Asus RT-AX1800S inaccessible in recovery mode

Installing and Using OpenWrt
1

Hi there,
I just bought an Asus RT-AX1800S (RT-AX54) to install OpenWRT on.

Before flashing, I reset the router to factory defaults and the interface showed at 192.168.50.1, and I could enable SSH and log into it.

I went through the instructions on https://openwrt.org/toh/asus/rt-ax54. I connected an eth cable between my laptop and one of the LAN ports of the router, and went through the steps involving mtd-write (I used the cat | ssh command because the router is not connected to WAN - my main one is, and I don't want to disrupt Internet connection to my home servers).

After flashing, I rebooted (with a reboot command within ssh, then with a power cycle) but the router looked dead. Only the power LED would come up.

So, I decided to revert the flash and put the router in rescue mode to upload the Asus firmware. I have only Linux, so I am using Wine to run the Asus recovery tool.

I put the router in recovery mode following Asus's instructions, and the power LED flashes slowly (about 2s on, 2s off). However, the router is unreachable from the tethered laptop. I set the laptop IP address manually to 192.168.50.10 and turned WiFi off, but 192.168.50.1 is unreachable. nmap on 192.168.50.0/24 shows only my laptop alive. The Asus rescue utility says "router not in recovery mode" after some time trying to connect.

Is there a different IP address or a different connection setup to flash back to recovery?

Also, can I use the same recovery tool to flash OpenWRT?

Thanks,
gm

2

You know you can daisy chain them ... ?

Sounds like the normal status after flashing OpenWRT, since wifi is off.

3

You have to check uploaded files sha1sum vs one on the web.

You need windows for asus tool, like trial version in a vm bridged to lanX port.

1 Like
4

OK, I think I got access now. The new router has the same IP address as the main one, and the laptop was probably confused when I had the Wifi on. I was also looking at the old address, 192.168.50.1.

Thanks for the help, sorry it was a silly mistake.
gm

5

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