How Long Does Router Firmware Update Take

About |

Defensive Calculating is for people who utilize computing devices for piece of work, non play. Rather than focus on the latest news or devices, this blog aims to be educational. Heavy on facts, light on opinions.

A router firmware update goes bad

This being Computerworld, the number of readers who update the firmware in their router is probably high. But, I suspect very few non-techies proceed their firmware current, or even know that the software in their router needs updating (and is called "firmware" rather than "software"). It'south quite understandable.

For one matter, the security issues raised by erstwhile firmware don't generally scream at you. And the update process is never correctly or fully documented. And, the process varies, usa techies accept to deal with different upgrade procedures for dissimilar routers.

So also, it's dangerous. If a firmware update (like a BIOS update) fails halfway through, you're indeep trouble. And, even if the update works, the new firmware may have reset some settings, settings that very few people are likely to notice or understand.

Then, it was with some trepidation that I recently updated the firmware on an Asus RT-N66U Night Knight router owned by a relative.

Knowing the dangers, I had procrastinated the update. At stop of September 2014 the router was still running firmware that had been installed in early on January 2013 (version 3.0.0.four.260). That's also long, especially since there were multiple updates in the interim.

The firmware update hassle starts with learning near new firmware releases. Inconsistency is the rule.

The worst routers require that you periodically check the website of the manufacturer for updates. Next up the chain, are routers that offer a manual bank check for new firmware in their spider web interface. Some companies automate the process past sending you lot an electronic mail you lot when new firmware is released (Peplink and NAS vendor Synology exercise this). Other routers can automatically check for updated firmware, but they but notify yous if and when you lot login to the router to expect.

The RT-N66U works this way. When y'all login to information technology after information technology has detected new firmware, there will exist a blinking yellow assertion signal in the tiptop right corner. Hovering the mouse over the xanthous icon produces the message shown here.

In the sometime days, updating firmware meant downloading a file (often a zip file) to a computer so uploading a file to the router. At present, some routers, the RT-N66U amidst them, can do most of the work on their own. A couple clicks in the authoritative website downloads and installs the newer firmware.

At kickoff, the procedure went well and the firmware was updated to version 3.0.0.4.374_720 (what's with the looooong version numbers?).

Of course, when I say the procedure went "well" I'm grading on a curve. After the message that the firmware had been successfully updated, everything stopped. What next? Asus offers no inkling. You're on your ain.

I guessed, correctly, that the next step was to log back in to the router.

Experience has shown that routers don't always update themselves to the latest firmware, so subsequently the update, I had the router check again for newer firmware. Sure enough, information technology was not electric current.

The beginning update had gotten me to September 2013. The next i would take me to June 2014.

The router doesn't identify the new firmware version that information technology wants to install in any mode shape or course. Later, I learned that information technology wanted to install version three.0.0.iv.376_1071.

The second update proceeded like the first 1, including the lack of instructions for what to do afterwards the update completed. Afterwards information technology was washed, even so, I could not connect back into the router.

Had information technology lost its IP address? The default IP address of the router is not on the box itself, so this was a lesson learned the difficult fashion: download the manuals for the thing earlier upgrading its firmware.

Turns out that I couldn't connect to the router considering all the wireless networks were gone. Worse still, I couldn't connect to it by Ethernet either. Was the thing bricked?

With no other options, I unplugged the power from the router and let it sit. And sit. And sit some more. Why so long? Interesting story.

In early 2014, The Wirecutter picked the Asus RT-AC56U as the all-time router. A few months subsequently, subsequently "some stability issues", they switched to recommending the Netgear R6250. The problems were that clients had trouble connecting to the RT-AC56U on the 2.4GHz band.

Quoting The Wirecutter

.. Asus acknowledged via email that the RT-AC56U had had a 2.iv GHz problem but said that a firmware update last year stock-still it. However, we encountered the aforementioned ii.4 GHz issues with our RT-AC56U, which had up-to-date firmware. At one betoken, our wireless-n connectivity footing to a near-standstill. The 5 GHz connection worked but fine, but on the 2.4 GHz band [nosotros] couldn't even access the router's Web interface ... Nosotros power-cycled the router and fifty-fifty returned it to manufacturing plant default settings with no success. The issue only fixed itself after we turned off the router off for a while and and then turned it on again.

For a while? They had to turn the RT-AC56U off "for a while". A normal power bicycle did not articulate things upwards. So I let my RT-N66U sit down unplugged for about 15 minutes.

And it worked.

That said, when I outset logged in to the second new firmware, there was a alarm almost SAMBA sharing. The router is not used for file sharing, so I disabled SAMBA. While I was at it, I disabled the DLNA media server too. IP v6 was already disabled. Its practiced Defensive Computing to plough off features y'all're not using.

If not for the scare this put into me (a houseful of people with no Cyberspace access), I would have updated the firmware a third time. A subsequent check of the Asus website showed that a newer firmware (iii.0.0.4.376.2524) had been released 2 weeks earlier.

It's now nigh a month since this latest firmware was released, and the RT-N66U still says that the version from June is the latest and greatest. And then it goes.

The important point here is preparing for router failure. Even without a firmware update, a router can fail for other reasons, such as old age, an electrical surge or the true cat knocking it to the floor.

Ane arroyo is having a backup router. Similar a spare tire in the trunk of a car, it doesn't accept to be equally total featured, information technology only has to work. A bottom of the line router tin be had for effectually $30.

Some other option that can tide you over is using your smartphone as a Wi-Fi hotspot.

In that location is a tertiary option too, but I have not seen it in a consumer form router.

Most people brand a ane-to-1 connection between a router and its firmware. That is, one router equals one firmware. It doesn't have to exist that way. There are routers capable of maintaining 2 copies of the firmware.

Such a router would let you download new firmware and not utilize it immediately. If, for case, you downloaded new firmware on a Wednesday you could wait to reboot the box until the weekend to effort out the new version. If in that location are problems, y'all can fall back to the prior, known skilful, version of the firmware.

Peplink is a router company that offers multiple firmwares, fifty-fifty on their cheapest models. Here is a screen shot from their low end Pepwave Surf Soho showing the two available firmware releases that yous tin reboot the box into.

If you know of other routers with multiple firmwares please leave a annotate below or email me at my full name at gmail and I'll add together a note here about it.

Which of these three approaches do I apply? All of them, of form.

Michael Horowitz is an independent consultant who has long been focused on Defensive Computing.