ASUS RT-AC59U v1
AC1500 Dual Band WiFi Gigabit Router.
Support for this device is Work In Progress!
| Links | |
|---|---|
| wikidevi (source of some info on the page) | https://wikidevi.wi-cat.ru/ASUS_RT-AC59U |
| GPL Source Code (select “Others” in “select OS” drop-down) | https://www.asus.com/Networking-IoT-Servers/WiFi-Routers/ASUS-WiFi-Routers/RT-AC59U/HelpDesk_Download/ |
Common information
This section describes information that is shared across the series of related devices.
| Common Links | |
|---|---|
| Forum thread | https://forum.openwrt.org/t/adding-openwrt-support-for-asus-rt-ac57u-v2/53281 |
| WIP PR for qcn5502 (802.11n at 2.4GHz) Wi-Fi | https://github.com/openwrt/openwrt/pull/9389 |
| FCC | https://fcc.io/MSQ/-RTACRH01 |
| Similar or identical devices | series |
| Common specifications | |
|---|---|
| SoC | Qualcomm QCN5502 WiSoC |
| CPU | MIPS 74Kc (v5.0) @775MHz |
| WLAN1 | Qualcomm Atheros QCN5502 (bgn) |
| WLAN2 | Qualcomm Atheros QCA9888 (an+ac, 2T2R, 5GHz) |
| RAM | 128 MiB (Winbond W971GG6SB-25) |
| USB | one USB 2.0 port |
| Switch | Qualcomm Atheros QCA8337 |
| Ethernet speed | 1000Mbps |
| LAN ports | 4 |
| WAN ports | 1 |
Serial: there are 4 connection points in the upper right corner of the board.
Left to right: power, ground, TX, RX. Check the labels near the holes. Baud-rate is 115200.
The router has 9 LEDs:
- Power
- Port4
- Port3
- Port2
- Port1
- Wan
- 2.4Ghz WiFi
- 5 Ghz WiFi
- USB
Stock firmware
ssh access can be enabled on the router web admin page at this menu point: Administration → System → Service. You have full root access.
| Default settings | |
|---|---|
| SSID 2.4GHz | ASUS |
| SSID 5GHz | ASUS_5G |
| IP address | 192.168.50.1 |
| User | admin |
| Password | admin |
Installing OpenWrt
NOTE! There is no official support at this point. The following link leads to an unofficial, personal repository where the development is taking place.
You can download the WIP source code and community images at https://gitlab.com/alexconst.sh/openwrt.
- Building from source: branch apjet01-802.11n is probably what you want as it is the only one with qcn5502 support
- Using unofficial images (NO WARRANTY! BACK UP YOUR FLASH!)
- make sure your stock flash layout matches the table under the “Flash Layout” section below on this page (rootfs doesn't matter as long as it's contained inside “linux”)
- checkout the
apjet01-releases/v1tag and look insideasus-apjet01-releasesdirectory - select the file depending on the name (and version!) of your device
*squashfs-factory.binis what you want for full initial install
In recovery mode, the bootloader will start a tftp server and wait for you to send the image.
- Connect router's LAN port to your computer
- Set static IP of computer to
192.168.1.10/24 - Make sure the router is turned off
- Hold the reset button
- Turn the router on and keep holding the button a few seconds until you see the power LED blinking slowly
- Use a tftp client to send the image file to IP 192.168.1.1 at port 69 (example with atftp:
atftp --put -l /path/to/image 192.168.1.1 69) - If there are no errors from tftp client, bootloader is installing OpenWrt; wait 2-3 minutes
- Remove static IP from your computer's network interface, switch back to DHCP
Another update custom build: https://github.com/looi/openwrt/releases/tag/qcn550x-tag
Flash Layout
| partition | start | end | Name |
|---|---|---|---|
| mtd0 | 0x000000000000 | 0x000000040000 | Bootloader |
| mtd1 | 0x000000040000 | 0x000000050000 | nvram |
| mtd2 | 0x000000050000 | 0x000000060000 | Factory |
| mtd3 | 0x000000060000 | 0x000000f80000 | linux |
| mtd4 | 0x0000001ecb00 | 0x000000f80000 | rootfs |
| mtd5 | 0x000000f80000 | 0x000001000000 | jffs2 |
| mtd6 | 0x000000000000 | 0x000001000000 | ALL |
You can backup a partition like this:
- Login via ssh, telnet or serial console
- Use dd command to backup (Danger, wrong usage can overwrite rom):
dd if=/dev/mtd6 of=all.img - Use scp to download the image