam video surveillance Entware (External link)

Chroot Debian

1. Plex Media Server on Arm Routers (External link, Accessed by The Wayback Machine)
2. Plex Media Server on Armhf (RT-AX58U etc.) Routers (External link, accessed by the The Wayback Machine)
3. Debian 12 Bookworm + Plex Media Server (Asus RT-AX86S) (External link)* *the most up-to-date guide, written for Arm64 routers, but works for Armhf too, just change to your processor architecture when installing debian through debootstrap)
4. Minidlna Upnp Media Server through debian (link list)

Development

1. Download the latest source code from GitHub
2. Compile from source
3. Setting up a virtual machine for building:
   1. Setting up a build VM under WSL2
   2. Setting up a build VM under Multipass
   3. Setting up a build VM in Docker
4. Apply patches to source files
5. Addons API
6. OBSOLETE build instructions for older Linux versions:
   1. Compile from source using Ubuntu
   2. Compile from source using Linux Mint
   3. Compiling from source using a Debian-based Linux Distribution

Networking HowTo and Guides

1. Iptables tricks and tips
2. How to use Adblock Plus filter subscriptions to provide advertisement filtering to devices
3. Secure DNS queries using DNSCrypt
4. Setting up an IPv6 tunnel through Hurricane Electric
5. How to dedicate SSID for VPN and SSID for regular ISP using OpenVPN
6. How to use ipset to block connections
7. Link Aggregation Setup
8. Access modem Web UI on WAN port (no script)
9. Enforce the use of Google Safesearch on your LAN
10. How to have dedicated DHCP options bind to a specific SSID
11. Custom domains with dnsmasq
12. How to use Adblock using Pixelserv
13. How to block scanners, bots, malware, ransomware
14. Adaptive QoS Optimization
15. Installing Tailscale through Entware

Misc HowTo and Guides

1. Email notification from your router
2. WOL Script Wake Up Your Webserver On Internet Traffic
3. Scheduled LED control
4. How to make a NTFS usb hdd running more stable as media server, by ChrisR
5. Network Image Scanning With Sane
6. Delay start of minidlna to wait for the USB disk mount
7. Setting-up-FreeRadius2-through-Entware
8. User NVRAM Save/Restore
9. Transfer (sync) a backup to a remote location using Rsync through a SSH tunnel between 2 Asus routers
10. Setting a random password for guest wifi
11. Guest WIFI QR code generator for display on local network webpage (visible from TV, smartphones...) and random password rotation
12. Tinc VPN on AsusWRT-Merlin (External Link)
13. LUKS Encrypted USB Drive HOWTO
14. USB Disk Check at Boot
15. USB Disk Check at Boot or Hot Plug (improved version)
16. Minidlna - Common Issues & Solutions
17. pyTivo - How-To Guide
18. Setting up an NTP time server for your LAN
19. Disk formatting
20. Change the webui language
21. Restart WAN interface when internet is down
22. Installing and running openSSH on Merlin
23. Enable PXE booting into netboot.xyz

Reference:

1. FAQ
2. Credits
3. Contact
4. Disclaimer
5. Privacy