Software Update: Asuswrt-Merlin 384.17

Asus uses Tomato-derived firmware called Asuswrt for its newer routers, such as the RT-AC87 and RT-AC5300. This firmware is, with the exception of a few drivers, open source, whereby the closed binaries are included. Asuswrt-merlin, in turn, is a modified version of the original firmware from Asus. It includes bug fixes and minor improvements, but still tries to stay close to the original, so that it remains possible to add new features that Asus introduces to the code. The complete changelog for version 384.17 is up this page Here are the highlights in a nutshell:

Asuswrt-Merlin 384.17 (and 384.13_8) are now available

Asuswrt-Merlin 384.17 (current models) and 384.13_8 (legacy models) are currently available.

I decided to issue this quick release due to recent security release for OpenSSL, and the fact that I don’t expect to be ready for another major release for all models for quite some time. And since I was too lazy to branch out for a minor point release this should normally have been, I simply went ahead and pushed what work had already been done into this major release.

This release primarily focuses on component update (OpenSSL 1.1, OpenVPN, curl, nano and dnsmasq). A pair of minor fixes were also included for the DHCP static lease page, and the firmware header for the RT-AC88U, RT-AC3100 and RT-AC5300 were also modified to work around a version check bug present in newer Asus releases (like the RT-AC88U 384_81790), where it would refuse to apply an Asuswrt-Merlin firmware image claiming it failed validation.

Please keep discussions to this specific release. This thread will get locked down after a few weeks once the release-specific feedback will have died down.