v2.3.1 — A native Firmware page: working update check, one-click verified install, manual upload
- New native page: Administration → Firmware Upgrade is now a Reaper page (
Reaper_Firmware.asp). It shows the installed model, variant (Standard / AI Advisor), and Reaper version; checks the Reaper release channel on demand; shows the release notes inline; and — new capability the stock page never offered — downloads and installs a published update in one click, with a live download bar, then verifies and flashes and returns you to the sign-in page when the router is back. A manual upload section (with a real upload progress bar) replaces the stock file-upload flow, and the scheduled daily check opt-in lives on the same page. The stock page remains on disk as a fallback. - Fixed: the update check finally works from the GUI — it was silently asking ASUS instead. On builds with AiMesh config-sync compiled in (all Reaper models), the stock page's "Check" button routed through the closed cfg_mnt helper to ASUS's own firmware servers, so the Reaper release-channel check added in v2.1.6 never actually ran when you clicked Check — and since the dashboard "new firmware" badge is driven by that check's result, the badge never fired either. Both the new native page and the stock fallback page now drive the Reaper manifest check directly. Also fixed: the release-note fetcher wrote its result where no page read it (and failed outright when invoked without arguments); notes now appear both on the new page and in the stock viewer.
- One-click install is verified end-to-end before anything is flashed. The published manifest now carries each image's SHA-256 and size; the on-router installer accepts download URLs only from the Reaper GitHub release channel, re-checks that the image is for this exact model (a GT-BE98 can never fetch a GT-BE98 Pro image) and this exact variant (a noMCP router refuses an MCP image and vice versa), requires the checksum to match after download, runs the platform's own firmware image check, and only then flashes using the same sequence as a manual upload. If any step fails, the download is discarded and nothing is written. Older manifests without checksums downgrade the page to notify-only — it will tell you about the update but won't offer the one-click install.
- Nothing about the update system phones home by default: the scheduled check remains opt-in (off after a factory reset), the manual Check is user-initiated, and both only ever contact the Reaper release channel on GitHub — never ASUS.
- New firmware-page strings are currently English in all 25 language packs (translation pass planned).
Images & checksums (RT-BE86U)
Two flashable images: + AI Advisor (default) and Standard (noMCP, all AI components compiled out entirely). Flash the *_nand_squashfs.pkgtb via Administration > Firmware Upgrade.
| Variant | File | SHA-256 |
|---|---|---|
| + AI Advisor | RT-BE86U_3006_102.8_Reaper_v2.3.1_nand_squashfs.pkgtb
| 25a7bc8c2d1e256a40ce63e4c0bba606dfffc68cf37e6e5b0762a33620fd4050
|
| Standard | RT-BE86U_3006_102.8_Reaper_v2.3.1_noMCP_nand_squashfs.pkgtb
| cb02b9bfcf7c15928df2f20d54b379f43892485aa97ec2431a12298da097965b
|
Verify a download against the attached SHA256SUMS-RT-BE86U-Reaper_v2.3.1.txt.
Corresponding source & reproducibility
The RT-BE86U image for v2.3.1 is built from this repository at tag v2.3.1-RT-BE86U: the pinned Asuswrt-Merlin base (3006.102.8-beta2, a7ebfa133a) plus the complete patch series. The tag freezes the exact source that produced it.
- Patches:
patches/ - Provenance record:
provenance/manifest.json - How to verify:
docs/REPRODUCIBILITY.mdanddocs/SOURCE-AVAILABILITY.md
The auto-attached Source code (zip/tar.gz) asset below is this repository at tag v2.3.1-RT-BE86U (patches + docs).