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With a few rare exceptions (like VPN Fusion which is replaced by VPN Director), Asuswrt-Merlin retains the features from the original stock Asus firmware. In addition, the following features have been added or enhanced:

System:
  • Various bugfixes
  • Performance optimizations to some CPU-bound components like OpenVPN
  • Some components were updated to their latest versions, for improved stability and security
  • User scripts that run on specific events such as firewall restart
  • Cron jobs for scheduled tasks
  • Customizable config files for router services
  • Third party software through Entware, with an easy setup script
  • SNMP support (some models)
  • Nano text editor (for more user-friendly script editing)
  • NTP daemon, which can synchronize your client devices
  • Third-party addons, with a management interface (AMTM)

 

Disk sharing:
  • Optionally use shorter share names (folder name only)
  • NFS exporting of USB drives

 

Networking:
  • Act as a SMB Master Browser
  • Act as a WINS server
  • SSHD support for key-based authentication
  • Allows tweaking TCP/UDP connection tracking timeouts
  • CIFS client support (for mounting remote SMB share on the router)
  • Advanced OpenVPN client and server.
  • Netfilter ipset module, for efficient blacklist implementation
  • Wireless site survey page
  • DNS Director , enforcing a specific DNS server, can be applied globally or per client
  • Custom DDNS (through a user script)
  • TOR support, individual client access control
  • Policy-based routing for OpenVPN clients (based on source or destination IPs), sometimes referred to as "selective routing", or "split tunneling")
  • Detailed wireless troubleshooting information (on some models)
  • Redirect NTP client queries to the router's own NTP daemon
  • Cake SQM QoS (on newer HND models)

 

Web interface:
  • Performance improvements
  • Optionally save traffic stats to disk (USB or JFFS partition)
  • Enhanced traffic monitoring: adding graphical charts, and traffic monitoring per client IP
  • Hostname field on the DHCP reservation list and Wireless ACL list
  • System info summary page
  • Wifi icon reports the state of both radios
  • Wireless site survey
  • Advanced wireless client list display, including automated refresh
  • Redesigned layout of the various System Log sections
  • Editable entries (on some pages)

 

Some features first debuted in Asuswrt-Merlin and were eventually implemented in the official firmware:
  • HTTPS configuration interface
  • Persistent JFFS partition
  • LED control - put your router in Stealth Mode by turning off all LEDs
  • Turning WPS button into a radio on/off toggle
  • Clicking on the MAC address of an unidentified client will do a lookup in the OUI database.
  • WakeOnLan web interface (with pre-configured targets)
  • Display active/tracked network connections
  • VPN Status page
  • DualWAN and Repeater mode (while it was still under development by Asus)
  • Basic OpenVPN (client and server) support
  • Configurable IPv6 firewall
  • Improved compatibility with 3TB+ and Advanced Format HDDs
  • SSH access
  • Disk spindown after user-configurable inactivity timeout
  • Updated Samba version (3.6), with SMB2.0 support
  • TLS 1.3 support for some services (OpenSSL 1.1.1)
  • Modern DDNS client (In-a-Dyn), with https support
  • Full cone NAT support (on some models)
  • User-provided SSL certificate
  • Display the Ethernet port states
  • TLS support for the FTP server
  • Allow or disable WAN access to the FTP server
  • User-defined options for WAN DHCP requests (required by some ISPs)
  • DNS-over-TLS
  • DNSSEC validation