[Beta] Asuswrt-Merlin 380.62 Beta is available

[RMerlin]

Clearly something broke in 380.62 B1 in AP mode that am only able to see the MAC and no IP In the wireless log now. If I revert, all good I see both MAC/IP. I'd appreciate if this can be looked into.

I already did, and I can't reproduce the issue here. I configured an RT-AC68U as an AP, and my Nexus 9 properly displayed both IP and MAC when I connected to it.

 

[RMerlin]

In a previous version i had it, so which is the last version that i might be able to do it?

Only a much older version, which will come with its known security holes.

This is no longer possible for legal reasons.

 

[Naftali Oziel]

I already did, and I can't reproduce the issue here. I configured an RT-AC68U as an AP, and my Nexus 9 properly displayed both IP and MAC when I connected to it.

Thanks, I forgot to mention or should have been more specific (sorry) just been trying several scenarios. Am able to see the MAC/IP address of the device that I use to log into the AC68, all others, it will only display their MAC. Meaning, If I use my primary Dell laptop to login to the AC am able to see my MAC/IP, all other connected devices just MAC. If I than use another WiFi device, am able to see it's MAC/IP all others just the MAC. The test you did, seems that you are only using one machine to login and test, yes you will see both. Try having multiple devices and you won't see both. I have two AC68 and exhibiting the same issue.

 

[plun]

I already did, and I can't reproduce the issue here. I configured an RT-AC68U as an AP, and my Nexus 9 properly displayed both IP and MAC when I connected to it.

Yep, confirming, AC68 as AP

http://imgur.com/a/dxAp2

No problem at all.

 

[RMerlin]

Thanks, I forgot to mention or should have been more specific (sorry) just been trying several scenarios. Am able to see the MAC/IP address of the device that I use to log into the AC68, all others, it will only display their MAC. Meaning, If I use my primary Dell laptop to login to the AC am able to see my MAC/IP, all other connected devices just MAC. If I than use another WiFi device, am able to see it's MAC/IP all others just the MAC. The test you did, seems that you are only using one machine to login and test, yes you will see both. Try having multiple devices and you won't see both. I have two AC68 and exhibiting the same issue.

I only tested with one single wifi device connected to the AP (and used a laptop on the primary router to access the AP's webui), I'll test with multiple devices connected at the same time.

Are missing devices all dynamic DHCP, or do you have either static IPs or DHCP reservations configured for them?

Are you also checking the client list on the AP, or on the main router?

 

[Naftali Oziel]

I only tested with one single wifi device connected to the AP (and used a laptop on the primary router to access the AP's webui), I'll test with multiple devices connected at the same time.

Are missing devices all dynamic DHCP, or do you have either static IPs or DHCP reservations configured for them?

Are you also checking the client list on the AP, or on the main router?

Thanks, I have both dynamic DHCP (MAC reserved) and static, all displayed well in 380.61. If I login to my firewall checkpoint that provides the DHCP, I see the clients listed with no issues. This issue seems to only be cosmetic in the AP and has no impact on connectivity as far as I can see at this time.

 

[Naftali Oziel]

Yep, confirming, AC68 as AP

http://imgur.com/a/dxAp2

No problem at all.

What is your primary DHCP server and are the devices connected dynamic or static. No issues in 380.61

 

[plun]

What is your primary DHCP server and are the devices connected dynamic or static. No issues in 380.61

I have fibre converter and router, Edgerouter Lite down in basement, then a Netgear switch, on 1st floor en excellent AP, AC68 and upstairs another AP, N66U.
The Edgerouter is serving everything.

 

[hellboy2]

What is your primary DHCP server and are the devices connected dynamic or static. No issues in 380.61

What are you trying to see?
I too have a setup with RT-AC68U as Router and DHCP server, and then a Dlink DAP-1522 as access point using DHCP from RT-AC68U.

So, I see...
- on Wireless log only the devices directly connected to RT-AC68U
- on network map both devices connected to RT-AC68U (both wireless and ethernet) and via DAP-1522 (wireless to AP, then ethernet from AP to Router).

I do not expect to see wireless devices on Rt-AC68U wireless log, if they are connected via DAP-1522.

Not sure I understand what you are looking for. Both 380.61 and 380.62 b1 give essentially same results in this setup.

 

[hellboy2]

I have fibre converter and router, Edgerouter Lite down in basement, then a Netgear switch, on 1st floor en excellent AP, AC68 and upstairs another AP, N66U.
The Edgerouter is serving everything.

Much the same here, maybe slightly simpler:-
- Dlink DAP-1522 as AP in cellar, connected by ethernet to RT-AC68U
- RT-AC68U as Router with DHCP server (it is serving everything), WAN connected by ethernet ...
- Netgear CG3000 as Cable modem in Router mode with one client

Measured my Samsung Tablet 10S (Android) connected on 5GHz to RT-AC68U, and it delivered 110 Mbps which is max that I have from my Cable ISP. The Thinkpad T430 (Linux) connected by 1Gbit ethernet to RT-AC68U could only deliver 96-100 Mbit ... wireless is faster than ethernet! Yay!

 

[Naftali Oziel]

What are you trying to see?
I too have a setup with RT-AC68U as Router and DHCP server, and then a Dlink DAP-1522 as access point using DHCP from RT-AC68U.

So, I see...
- on Wireless log only the devices directly connected to RT-AC68U
- on network map both devices connected to RT-AC68U (both wireless and ethernet) and via DAP-1522 (wireless to AP, then ethernet from AP to Router).

I do not expect to see wireless devices on Rt-AC68U wireless log, if they are connected via DAP-1522.

Not sure I understand what you are looking for. Both 380.61 and 380.62 b1 give essentially same results in this setup.

With 380.61 in the wireless log I was able to see both the MAC/IP, after the upgrade to 380.62 am only able to the MAC devices not the IP address except for the machine I use to login to the AC68U.

 

[hellboy2]

With 380.61 in the wireless log I was able to see both the MAC/IP, after the upgrade to 380.62 am only able to the MAC devices not the IP address except for the machine I use to login to the AC68U.

Sounds wrong, but it is not the situation I have. Our observations are different from each other. My wireless log is neither worse nor better in 380.62b1 than it was in 380.61 - there are visual differences, yes, but the contents is the same.

 

[Naftali Oziel]

Sounds wrong, but it is not the situation I have. Our observations are different from each other. My wireless log is neither worse nor better in 380.62b1 than it was in 380.61 - there are visual differences, yes, but the contents is the same.

exactly, can't explain it just reporting the outcome to the upgrade. Not going to worry as it's not impacting my system and it's just in AP mode my firewall displays the info correctly.

 

[hellboy2]

My RT-AC68U is in Router mode, not AP mode. that's our difference setup.

It surprise me, it has ever worked for you. What you observe now, is what I would expect in AP mode. It would be nice, of course, if the AP's UI used something like arp -n command to put IP address and hostnames on the devices connected to it. My AP (Dlink DAP-1522) has never done that. I usually go back to network map on RT-AC68U to find out who is really connected to the AP.

 

[Naftali Oziel]

My RT-AC68U is in Router mode, not AP mode. that's our difference setup.

It surprise me, it has ever worked for you. What you observe now, is what I would expect in AP mode. It would be nice, of course, if the AP's UI used something like arp -n command to put IP address and hostnames on the devices connected to it. My AP (Dlink DAP-1522) has never done that. I usually go back to network map on RT-AC68U to find out who is really connected to the AP.

Yes it worked in 380.61 in AP showing the connected devices both MAC and IP. Now it only shows the MAC address all systems are connected no issues so this is a cosmetic issue. Apparently others on the site who use it in AP mode it works for them but it may vary on your network setup.

 

[RMerlin]

Yes it worked in 380.61 in AP showing the connected devices both MAC and IP. Now it only shows the MAC address all systems are connected no issues so this is a cosmetic issue. Apparently others on the site who use it in AP mode it works for them but it may vary on your network setup.

Can you check on the repeater if the ARP table are probably showing devices and IPs?

cat /proc/net/arp

That's where httpd retrieves the list of IPs and MACs. My guess is the ARP table gets flushed, so the AP has no way of knowing what's the IP address of the client.

 

[RMerlin]

I was finally able to reproduce the missing IPs. It's indeed related to the Linux kernel not having the device's MAC in its ARP table - it can take a while for this to happen, and it depends on the clients.

I was also able to reproduce the exact same issue with 380.61. This is NOT new to 380.62.

Asuswrt-Merlin relies on the ARP cache to determine the IP of a given MAC address. Now, when a client connects to the AP, it does not communicate with that AP at an IP level, but only with the main router. That causes IPs to either quickly disappear from the AP's tables, or flat out never appear in them.

The only way for an AP to be able to know about the IPs would be to scan the entire subnet, causing the AP cache to get populated. This happens for instance when networkmap scans the LAN to build a list of clients. You can see this by accessing the networkmap (first page when you log into the AP), wait 2 minutes, then go back to the Wireless Log page. Any missing IPs should now be visible... for the time being. That is, until the kernel flushes its ARP tables of these stale entries.

An alternative might be to rely on the networkmap database instead of the arp table to retrieve IPs. However I'm not really a fan of that idea, as its has its own drawbacks (stale entries, or missing newly connected clients).

So in summary:

1) It's nothing new, it was also happening in 380.61
2) It's related to the kernel's handling of the ARP table, forcing a refresh would have significant side-effects (like waking up any device in sleep mode on your LAN)

Best I could do would be to see if I could rely on the networkmap database as an alternative IP source (i.e. ONLY when the ARP table doesn't have an entry for a client). I will have to see how tricky this would be to implement however. The networkmap database is often a bit unreliable, with its own issues...

 

[RMerlin]

Since even networkmap cannot tell if a new device has connected, neither if a device's IP has changed since last time it did a full scan, I dropped the idea of querying the networkmap database in case of missing IP. I prefer to report it as being unknown rather than report what might be an incorrect IP (if the IP changed since last networkmap scan).

I've made this change so instead of leaving the field blank, it will report it as being unknown. A separate bug was also fixed that prevent unknown hostnames from being reported as such. It should at least make it clear that these info might not be shown simply because they are unavailable.

If you absolutely need the info, I recommend accessing the networkmap (click on the Client List icon on the front page), wait 1-2 minutes, then go back to the Wireless Log page - the ARP cache should have updated itself by then.

 

[RMerlin]

I think I found out last time that staic DHCP with more than 32 devices would break things. It is quite likely that I accidently crossed that line again, when my son got a new mobile phone few weeks ago.

if even the static list ends up empty, first likely cause would be that you are running out of nvram. Check your nvram usage under Tools -> Sysinfo.

 

[applesnowleo]

You most likely enabled a feature that isn't compatible with NAT acceleration. Look on the Tools -> Sysinfo page to see which one.



You can't.

Hello, thanks for your reply Merlin, I did not change anything, just programmed your firmware over Asus latest, in SysInfo HW acceleration appears to be on, reverting back to asus the problem desappears. Reseted the router and configured from scratch but did not solve. post some pictures for notice.