Merlin and hostnames

[Bill Smith]

All this applies to my main router - not the access point...

I used the Merlin feature to assign host names to my statically assigned IP addresses. However I’m not sure whether it’s doing what it’s supposed to.

While I see them on the static dns page, the client list does not show them - still shows the manufacturer.

Also the per IP monitoring screens just show IP address even when I have the radio button to display hostnames turned on. The only thing that option does is to add parentheses around *some* hosts (I’m guess to ones actively connected?)

Is this all intended behavior? I did reset to factory defaults after installing Merlin. I’ve rebooted the router too.

 

[RMerlin]

The client list is populated by Asus's networkmap service, which is closed source and outside of my control.

 

[Bill Smith]

The client list is populated by Asus's networkmap service, which is closed source and outside of my control.

Bummer. Thanks!

 

[sfx2000]

The client list is populated by Asus's networkmap service, which is closed source and outside of my control.

NetworkMap has been a ball of hurt for a long time - not that it matters, but it's an opportunity for Asus to do something inside their secret sauce..

under the hood - arp -a generally finds everything that is working on that level... if I recall, there's a couple of commands on the WL interface to see associated clients on the WiFi, but that is at the MAC layer only...

 

[john9527]

Double check that your leases data looks reasonable (System Log > DHCP leases). Back when you could see the NetworkMap code the dhcp leases file was the final arbiter on getting the hostname.

 

[RMerlin]

NetworkMap has been a ball of hurt for a long time - not that it matters, but it's an opportunity for Asus to do something inside their secret sauce..

Back when I started working on this project, I fixed a crazy amount of buffer overruns in networkmap, many of which would randomly cause networkmap to crash with certain clients, in addition to extending its capabilities.

https://github.com/RMerl/asuswrt-merlin/commits/master/release/src/router/networkmap

At some point, I noticed that Asus simply merged my code onto theirs to pick up all the fixes I had done up until that point. After that, I kept making more fixes and enhancements. Unfortunately when they closed it with 382_xxxx, all those newer fixes were lost, and I can't reapply these fixes anymore, causing my own firmware to inherit a few regressions. I can't determine either what new issues were introduced (the networkmap code is old crud dating back to the "blue UI" days, it was written back when writing sane and secure code was not a priority. That means it's still very fragile code, probably in need of a complete rewrite.)

Another casualty of third parties pushing Asus's code onto non-Asus routers...

 

[sfx2000]

Back when I started working on this project, I fixed a crazy amount of buffer overruns in networkmap, many of which would randomly cause networkmap to crash with certain clients, in addition to extending its capabilities.

https://github.com/RMerl/asuswrt-merlin/commits/master/release/src/router/networkmap

At some point, I noticed that Asus simply merged my code onto theirs to pick up all the fixes I had done up until that point. After that, I kept making more fixes and enhancements. Unfortunately when they closed it with 382_xxxx, all those newer fixes were lost, and I can't reapply these fixes anymore, causing my own firmware to inherit a few regressions.

I recall that effort...

I think part of the challenges that tools like the Network Map face is odd client behavior... everything from MAC randomization to odd thinks like ChromeOS, where the hostname is randomized (yes, this happens). Macs and Windows, along with Linux are fairly predictable and well behaved here...

As painful as it might be with Asus, it could be worse (Linksys for example on their Smart WiFi platform is especially odd there)...

 

[RMerlin]

Double check that your leases data looks reasonable (System Log > DHCP leases). Back when you could see the NetworkMap code the dhcp leases file was the final arbiter on getting the hostname.

That feature was implemented by me, so I don't know if it was ever integrated into Asus's 382+ code.

 

[RMerlin]

nder the hood - arp -a generally finds everything that is working on that level...

At its core, that's pretty much how networkmap works - it sends an arp request to every IP within the LAN, and waits for replies. Unfortunately, one of its limitations is that they only process a /24 that way, so any wider network will be missing clients.

The rest on top of it is mostly client identification (sending LPR/SMB/Netbios/etc... queries to determine what type of client is present at a given IP), and then organizing it all into a data structure that's shared with httpd.

 

[xulian]

<..> I used the Merlin feature to assign host names to my statically assigned IP addresses. However I’m not sure whether it’s doing what it’s supposed to.

While I see them on the static dns page, the client list does not show them - still shows the manufacturer.

Does this has any effect on DNS resolutions? Because I have few cases where 2 or 3 devices are not resolved by the name I write down in the devices list overwriting those manufacturers strings.