ASUS RT-N56U

WORK IN PROGRESS. Pictures and more information to follow.

This page has information relating to setup of the ASUS RT-N56U router on a BT FTTC line.

The ASUS RT-N56U is a mid-price router sold for the cable internet market (i.e. it has no built-in xDSL modem) and it will work happily with BT's FTTC product which presents as a PPPoE connection

Out of the box, it is configured with IP address 192.168.1.1, with default username/password of admin/admin

Firmware versions

Routers in the retail market at the time of writing (May 2013) tend to come witha very old firmware version 1.0.1.8e which has no IPv6 support, but is otherwise stable.

The current firmware is version 3.0.0.4.360 and is available from the ASUS support site.

Note that updating firmware from version 1.x to the latest version will erase all user configuration data and reset the router to factory default IP addresses and passwords, so update firmware first.

Once the firware has updated and the router has reset, log in and follow the quick internet setup which will configure basic connection parameters such as connection type (PPPoE), username (something@a), password(as provided), and wireless configuration. There are two sets of wireless configuration data, as the device provides service on both 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz bands, and each can be configured separately.

Once done, the device will be set up in IPv4 NAT mode, with an unchanged IP address. Under 'Advanced settings' click on LAN, and turn off the DHCP server if you already have one on your network via the 'DHCP Server' tab, then click on 'LAN IP' and set the IP address suitable for your network. This will reboot the router, reconfigure your computer onto its correct IP address and reconnect to the router

You will have basic IPv4 NAT'd internet connectivity at this stage.

Log back into the router at its proper IPv4 address, and click on 'WAN' under 'Advanced Settings'

Turn off NAT if you have a legacy IPv4 assignment you want to route.

IPv6 setup

Log into the router and click 'IPv6' under 'Advanced Settings'

Change connection type to 'Static IPv6', and the interface to 'PPP'. If your IPv6 allocation from AAISP is 2001:8b0:abcd::

Set WAN IPv6 Address to 2001:8b0:abcd:1::1 Set WAN Prefix length to 64 Set WAN IPv6 gateway to 2001:8b0:abcd:1::2 Set LAN IPv6 Prefix to 2001:8b0:abcd:0:: Set LAN Prefix length to 64 Set LAN IPv6 Address to 2001:8b0:abcd:0::1 Set DNS server addresses 1 and 2 to 2001:8b0::2020 and 2001:8b0::2021

Click APPLY and wait for the router to reboot.

You should now have IPv6 connectivity. If you find you can only ping your router IPv6 address, check the control pages on Clueless to ensure that you don't have an IPv6 tunnel set up. If you do, remove the IPv4 tunnel endpoint address and ensure that the IPv6 block is routed to the correct line, and restart the router.