Noobie with OpenWRT, DoT (DNS over TLS) and guests Wi-Fi on ASUS RT-AC51U

Networking Networking Software
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Hello there!

I am not knowledgeable at in networking, but I configure (years ago) some routers with the OpenWRT custom firmware.
Two days ago I tried to replace my Asus RT-AC51U with OpenWRT since ASUS is not updating ASUSWRT for my router anymore. i got it installed with no problems, but got spanked trying to config it to later enable DoT. Could, strangely (and shamefully) not even config things I did years ago. So I restore the original firmware and my configs.

Could anyone help me?
My mind seems lazier than normal with the Pandemic. :slight_smile: :frowning:

Thanks in advance!

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Are you following a tutorial or doing all from memory/by hand? How far did you get when you made the first attempt?

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Oh cool! Mediatek chipset, mt7620a + mt7610e , support for that should be pretty good.

Have you tried #openwrt on freenode, you can use something like irccloud as a bouncer + they have a pretty Android app (so you don’t go offline/online as folks are helping you set things up)

Edit: these instructions look easy for DNS over TLS: https://openwrt.org/docs/guide-user/services/dns/dot_dnsmasq_stubby
… TL;DR add stubby, point dnsmasq to stubby as upstream

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Sorry about the delay…
I tried following the wiki guides. Some things did not work. One of the uci commands, for example, I discovered that was wrong and, at least that one, I corrected and worked. As in the end not everything was working I imagined that more configs/commands are wrong.

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Actually I didn’t even get Internet navigation and the different DHCPs for the different Wi-Fis (guest vs normal). As I saw at least one command that was definitely wrong, I imagined that more things can be wrong there.
And I find those guides confusing.

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In my experience if you just want support and someone to guide you, it’s best if you went asked someone to help you out in realtime, for example on IRC https://webchat.freenode.net/#openwrt .

There’s usually someone hanging out there, and they’ll probably ask you clarifying questions. You might even be asked to run some commands and provide output on a pastebin (e.g. https://share.riseup.net is a good/easy place for that).

From what I gather, everything you mentioned so far doesn’t really require you getting down into the terminal to get working.

Try ensuring things are working in this order:

  1. can you access the openwrt web ui in a browser using the local IPv4 address it gives you over DHCP when connect using a cable into a LAN port.

  2. can the router get an IPv4 address over DHCP on the WAN port (or do you perhaps have a pppoe setup … or is it ipv6 only, is it dual stack or DS-Lite where IPv4 goes through a cgnat , how does your ISP is expect you to connect, if you don’t know then share who’s your ISP and we’ll find out)

  3. can your router ping a dns server (e.g. 1.1.1.1 or 8.8.8.8)? (In Luci > Network > Diagnostics)

  4. Can your router resolve any dns names?

  5. Can your hosts resolve names through the router and ping stuff on the internet.

If this is working, you should have basic connectivity.

What follows in your case is configuring wifi, setting up a second guest wifi and putting it into it’s own firewall zone, setting up secure DHCP.

When you ask for help on IRC mention what you have working above e.g. “I can access Luci, but my router is not getting an ip” or “everything is working, but I need guest wifi and I only need guest wifi not a guest vlan” - that might shorten the time you need to troubleshoot.

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@risk Thank you very much for the answer.

The intention of the use of the terminal is to save the commands into a script to quickly configure it again later or to use on another router if mine decides to die. I had a config file from another router and version of OpenWRT on my backups, with most of what I was trying to do again, but I couldn’t import it.

As ASUS is not updating my model any more I searched and found Asuswrt-Merlin and I thought it would be easier with it, but it doesn’t support my model.

I will check it there since:

  1. Ok;
  2. Ok;
  3. Ok;
  4. Ok;
  5. Ok;
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There’s no guarantee uci config model won’t change between versions or that a different device won’t require a different setup. Unless you plan to have a lab/backup/test router, I’d strongly advise that you just take human readable notes and just spend an hour setting things up when you replace a router.

Obviously, anything you setup in the ui, you can look at in uci and come up with commands that set the right keys to the correct values in /etc/config. or you could rely on uci export / uci import … especially if you don’t commit changes it’s easy to see what Luci is doing.

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