Install AdGuardHome on Asus Router (AC56U)

Download and Flash Asuswrt-Merlin Firmware (v384.6)

https://www.asuswrt-merlin.net/ https://sourceforge.net/projects/asuswrt-merlin/files/RT-AC56U/Release/RT-AC56U_384.6_0.zip/download

Prepare USB Drive

1. Login to router via SSH (ssh admin@router_ip)
2. fdisk /dev/sda
3. mkfs.ext3 /dev/sda[1,2]

Enable JFFS Custom Scripts and Configs

Administration -> System -> Persistent JFFS2 partition -> Enable JFFS custom scripts and configs (‘yes’)

Execute Entware-Setup to Enable /opt Mount on USB Drive

The newly flashed firmware (v384.6) has entware-setup.sh included already. FYI: https://github.com/RMerl/asuswrt-merlin/blob/master/release/src/router/others/entware-setup.sh

Update Post-Mount Script

/opt/etc/init.d/rc.unslung start is the line added; not sure if it’s necessary. :)

#!/bin/sh

if [ "$1" = "/tmp/mnt/sda2" ] ; then
  ln -nsf $1/entware /tmp/opt
  /opt/etc/init.d/rc.unslung start
fi

Install AdGuardHome

https://github.com/jumpsmm7/Asuswrt-Merlin-AdGuardHome-Installer

Reference:

• https://github.com/AdguardTeam/AdGuardHome/releases
• https://github.com/jumpsmm7/Asuswrt-Merlin-AdGuardHome-Installer
• https://www.snbforums.com/threads/release-asuswrt-merlin-adguardhome-installer-amaghi.76506/
• https://forum.openwrt.org/t/how-to-updated-2021-installing-adguardhome-on-openwrt/113904
• https://github.com/RMerl/asuswrt-merlin.ng
• https://www.asuswrt-merlin.net/features

Yes you can enable WAN access, but you will have to setup the necessary IPtable rules your self. An example of such rule is: iptables -I INPUT -p tcp -m tcp --dport 14711 -j ACCEPT

While such is possible, this is highly discouraged for the security implications it imposes. You would place this rule in a firewall-start script within JFFS. This is placed on your end to configure because the only aim of this script is to “install” AdGuardHome on Asuswrt-Merlin firmware Asus routers.