Tomato firmware to ASUS RT-AC3200 issue

[iamgenius]

I have an asus RT-AC3200 router that I want to flash with the tomato firmware to enable more features. I have to pick the right one of course so that I don't ruin the router. But, it is kinda of confusing when you go to shibby's website. The main download page tells you that you need K26ARM7 for this router:

http://tomato.groov.pl/?page_id=164

However, when you open the link, you see multiple folders for this firmware each with several files to download. I can see a 132 folder and a 136 folder...etc. Now, which one should I download??? Some firmware files names have AIO in them which I suspects means ALL in ONE ? And some others have VPN !!

http://tomato.groov.pl/download/K26ARM7/136-MultiWAN/

Anyways, I actually downloaded this one : tomato-RT-AC3200-ARM--132-AIO-64K.zip from the 132 folder because I saw it done in another website and entered the router page and tried flashing it with it. The process finished successfully, however when I rebooted the router I was never able to connect to it. I was afraid I ruined it, but luckily I was able to restore it back to the original firmware using asus rescue mode. It worked after that.

Now, I want to try it again. WHICH firmware should I choose? Did I pick a wrong one? Should I use a special way to do the upgrade other than just browsing for the firmware file in the router setup page and hit upload? Maybe all firmware files in there work but some come with more features? Anything else to pay attention to when doing this little risky upgrade?

Many thanks...

 

[Elixer]

http://tomato.groov.pl/ shows you the latest version is 137.

http://tomato.groov.pl/download/K26ARM7/137-MultiWAN/tomato-RT-AC3200-ARM--137-AIO-64K.zip
or
http://tomato.groov.pl/download/K26ARM7/137-MultiWAN/tomato-RT-AC3200-ARM--137-VPN-64K.zip

AIO has everything in it, the VPN is if you want to run a VPN.
You need to clear NVRAM before you flash to one of those, and tell it to clear NVRAM again when you select the file to flash. Then when done flashing, just wait.
After it says it finished, wait another 4-5 mins.
Now, reboot the modem first, and the router.
After a bit, you should be back online to where you can change the setting in the router. If you change the MAC, you will have to reboot the modem again.
Oh, you might also have to reconfigure windows via ipconfig /renew, or if you are lazy, just reboot windows.
Also, I have never seen ASUS routers bricked, their recovery mode is pretty darn good.
Finally, if it don't work, clear NVRAM yet again.

 

[iamgenius]

http://tomato.groov.pl/ shows you the latest version is 137.

http://tomato.groov.pl/download/K26ARM7/137-MultiWAN/tomato-RT-AC3200-ARM--137-AIO-64K.zip
or
http://tomato.groov.pl/download/K26ARM7/137-MultiWAN/tomato-RT-AC3200-ARM--137-VPN-64K.zip

AIO has everything in it, the VPN is if you want to run a VPN.
You need to clear NVRAM before you flash to one of those, and tell it to clear NVRAM again when you select the file to flash. Then when done flashing, just wait.
After it says it finished, wait another 4-5 mins.
Now, reboot the modem first, and the router.
After a bit, you should be back online to where you can change the setting in the router. If you change the MAC, you will have to reboot the modem again.
Oh, you might also have to reconfigure windows via ipconfig /renew, or if you are lazy, just reboot windows.
Also, I have never seen ASUS routers bricked, their recovery mode is pretty darn good.
Finally, if it don't work, clear NVRAM yet again.

So AIO has VPN ?

And how do you clear NVRAM exactly in this router? I don't see it anywhere ! Let alone to do it while selecting tomato firmware

Finally, I just want to configure ipvanish vpn in this router. I don't think I really need tomato for this because I can see that I can configure it with the original firmware but I didn't succeed. It worked but it is very slow and not all websites worked. Weird.

Thanks.

 

[Elixer]

When router is off, press & hold WPS, then power on router, and keep holding the WPS button for ... 30 secs or so, and that clears NVRAM.

can also be used once flashed for the next upgrade.

 

[iamgenius]

Okay, I successfully loaded tomato into the router. I'm trying to setup an ipvanish vpn account in it. I tried but I couldn't There are many vpn options. How do you actually do that? I downloaded the 137 AIO firmware file. Or should I download the VPN firmware?

Thanks

 

[iamgenius]

Elixer, you gave me good instructions then left me alone midway ! ^_^ Anyways, I was able to set it up. I was able to find the guide in the ipvanish account. Before I couldn't find it because ipvanish is actually blocked in my area (One of the reasons for the vpn). I used the TOR browser to look for it and it worked. Here it is if somebody needs it:

https://www.ipvanish.com/visualguides/OpenVPN/Tomato/

Dark web has its uses I guess.

Now, there is only one thing left to do. The VPN will start with the WAN, but I don't want all devices to use it. Only some devices because I want the rest to connect directly so that I don't lose speed. I think what I should do is put a range of IP addresses in the routing policy tab of the openvpn menu. I will then have to bind the device's MAC address to one of these IP addresses. Is that right?

 

[Elixer]

I am not on these forums all the time... more or less sporadic--maybe a couple of times a day depending what I am doing...
IIRC, yeah, you can set a specific IP range for the tunnel, or create a bridged tunnel and bridge it with a specific port using VLAN's.
It just depends on what you are looking to do.

 

[iamgenius]

I am not on these forums all the time... more or less sporadic--maybe a couple of times a day depending what I am doing...
IIRC, yeah, you can set a specific IP range for the tunnel, or create a bridged tunnel and bridge it with a specific port using VLAN's.
It just depends on what you are looking to do.

I was just kidding. Who am I to blame you? ^_^

Please don't assume that I'm an expert, tell me how to do it in steps. I have read somewhere that routing policy for tomato is not working out of the box. It needs some script writing!!! That will be too much for me.

Thanks.

 

[Elixer]

The steps depend on exactly how you want everything setup.
There are quite a few totmato VPN tutorials on google you could use to help, but, none of them would be specific you what you are trying to do, though, you might get lucky and find a few.

The VPN provider should also have tutorials available.

 

[iamgenius]

Thanks Elixer. I'll keep trying.

Also, If I want to do it the simple way and assuming that I have two routers, I'll hook one router to the internet and have it setup normally and have all devices connect to it to access the internet directly. I'll hook the 2nd router having tomato and configured to run my ipvanish account to the 1st router. Any device that want to use the VPN will connect to the 2nd router. That is doable, right? But how exactly? I also tried doing it but it didn't work. I connected the two routers using LAN ports. I then connected a laptop wirelessly to the 2nd router with tomato but it accessed the internet directly without going through the VPN. This is when both routers have 192.168.1.1 as an IP address. I understand that both routers can't have the same ip address so that there is no conflict. I changed the ip address to 192.168.0.1 but I wasn't able to access the internet via the 2nd router at all which is weird !

There must be something else that I need to configure. What should I set the operating mode of the 2nd router to? It should operate more like a switch or an access point while configured to run the VPN.

Please help me with this while I'm working on the original problem. This must be easy to do for gurus like you. Please excuse my ignorance.

Many thanks.