Bought 2 asus routers (RT-AC68U) for a home network upgrade. Setup seems to require internet access rather than being a simple GUI on the router itself. What's up with that? I guess I don't expect Asus to go out of business any time soon but I would much prefer having such things local. I thought I might see an alternate method that didn't use the internet but I don't see anything like that.
Asus aimesh router setup without going through Asus web site?
- Thread starter JimS
- Start date
Did a little more digging. The quickstart said to go to an address router.asus.com and had connection to WAN as first step. The included CD had an autorun file that prompted a "do you want to allow changes to this computer" which was also not wanted. But the CD had the full manual. Simply going to 192.168.1.1 gave the option for manual setup. So it's all good now. Just a little too much "help" in the default way. 
I just logged in to the IP address given initially. The last round (AiMesh introduction) was to the URL posted and after asking a few questions set the router basics up as I requested. The only Internet access required was to update the firmware, which is now on a one click basis and does both routers.
The quickstart marks a big deal of connecting the model and power cycling it before connecting the router. I found some other details in the full manual so didn't connect WAN and used 192.168.1.1. That allowed manual setup. But at one point when I entered that IP is showed router.asus.com in the browser address bar when showing the local pages (still no WAN connection). I think the router must deal with that in special ways and when the wan is not connected it goes to the internal setup pages.
One thing to warn you about is after finalising any settings, give the router a power cycle. I have changed DHCP reservation tables and other WiFi setup items only to find things not reconnected or not functioning properly 24 hours later. This may have been some buggie stages implementing the AiMesh firmware but I have learned when I am truly done with settings to power cycle these things.
BTW: I haven't seen the setup of my RT-AC68u router since I got my first RT-AX92u router, that became the master router. The master sets all the parameters in the slave routers, automagically. From what I can recall, ASUS keeps all firmware settings looking the same from the webpage view for all their routers, but only allows access to the master router for settings and upgrades. Things have been very stable since the last firmware upgrade about a week ago, on mine.
BTW: I haven't seen the setup of my RT-AC68u router since I got my first RT-AX92u router, that became the master router. The master sets all the parameters in the slave routers, automagically. From what I can recall, ASUS keeps all firmware settings looking the same from the webpage view for all their routers, but only allows access to the master router for settings and upgrades. Things have been very stable since the last firmware upgrade about a week ago, on mine.
Got the routers set up and seem to be working well. Will try a firmware update in the early morning when nothing is happening on the network. I set up DHCP by MAC and had blocked my cameras WAN access. It's a little different than earlier Asus routers. You have to go to clients and block it there. And to do that the client has to be connected. So the only way to prevent a device from ever connecting to WAN I suppose is to disconnect the router WAN cable, then connect the device, block it and then reconnect WAN cable. Would be nice if you could block it when setting things up without connecting the device. I also noticed some difficulty in setting up the DHCP reservations. When setting them up you can't initially name then. You have to set them up and then click that entry to name them. And I got a couple MACs wrong. No way I saw to edit them - I had to delete that whole entry and reenter it. Not a huge deal but could be better.
For WAN access blocking you cannot do it on the list but there is another list you get on the right side by clicking the icon above the list. It seems like a duplicate list to me but I think it was a result of a prior development that was dumped. I can block WAN access any time with that menu. IIRC I also ran into a right click menu on the devices that had that option also. Can't remember where but it was a device list somewhere. It seems like they have been adding a lot of hidden screen clicks on items like you would have on iPads and other touchpads that live without full mouse features.JimS said:
Got the blocking done. Just strange that things are sort of all over the place in the GUI. I clicked the button to check if my software was up to date and got the message it was unable to connect to the asus server. While the internet on my PCs works just fine. I manually checked and saw that a newer version of firmware was available and will install it soon. Overall it's working fine but a few quirky things...
Yeah. That "Asus server" message started a few updates ago. It will respond correctly if there is any updates available. I did a few manual updates after seeing that message that scared me.JimS said:
With my system, both router models must have updates so the master can update all to match.
I hate that style of GUI but I think they are taking lessons from the touch pad crowd where you just poke everything on the screen to see what it does. OTOH there are better help instructions to be found online as it grows in popularity being one of the 2/3? system that have done it this way. That is why I avoid as many touch screen devices I can.
With mobile phones it isn't possible but now I need a larger pants pocket (or wheelbarrow) to carry my 19" screen mobile device. LOL
