DHCP Only?

[CoolToys]

My router failed this week and I couldn't connect to the eisy.  My network is hardcoded with fixed IP addresses.  But when I installed the new network I couldn't get to the eisy at its normal spot.  I found it using the launcher and tried to set the IP address back but the DHCP check box is greyed out.  Did I miss something?  We can't used fixed IP addresses any more?

ion 5.8.4

[EWhite]

i just set DHCP to give ip addresses by mac address...static mappings....in my firewall.

i dont use over the counter routers so im not sure they can handle that or not.

 

[Geddy]

3 hours ago, CoolToys said:

We can't used fixed IP addresses any more?

Been that since eisy was released.  UD had so many support issues with people setting static on the ISY994 that they seemed to disable it in a Polisy update and since eisy release.

It’s best to reserve the IP at the router level. Has been the suggested process for many years. 

[larryllix]

5 hours ago, Geddy said:

Been that since eisy was released.  UD had so many support issues with people setting static on the ISY994 that they seemed to disable it in a Polisy update and since eisy release.

It’s best to reserve the IP at the router level. Has been the suggested process for many years. 

I think we have some misunderstanding here. I believe the OP is saying he was using his router to reserve IP addresses on a static basis, not from his devices.

I am right in the middle of this same problem as my ISP router suddenly locked out my 2.4GHz WiFi. After much hacking and finally calling Bell support, I had to do the unthinkable, one more time....Factory Reset the router.

Well it all came back and I got my WiFi back but lost all my static IP reservations for about 30 WiFi devices. I swear every time that I will find another way to create a DHCP server as this ISP router has no save files feature. Means about 2 days of manually discovering MAC addresses and assigning IP addresses inside the same old router. BTW: They sent me a new router to replace it and I think that may have been a good move, since I am starting from the beginning...one...more....time!!!

I decided to add in DNSmasq to another RPi I have running as a genealogy server now. What a mess this has been.

ISP is telling me I cannot get my own media converter and my own router as they will not connect it. A separate modem can be connected but typically the master router controls all the DCHP IP address handouts and that doesn't solve anything here. I have DNSmasq running somewhat successfully by splitting the subnet into 192.168.0 - 127 as ISP router DCHP handled address (and dynamic assignments), and my RPi dnsmasq server handling the upper half 192.168.128-254 with static IP addresses. Works somewhat.

Here is the problem. When a device send in a DHCP request, the DCHP servers do not know who should handle the assignment...and somehow it takes about 45 seconds for some polisy commands to find their devices. I am not sure how that could be possible but it indicates some real server fighting going on, at times.

Now I wonder if I can install dnsmasq into my polisy and let it internally handle DNS/DHCP assignments for home automation devices only. Not sure if this is possible or could even work.

Getting old and over my head somewhat here.    

 

[Geddy]

@larryllix no, based on the comment before the quoted section…

9 hours ago, CoolToys said:

I found it using the launcher and tried to set the IP address back but the DHCP check box is greyed out.  Did I miss something?

I took that as though @CoolToys was trying to set a static IP on the eisy. 

Good luck with your adventures and getting things sorted out. I try to keep a spreadsheet of MAC and IP reservations, but I don’t usually reserve more than a dozen items. 

[larryllix]

@larryllix no, based on the comment before the quoted section…
I took that as though @CoolToys was trying to set a static IP on the eisy. 
Good luck with your adventures and getting things sorted out. I try to keep a spreadsheet of MAC and IP reservations, but I don’t usually reserve more than a dozen items. 

Yeah conflicting logic in the OP.

If the IP was static inside the eISY there would not be greyed out boxes.

This should go away with an HTML5 i/f soon. Greyed out boxes are just frustrating users.



Sent from my SM-S711W using Tapatalk

[CoolToys]

Good Morning everyone.

Yes @Geddy, you and @EWhite are correct, and thank you for the answer.  I agree with @larryllix and I am not sure why UDI doesn't eliminate the panel to reduce confusion.  I have set the IP address in the router as a DHCP reservation.

I have dedicated IP fiber internet with a VPN policy between my home and office so they are transparent when I work from home.  192.168.2.x is the office and .5.x is the home, .4.x is the guest network at both.  I got away from .1.x a long time ago as most DNS and back door hacks look for those numbers. 

For @larryllix, what equipment do you have and use?  Can you set up the Bell device in "bridge only" mode?  Can you set it up as 192.168.1.1 and use that as the gateway.   This way, your main hub/wifi router can be 192.168.3.x with the gateway of .1.x?  Some VPN have issues with this set up but most like Nord are fine with it now.   This also means you aren't stuck with a crappy wifi provided by your ISP.

This does four things.  
1. it gives you the ability to mesh and grow your network as needed.  
2. Allows a real partition with any guest networks if you turn them on.
3. Any device on the .3.x network traffic that isn't broadcasting bonjour or web service stays local and makes the network a bit faster and more efficient.  I also use switches, not hubs for the same reason.  
4. It also lets you see who is broadcasting very easily and troubleshoot dead spots or dead wires.

When the network goes wonky and you need to find a device or catch the neighbor kid war hogging, IP Scanner Ultra is a great app.  Once you name everything in IP Scanner by mac address it keeps everything easy to trace.  All of those "unknown devices" can be named and labeled once you figure out what they are.

I learned this naming method at Stanford when they named the first three mainframes How, What and Why. This was long before ethernet and at the birth of IP addresses. DecNet and AppleTalk anyone? Yes I heard it, I am old, but I have kept up with networking ever since.  All of my devices except the eisy are set to static IP and in the Router as the same IP address.  When the router died everything was copy and paste to lock it back down except the eisy which is why I asked the original question.

The rest is mostly for anyone thinking of adding wires or remodeling.  Wires are better period.

All devices have Disney names, all the female names are my wife's office, the male names are mine, and castle names are shared house computers like the eisy and HA green.  This makes network troubleshooting a breeze.  I voted for beach/surfing names but we couldn't agree or come up with enough names.  I might go all cars if I ever need to rebuild the network.  I'll call my crappy printer Yugo instead of Dopey.

 Linksys keeps dummying down the app to manage the router but they leave the advanced settings in the back so you can always get there.  I used to need a router from the ISP but with the new fiber box I just get a single co-ax out for TV and RJ-45 for Internet.  They do no routing anymore, just single ip address provision as a bridge for one device the rest is up to me.  House is wired dual Cat 6 to every TV, Camera, Rack and desk location.  

Only whitelisted devices can connect to the main wifi, the guest wifi is open and firewall from the main network using .4.x addresses for easy identification and limited exposure outside the network.  And yes back this up!  if you lose a router it is a lot to re-enter.  Not being able to set the IP address of the eisy makes it more fun. 

The setup is inbound IP connection is the In on the main Linksys Mesh WiFi hub, the four "outs" go to:
1. AV Rack Main,
2. AV Rack Down,
3. IP Camera NVR
4. POE Switch in Main interconnect panel. 

Each of these locations has a Netgear 8 or 16 port GB switch with POE ports.

I wired the TV's and AV racks so that I could use an HDBaseT matrix for video.  It's a great party trick and basic matrix are under $500 now good ones under 2K.

I was considering the Amazon eero 7 mesh system because it has a zigbee matter hub built in, but then I looked at the eula and it gives them full access to the network.  No thank you.

We use the Orbi 7 at the Yacht club where I am the IT chairman and it works great.  Cisco Pro in the office.

[larryllix]

Thanks for your long info rant.

The router I use is a Bell Home Hub 4000 fibre WAN. The WiFi works much better than my ASUS mesh junk, and very well with tri-bands. I am only buying 150 Mbps fibre access right now for it's 2.5Gbps & 10Gbps ports are just fine.
Reserving IP addresses can be done, despite ISP denial ignorance, but it is very clumsy and time consuming.

My biggest problem is that it (DHCP especially) cannot be backup up or restored from/to a file. I have had to rebuild my IP DHCP table from scratch several times, and every time I swear I will replace this with my own router.

However, Bell states this cannot be done by replacing their router with a Fibre/Ethernet media converter, saying THEIR modem must be in place to get service connected.

I am not sure a bridging mode can be established. There doesn't seem to be any selection to accomplish this. A remote DHCP server (dnsmasq on a RPi) does seem to work. It does accumulate leases, in it's file, but once the ISP DHCP & DNS servers are disabled, only LAN items can be accessed. I have pulled my hair out with all the simple "make it work" articles I can find but LAN items cannot get any connections to WAN websites. I have been trying to disable the DNS function out of dnsmasq but cannot make any sense out of any of it, if it is even possible.

After a few days of hacking at this, I have restored my replacement HH4000 router with full static IP addresses again. It may take another week of tweaking IP addresses to get this back to normalcy again **sigh **

Right now, I am considering purchasing/borrowing a new Wi-Fi 7 router and disabling DHCP, DNS, and WiFis on the ISP router, to try this out. If it doesn't work, it will get returned for the exorbitant prices being charged for the latest and greatest. I guess I could try my older Netgear router first to see if this is going to work....hope, hope

[Rocketron]

Telus fiber here. Bridging the router had to be done remotely when the router was installed. The tech had to call and request that. Took a few minutes for it to happen, no problems since then.  Running my own TPlink router now, was a MikroTik previously.

[larryllix]

1 minute ago, Rocketron said:

Telus fiber here. Bridging the router had to be done remotely when the router was installed. The tech had to call and request that. Took a few minutes for it to happen, no problems since then.  Running my own TPlink router now, was a MikroTik previously.

I am discovering these routers have no bypass mode that can be selected.
However, I have found reports to put the user router into WAN PPPoE mode, as suggested by the ISP tech, and the ISP router sees that and just passes the packets through, as a self-inflicted bypass mode. Sounds awesome!

[Nestor]

6 hours ago, larryllix said:

I am discovering these routers have no bypass mode that can be selected.
However, I have found reports to put the user router into WAN PPPoE mode, as suggested by the ISP tech, and the ISP router sees that and just passes the packets through, as a self-inflicted bypass mode. Sounds awesome!

My ISP had me set up my router this way when I first signed up with them about 10 years ago. No issues. 

[CoolToys]

@larryllix, not an Asus Mesh fan, it isn't true mesh. They make great gaming WiFi Routers, and those work great as a standalone. Most "mesh" networks are not really mesh until you get up to at least 5 nodes.  Two or three wifi mesh nodes can't really "mesh" they can only bridge which greatly slows things down.  I have had very good experience with Orbi, Google, eero 6 and Linksys but in all cases I set them up so the nodes were wired to a switch that wired to the main node so there was no "mesh" usage on the triband, all hub to hub comm was over Cat 6.  All had a minimum of 3 nodes with as many as 6 in some larger homes.

Going back to your original post about DHCP taking 45 seconds to connect?  That sounds like you have two master devices trying to manage DHCP and that can cause some odd things.  In your polisy, what are you sending via ip commands?  Regardless if you don't have a windows simple name server for the device and a windows name server set up, every little power surge or network collision can reassign an address and your polisy sends commands to the ether.

I suggest you do this.
-Set the Bell Router up as a gateway at 192.168.1.1 and turn off wifi and DHCP if possible.
-Plug your WiFi Router of choice in and set it up with a static IP of 192.168.1.2 in "WAN Settings" with a subnet mask of 255.255.255.0.  
-Use a DNS server and gateway setting of 192.168.1.1.  

-If you can add a second dns server add google's 8.8.8.8 or your ISP's DNS server if you can see that in your ISP router
-Then set up your wifi router outbound IP (sometimes called "host" or listed under "local network") as 192.168.3.1, and start DHCP at 192.168.3.150

This creates a separate network for your stuff and does 90% the same thing "bridge mode" does on the bell router and make finding devices and troubleshooting much easier.

[larryllix]

35 minutes ago, CoolToys said:

@larryllix, not an Asus Mesh fan, it isn't true mesh. They make great gaming WiFi Routers, and those work great as a standalone. Most "mesh" networks are not really mesh until you get up to at least 5 nodes.  Two or three wifi mesh nodes can't really "mesh" they can only bridge which greatly slows things down.  I have had very good experience with Orbi, Google, eero 6 and Linksys but in all cases I set them up so the nodes were wired to a switch that wired to the main node so there was no "mesh" usage on the triband, all hub to hub comm was over Cat 6.  All had a minimum of 3 nodes with as many as 6 in some larger homes.

Going back to your original post about DHCP taking 45 seconds to connect?  That sounds like you have two master devices trying to manage DHCP and that can cause some odd things.  In your polisy, what are you sending via ip commands?  Regardless if you don't have a windows simple name server for the device and a windows name server set up, every little power surge or network collision can reassign an address and your polisy sends commands to the ether.

I suggest you do this.
-Set the Bell Router up as a gateway at 192.168.1.1 and turn off wifi and DHCP if possible.
-Plug your WiFi Router of choice in and set it up with a static IP of 192.168.1.2 in "WAN Settings" with a subnet mask of 255.255.255.0.  
-Use a DNS server and gateway setting of 192.168.1.1.  

-If you can add a second dns server add google's 8.8.8.8 or your ISP's DNS server if you can see that in your ISP router
-Then set up your wifi router outbound IP (sometimes called "host" or listed under "local network") as 192.168.3.1, and start DHCP at 192.168.3.150

This creates a separate network for your stuff and does 90% the same thing "bridge mode" does on the bell router and make finding devices and troubleshooting much easier.

I foud the ASUS routers appeared to be fully meshable. I used three units hardwired and one older unit via WiFi backhaul. I learned to play with the transfer specs to make it operate better. However, I found many devices didn't like to switch APs or even worse bands. They would disconnect, get lost, and had to be reconfigured so I had to turn all the automatic features off. I separated the bands into different SSIDs, stopped/reduced the switching of devices to the most convenient AP, and basically the system just became APs. ASUS routers had big problems being stable.

I also found after adding more routers to the initial unit the WiFi power levels were reduced drastically. I guess that is what "mesh" is mostly all about...reducing power levels so hundred of routers can exist in the same building and not clobber each other My original router, by itself had no problem servicing an acre property in the rural (WiFi quiet zone) but once I added more routers to troubleshoot some problems with NVRAM inside (I didn't know it) many more problems began. Some factory repairs helped a few of them.

Now I have only one router and signals are not a problem. It's just the static IP addresses that are a PITA.

I use polisy network resources (4 = On/OFF/LEVELS/EFFECTS) to talk to my inside polisy NRbridge software. That takes a list of devices and send out WiFi signals to my MagicHome bulbs to control them. Magichome bulbs were always cheap and had a lot of features etc.. but their protocols have varied somewhat from version to version. That keeps me busy with python3 hacking the new protocols.

Thanks for the inputs on router dementia.

[CoolToys]

@larryllix, yes part of a true mesh is to reduce overall wifi radiation and reduce channel congestion.  The other part of a true mesh is the ability to lose a node and have the other nodes pick up and redirect traffic.  It's good to know that you have them on a hardwired backbone.  ASUS swaps to a bridge mode when hard wired which is a good thing as it should improve overall speeds.  The nodes "talk" to each other to clear up channels which makes your troubles all the more curious to me.

If you have that much land you are trying to cover you likely need a directional mesh with MIMO like the TP Link Deco that has outdoor rated hubs or the Wavlink AC1200 extender.  These should give you a massive spray outside without needing to microwave yourself inside.  For single router solutions, any major gaming hub will give the best range.  

But the 45 second delay thing should be solved first.  That's worse than a stone age 56kps modem.

[larryllix]

@CoolToys One ASUS router as enough to cover the acre of land, until I purchased more of the same and meshed them. As soon as the mesh happened, the amplitude of the WiFi (even that router) was reduced to the point of having a had time connecting to 5GHz to my wife's iPad, 12 feet across the room with line of site. I solved those multiple problems by garbaging the oldest router with short NVRAM and selling the other three routers after I moved and picked up the fibre router from Bell. That one is done.

The long delay with DNS/DHCP is resolved by just giving up on confused and contradicting, Raspbian how-to articles, re-programming my new Bell router and ordering a new NetGear router, to be received  today. 

My plan was, if I could get dnsmasq working on the RPi1 I would move it over to the polisy or my spare polisy for a faster speed. Total failure and I just gave up.

Waiting patiently for my Netgear WiFi 7 router to arrive this evening. Hopeful, I can let it do all the DNS, DHCP, and even faster WiFi, and bypass the PITA static DHCP setup in my "new Bell ornament".

[CoolToys]

@larryllix, I think you are on the right track, standing by for the results

 

[larryllix]

2 hours ago, CoolToys said:

@larryllix, I think you are on the right track, standing by for the results

 

LOL! Now I have a complete list in a DNSmasq.conf file. I am going to dump a small test file out of the Netgear router and see if I can hack it, and/or just copy and paste some data into it, so it can be loaded back into the router. Will save me hours and hours of intense typing hex data.

Getting old! Yeah, the data entry, and my eyes.