View Full Version : Customers on Dynamic IP and Netgear router
There is an additional setting you will require on any Netgear router if you are on a dynamic IP to ensure your Connecion stays up each time the DHCP lease is renewed from the servers.
Go in to your Netgear setup at http://192.168.0.1 and login with admin/password (default)
Go in to Firewall rules on the left, and under Inbound Services click on Add
Service type: BOOTP_CLIENT
Action: ALLOW always
Send to LAN Server: 192.168.0.1
WAN Users: start = 82.132.253.0 finish = 82.132.253.254
Log: Always
Click Apply and then on the next page also click Apply
No idea what it means but thanks James
It's basically a problem with Netgear's routers - for some reason they block the DHCP request from our servers so after x hours the router will check to see if it needs to refresh the IP (renew it) but the Netgear does not allow the reply back in from our servers and you can potentially end up with no access. The above firewall fixes this and hopefully Netgear will release updated firmware in the future to stop it.
Cheers, James, just bought a new DG834 v 4 from you in readiness for changeover to LLU next Monday.
Kobrakai
03/06/2009, 07:52
I added this to my firewall rules but it seems to still disconnect me. In my logs I have:
Wed, 2009-06-03 03:56:43 - UDP Packet - Source:82.132.253.7,67 Destination:78.105.207.68,68 - [BOOTP_CLIENT rule match]
And right after that I was disconnected?
Promote the additional rule to 1st position otherwise it will not be 'seen'
Maybe I am in error?
prisoner
03/06/2009, 09:28
I added this to my firewall rules but it seems to still disconnect me. In my logs I have:
Wed, 2009-06-03 03:56:43 - UDP Packet - Source:82.132.253.7,67 Destination:78.105.207.68,68 - [BOOTP_CLIENT rule match]
And right after that I was disconnected?
Yeah, exactly the same thing is happening to me on a DG834Gv4. Right after the lease renewal I get disconnected. I get the log entry confirming the rule match as well. I have temporarily swapped to a BT voyager 2600 until this gets resolved.
Typical Netgear for you, we need them to officially fix this with a new firmware update as that's the issue.
I'm trying to look at some workaround, but the above firewall rule should work for most as we've had good feedback and it's ok on our test line.
I added this to my firewall rules but it seems to still disconnect me. In my logs I have:
Wed, 2009-06-03 03:56:43 - UDP Packet - Source:82.132.253.7,67 Destination:78.105.207.68,68 - [BOOTP_CLIENT rule match]
And right after that I was disconnected?
So far as I'm aware the firewall rule works, it only allows the DHCP release to be actioned and shouldn't disconnect the router. What exactly do you mean by 'disconnected'? Does the router reboot/reconnect or do you still have a live internet connection (green light on the box) but you've lost local routing?
Geoff1970
03/06/2009, 11:52
Presume this is what is causing my laptop wi-fi to cut out two nights in a run around 10:30pm ish since LLU went live, made the changes listed above but still got the cut out last night after changes made.
when I look at control panel I see:
Lease Obtained 2009-06-03 10:28:36
Lease Expires 2009-06-03 22:28:36
so basically does this mean I will get disconnected each night at 22:28 indefinitely ? (got a DG834GT)
its not a big problem, but bit difficult getting a new connection, on first night I just clicked renew release and it did, but last night after making the changes listed in this thread it would not renew until I turned laptop on and off then it rebooted and renewed.
But is this release renewed every 24hrs or 12hrs as I do not get cut off at 10:28am.
You get the lease for 12 hours but it's normally renewed after 6 hours - so if it fails the first time it has time to renegotiate. Also you should normally get the same ip address anyway, as the renewal should be almost instantaneous.
Geoff1970
03/06/2009, 12:07
Okay, I see - have promoted rule to first place just incase that does any good.
prisoner
03/06/2009, 13:06
So far as I'm aware the firewall rule works, it only allows the DHCP release to be actioned and shouldn't disconnect the router. What exactly do you mean by 'disconnected'? Does the router reboot/reconnect or do you still have a live internet connection (green light on the box) but you've lost local routing?
Mine doesn't lose sync, reconnect or reboot - It just loses routing. Cannot ping gateway / dns servers etc. This is only cured by rebooting / reconnecting. But I do have some other firewall rules and I'll try moving the BOOTP_CLIENT one to the top, which I don't think will solve the issue as the rule gets reported in the log as matched.
OK this is now sounding familiar. There have been a number of similar reports on TBB (http://forums.thinkbroadband.com/o2/f/3634555-anyone-regularly-losing-routing.html?vc=1) and Be forums, not always confined to Netgear routers, of local network connections being lost. I know the linked thread is a long one but if this is the same problem then the more reports the better.
One other thing - if you can still access the router, either via the orginal pc or a second one, try clicking on 'apply' on the basic settings as this usually re-establishes the routing.
Kobrakai
03/06/2009, 17:18
Great, when I was on Entanet all my problems were because of BT, now they are because of Netgear. It’s always somebody else’s fault.
As I am now loosing connection multiple times a day this is a big problem. There is certainly no chance of Netgear releasing new firmware, it’s been a year since their last release and there are far more popular things they wont fix.
I have a Netgear DG834G V4 and am losing connection (sync) but it is nothing to do with the renewal of the dynamic IP in my case.
The renewal takes place every 12 hours but my loss of sync is anytime and often.:(
Geoff1970
03/06/2009, 23:38
Promote the additional rule to 1st position otherwise it will not be 'seen'
Maybe I am in error?
Well, it worked for me this evening, and no disconnection since I promoted it to 1st :D
Lease Obtained 2009-06-03 22:28:34
Lease Expires 2009-06-04 10:28:34
Hi,
With my previous LLU ISP (Pipex/Tiscali) and my Netgear DG834v2 I didn't ever change the firewall rules and didn't notice any dropouts. Maybe I wasn't online long enough to get to lease renewal, but router was on 24/7 and I remember WAN uptime of many days. Will remember this when I move to your LLU offering.
Cheers,
Peter
Oliver341
04/06/2009, 14:21
Hi there,
I was the one who originally discovered the DHCP lease renewal issue on Netgears, and came up with the firewall fix for O2/Be.
Some points to note:
Routing
The firewall fix should not cause loss of connection/routing during IP lease renewal, every six hours. It does in fact stop the connection loss every 12 hours, at IP lease expiry. As mentioned, there seems to be another issue with loss of connection/routing for some people, as discussed at TBB.
Firmware
Having spoke at length with Netgear about this, I am of the opinion the problem lies with O2/Be. They have the ability to fix the issue by altering their DHCP servers so that they send and receive packets on the same IP address. In my case my router sends DHCP packets to 82.132.253.116 and receives them on 82.132.253.7. If O2/Be changed the DHCP servers to send packets back on the same IP address as they are received, then the router's built-in UDP hole punching would allow the packets through without the need for the firewall rule.
pumpkinpie
04/06/2009, 14:39
Hi there,
I was the one who originally discovered the DHCP lease renewal issue on Netgears, and came up with the firewall fix for O2/Be.
and as Oliver341 also originally reported on TBB, when the DHCP lease is renewed, the Netgear resets the WAN Uptime figure. In my own case (DG834v4), this is just cosmetic as the connection remains up.
HTH
Oliver341
04/06/2009, 14:45
and as Oliver341 also originally reported on TBB, when the DHCP lease is renewed, the Netgear resets the WAN Uptime figure. In my own case (DG834v4), this is just cosmetic as the connection remains up.
Yep, the WAN uptime figure resets to zero when the IP lease is renewed every 6 hours, even though the WAN connection does not drop. That was another issue I discussed with Netgear but they did not feel it necessary to change this behaviour.
Doesn't work for some reason on my DG834Gv5. I get an error message: "Server IP address cannot be router's LAN IP address". The only thing that is different is that I have specified a different LAN IP address for my router: 192.168.2.2 instead of 192.168.0.1.
Any ideas?
David
There is an additional setting you will require on any Netgear router if you are on a dynamic IP to ensure your Connecion stays up each time the DHCP lease is renewed from the servers.
Go in to your Netgear setup at http://192.168.0.1 and login with admin/password (default)
Go in to Firewall rules on the left, and under Inbound Services click on Add
Service type: BOOTP_CLIENT
Action: ALLOW always
Send to LAN Server: 192.168.0.1
WAN Users: start = 82.132.253.0 finish = 82.132.253.254
Log: Always
Click Apply and then on the next page also click Apply
Oliver341
05/06/2009, 11:15
Doesn't work for some reason on my DG834Gv5. I get an error message: "Server IP address cannot be router's LAN IP address". The only thing that is different is that I have specified a different LAN IP address for my router: 192.168.2.2 instead of 192.168.0.1.
Any ideas?
Can you revert back to the router's default LAN IP as a test?
The alternative solution which I originally created is (substitute in your own LAN IP):
Visit: http://192.168.0.1/setup.cgi?todo=debug
Then open a command prompt and type:
telnet 192.168.0.1
Then at the busybox prompt type:
iptables -A INPUT -p udp -s 82.132.253.0/24 --dport 68 -j ACCEPT
This setting is wiped after every router reboot which is why my recommended method (if it works) is the firewall rule.
I have the problem where I lose routing, interval uncertain.
I have to reboot the router. I do not like this.
Router is DG834GT with 1.02.16 firmware (deliberately).
IP address is not default, but Class C anyway.
Experimentally, when I release and renew the lease, with the BOOTP rule applied, the nameserver entries on the Router Stats page, or frame, are not refreshed and disappear.
When I check 'get dynamically from ISP' the nameserver is refreshed with a different server from those listed statically.
QED, perhaps. As I have at least 5 Netgear routers, I have an interest in solving this.
Update: after 1-2 hours, web pages cannot be loaded.
Scrap idea.
Clicking the Apply button in 'Basic Settings' clears the error.
Discovered more custom firmware for DG834GT.
http://atuts.blogspot.com/
Handles DHCP Lease differently..not documented, and may be a lack of knowledge on my part.
I do not know if this 'feature' is a help or not.
Much higher SYNC, but that may reflect the hour.
Has anyone tried the GaTi firmware?
Well, I am running the GaTi firmware. DHCP lease renewed at 6 hours. Dynamic name server still working at 12 hours. A little latency loading web pages. Superb connection speed.
Only based on 12 hours of use.
If we can conceptualise the IPTables fix in a few lines, it might be worth posting on the Author's Forum.
And then we at ADSL24 will develop a new firmware that implements the fix :)
Lease renewing, web pages loading, with GaTI -totally undocumented- firmware at 17 hours.
Oliver341
07/06/2009, 20:04
If we can conceptualise the IPTables fix in a few lines, it might be worth posting on the Author's Forum.
Rather than opening ports in iptables, which is not ideal from a security standpoint, O2/Be could make the firewall fixes redundant by replying to the DHCP requests using the same IP as that which they are received on. This is the best solution in my opinion.
That is always a best scenario solution but we have to find if there is any workaround in case they don't fix it at their end :)
Oliver341
07/06/2009, 20:54
That is always a best scenario solution but we have to find if there is any workaround in case they don't fix it at their end :)
True! As a reseller you probably have more influence with O2/Be than us mere customers though. Fancy twisting any arms? ;)
I've already got it in my task list tomorrow to speak to our account manager to see if they can initiate some investigation :)
Is it possible for you to give a detailed list/breakdown of what info you have on the issue so far?
Oliver341
07/06/2009, 21:29
The core issue is that the O2/Be DHCP server receives DHCP renewal requests on one IP address, and replies using another. In my case:
DHCP renewal requests sent to: 82.132.253.116
DHCP renewal replies received from: 82.132.253.7
If the O2/Be DHCP server sent out replies to my DHCP renewal request using the source IP of 82.132.253.116 then there would be no issue, the DG834 would accept the packet and not firewall it. However the reply comes from 82.132.253.7 which confuses the DG834, because that is not the IP address it sent the DHCP renewal request to.
I actually agree with the DG834's default behaviour on this, as accepting DHCP packets from any IP address on the internet could very rightly be regarded as risky. From a security standpoint the router should rightly expect the reply to come from the same IP address it sends to.
I would point out that I have just run nmap on the assigned external router address here, with the BOOTP firewall rule on, and port 67 is not listed as open.
Oliver341
07/06/2009, 21:44
I would point out that I have just run nmap on the assigned external router address here, with the BOOTP firewall rule on, and port 67 is not listed as open.
It wouldn't do, as the firewall rule I created will only listen to packets coming from the IP range 82.132.253.0 to 82.132.253.254
Also, BOOTP_CLIENT opens port 68, not port 67.
@Oliver341
From the logs and graphs that we have there are many issues that occur outside of, or in-between if you like, the 6/12 hour cycles.
And this with or without your additional rule.
I seem to be going round in circles & it cannot last much longer due to my inability to do online banking. I have a 3 hour trip tomorrow to visit my bank.
I hate telephone banking, its almost impossible for anything other than the simplest things.
:(
Oliver341
07/06/2009, 22:22
@Oliver341
From the logs and graphs that we have there are many issues that occur outside of, or in-between if you like, the 6/12 hour cycles.
I believe the "loss of routing" issue is a different, and indeed more serious issue, as it requires manual intervention in order to bring the router back up.
The best hub of discussion for that subject appears to be: http://forums.thinkbroadband.com/o2/f/3634555-anyone-regularly-losing-routing.html
David, I can't understand why it's causing an issue with your online banking? Surely if you can keep connected for 5-10 mins there should be no problem? The problems mentioned in this thread seem to affect a connection after several hours normally. You should not be losing connection enough to make your online banking an issue?
peteholt
08/06/2009, 09:13
Actually James as someone else suffering constant and repeated packet loss and being denied the service i have paid for, i can easily understand how you are unable to online bank!
The number of times i time out due to packet loss and have to re-sign in is incredible, at its best i get packet loss and the internet times out only once in a 20 minute period which is still poor imo. At worst in the evenings and over the weekend im lucky if i stay online for more than 2-3 minutes at a time even with my snr set to the most stable level, which i might add has about as much effect as turning my desk to face the northern lights in the hope that facing the router magnetic north will give a more stable connection.
Just to explain when a page fails to load, you have to refresh it, do that on a banks site and you have to log in again, and again, and again, and again, packet loss again and you repeat the performance.
@peteholt
Thanks, I was sure that I could not be the only one.
When I did the 'big' RouterStats log over a 14 hour period I had 35 errors and the majority of these where outside of the 6/12 renew cycle.
My 'renew' cycle goes 05.30 - 17.30
Another strange one that happens now :- my Netgear DG834G V4 now responds to ICMP ping (echo R)
This is not good (imo) - didn't happen before on ADSL.
@Oliver341
I believe the "loss of routing" issue is a different, and indeed more serious issue, as it requires manual intervention in order to bring the router back up.
Perhaps we have not explained - this issue does not require manual intervention.
The graph shows the speed or snr dropping to 0 and then returning to its max.
It just does it. If you are on a web page you wait and perhaps do a refresh.
20 - 30 secs from start to finish normally.
Oliver341
08/06/2009, 11:07
Perhaps we have not explained - this issue does not require manual intervention.
The graph shows the speed or snr dropping to 0 and then returning to its max.
It just does it. If you are on a web page you wait and perhaps do a refresh.
20 - 30 secs from start to finish normally.
Sounds like that issue deserves a new thread then, as this one is about DHCP IP lease renewal on Netgear routers.
@Oliver341
From the logs and graphs that we have there are many issues that occur outside of, or in-between if you like, the 6/12 hour cycles.
And this with or without your additional rule.
I seem to be going round in circles & it cannot last much longer due to my inability to do online banking. I have a 3 hour trip tomorrow to visit my bank.
I hate telephone banking, its almost impossible for anything other than the simplest things.
:(
David, has any other router been tried or is all this happening on the same one you have used since day 1?
I tried my very old Billion 5200G - no problems.
Can't really use it because I broke the aerial and all I have is a bit of wire draped somewhere or other.
I will wait for Pete's results before buying another box.
Here's the following e-mail I have fired off to our account manager today so hopefully it will be looked in to:
We've had several reports from some of our customers that keep losing connectivity randomly.
It affects the Netgear routers where the customer is on a dynamic IP.
From my investigations so far it appears to be two separate issues, one to do with the DHCP renew process and another with some routing issue whereby no traffic can be sent/received. If a customer uses any other non-Netgear router it works without a problem - so it's definitely just affecting Netgear routers, and I think the ones based on the Broadcom chipset in particular.
Several discussion threads online have recently been published on both our own customer forums from people experiencing these issues and also both an independent site (thinkbroadband.com), o2's and Be's site. Please find the links below so you can take a look and forward this on to your network team.
Affected customers that have reported the issue at present:
xxxx
xxxx
xxxx
xxxx
xxxx
xxxx
http://adsl24.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?t=7363
http://adsl24.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?t=7339
http://forums.thinkbroadband.com/o2/f/3558720-netgear-dg834-does-not-renew-wan-ip-lease.html?page=6&vc=1
http://forums.thinkbroadband.com/o2/f/3574763-o2-llu-dhcp-lease-time.html?vc=1
http://forum.o2.co.uk/viewtopic.php?p=108985&sid=05c78846bf678c165c9d60891d064aa7
https://www.bethere.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?t=27926
https://www.bethere.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?t=27956
One member seems to think this is a problem on the o2 network:
Regarding the DHCP lease issue:
"Having spoke at length with Netgear about this, I am of the opinion the problem lies with O2/Be. They have the ability to fix the issue by altering their DHCP servers so that they send and receive packets on the same IP address. In my case my router sends DHCP packets to 82.132.253.116 and receives them on 82.132.253.7. If O2/Be changed the DHCP servers to send packets back on the same IP address as they are received, then the router's built-in UDP firewall would allow the packets through without the need for any additional firewall rules."
Of course, we're keen to get this resolved asap as the Netgear is a very popular router (and recommended) by us. Any information back from your network team would be very much appreciated, and if you need further information please let me know.
Thank you
James
James, thanks for following this up. Here's another (http://forums.thinkbroadband.com/dslrouter/f/3632394-dg834g-v4-refusing-wifi-connection.html?vc=1) tbbforum thread.
That seems unrelated as it's a wireless issue
Oliver341
08/06/2009, 17:57
Here's the following e-mail I have fired off to our account manager today so hopefully it will be looked in to:
That's really good news, I'd love to delete that firewall rule in my router! More importantly though, it will reduce the amount of connection drops for new customers who don't read forums (i.e. most of them).
That seems unrelated as it's a wireless issue
I disagree - it's still a lan disconnect issue that started mid-May on DG834 router, and can be corrected by releasing/renewing the lease.
I'm probably missing it, but I can't see any mention in that thread relating to the DHCP lease issue or loss of routing - I can only see them mentioning about the odgy WLAN connection to the router which is not a network, but a local issue.
The OP mentions a router reboot rather than a lease renewal, but there are similarities in symptoms (internet connection still on but no WLAN connection, two reports of early/mid-May start), that make me think it could be the same issue. Unfortunately the OP has not persevered with the thread. Still I guess there are enough other reports.
I'd be interested to hear whether the disconnections experienced here were via cabled or wireless - I've experienced both.
Whilst this is not a long term solution, can anyone affected by this tick the box that says "Disable Port Scan and DOS Protection" in WAN setup @ http://192.168.0.1/setup.cgi?next_file=security.htm&todo=cfg_init to see if it makes any difference
Oliver341
08/06/2009, 19:40
Whilst this is not a long term solution, can anyone affected by this tick the box that says "Disable Port Scan and DOS Protection" in WAN setup @ http://192.168.0.1/setup.cgi?next_file=security.htm&todo=cfg_init to see if it makes any difference
I'm not sure if you are referring to the original issue, or other issues that are tangled up in this thread now.
Anyway, usually one of the first things Netgear support advise is to disable "Port Scan and DOS Protection" in WAN setup. It does not solve the IP lease renewal issue for me.
The only reason I thought it may is because in the log it shows the Port 69 request from o2's servers as being a DOS scan.
Has anyone else tried setting the DNS as auto-obtain instead of setting it manually?
Oliver341
08/06/2009, 22:47
Has anyone else tried setting the DNS as auto-obtain instead of setting it manually?
Yes, that does not solve the IP lease renewal issue either.
Has anyone else tried setting the DNS as auto-obtain instead of setting it manually?
I have done this for Netgear 1.02.16 and 1.02.19 firmware on a DG834GT.
In neither instance did it have any effect over a 24 hour period.
I have now been running on GaTI 0.7a Beta firmware for 46 hours.
Leases are renewed correctly with the BOOTP rule in place.
Using the nameserver caught dynamically, web pages refresh acceptably.
They slow in specific instances - accessing Google is one.
I have not touched any 'Apply' button.
There is an added setting to change SYNC speed on the fly in this beta.
As there is another checkbox for NAT Loopback, which is redundant, I do not know if all his mods are meaningful.
The author does not publish his source, but states he has incorporated UberGT code into the 1.02.19 image. This surprises me as he is in Bangalore, and I thought the firmware was less international.
I have not contacted him. URI is earlier in this thread.
I've had this Netgear DG834Gv4 up and running for around 48hrs now and not have one loss of lease, connectivity or routing - it's just worked throughout. I'm hoping it does actaully fall over so I can debug it!
Oliver341
09/06/2009, 18:46
I've had this Netgear DG834Gv4 up and running for around 48hrs now and not have one loss of lease, connectivity or routing - it's just worked throughout. I'm hoping it does actaully fall over so I can debug it!
It renews the lease every 6 hours without my firewall rule?
Yes, it's a brand new v4 out the box with shipped firmware and only the ADSL settings configured. Latest lease was:
IP Address 94.192.2xx.xx
Subnet Mask 255.255.248.0
Default Gateway 94.192.24x.xx
DHCP Server 82.132.253.123
DNS Server 87.194.0.51
87.194.0.52
Lease Obtained 2009-06-09 17:18:40
Lease Expires 2009-06-10 05:18:40
but there was no loss of service or routing and I'm still using it now without issue
Oliver341
10/06/2009, 00:21
Yes, it's a brand new v4 out the box with shipped firmware and only the ADSL settings configured.
I deleted my firewall rule to see if anything had changed.
From my router's connection status:
Lease Expires 2009-06-10 05:27:04
It's 00:22 now, less than 6 hours until the lease expires, so it looks like my router still needs the firewall rule.
Did your lease renew at 23:18:40 ?
I've had this Netgear DG834Gv4 up and running for around 48hrs now and not have one loss of lease, connectivity or routing - it's just worked throughout. I'm hoping it does actaully fall over so I can debug it!
I have had 48 hours or more, with not loss of lease, connectivity, or routing in one sense: I can access email. This is with different firmware.
Therefore routing must be working.
Web pages however, are loading so slowly that the browser times out: even I had to click the Basic Settings 'Apply' button.
Whats your MTU at in the WAN setup page?
Whats your MTU at in the WAN setup page?
The MTU remains at 1500.
Try 1458 or 1400 - this can help with browsing issues or lagging I've found.
Well, another 24hrs passed and still not lost the connection or routing. The lease is being renewed correctly without the firewall rule, and it's all just worked since I plugged the router in. So, at present, I'm failing to find this reported issue!
We havn't got another BT style fiasco have we.
Adsl2+ problems were not universal.
Nope, can't be anything at their side as it does not touch their equipment or system.
I actually said 'BT style' where some were not affected by the roll-out.
As indicated by others the O2/Be roll-out of new something or other started at one location and then moved on.
Grasping at straws.
Whats your MTU at in the WAN setup page?
Moved to 1458 at your suggestion. Duplicates and retransmission > 0.
Thank you.
Apparently a separate issue to the main business of this thread.
On subject, have turned off BOOTP rule to see what happens.
Oliver341
10/06/2009, 22:54
On subject, have turned off BOOTP rule to see what happens.
Keep an eye on this page: http://192.168.0.1/setup.cgi?next_file=st_dhcp.htm
The "Lease Expires" time should always be at least 6 hours in the future.
Keep an eye on this page: http://192.168.0.1/setup.cgi?next_file=st_dhcp.htm
The "Lease Expires" time should always be at least 6 hours in the future.
Thank you.
I have also reverted to stock firmware 1.02.19.
AT 9 hours...
Lease obtained
Renewal shown 12 hours thereafter
No entry in log, now rule disabled, which I suppose is to be expected
Web pages loading much better, with tweaked MTU
Oliver341
11/06/2009, 09:36
Lease obtained
Renewal shown 12 hours thereafter
What's your "Lease Expires" value showing now?
Oliver341
11/06/2009, 09:38
IP Address 94.192.2xx.xx
Subnet Mask 255.255.248.0
Default Gateway 94.192.24x.xx
DHCP Server 82.132.253.123
DNS Server 87.194.0.51
87.194.0.52
Lease Obtained 2009-06-09 17:18:40
Lease Expires 2009-06-10 05:18:40
Did you specify DNS manually? O2/Be DHCP usually hands out 87.194.255.154 or 87.194.255.155 as DNS servers.
What's your "Lease Expires" value showing now?
Default Gateway 94.192.24X.X
DHCP Server 82.132.253.123
DNS Server 87.194.255.154
Lease Obtained 2009-06-11 05:28:38
Lease Expires 2009-06-11 17:28:38
DNS Server IP, as you see, obtained dynamically
Oliver341
11/06/2009, 09:55
Lease Expires 2009-06-11 17:28:38
Cool. It would be good to see this again at midday too if possible.
Cool. It would be good to see this again at midday too if possible.
1150 BST
ie, after 1128 BST
Default Gateway 94.192.24x.x
DHCP Server 82.132.253.123
DNS Server 87.194.255.154
Lease Obtained 2009-06-11 05:28:38
Lease Expires 2009-06-11 17:28:38
Oliver341
11/06/2009, 12:54
1150 BST
ie, after 1128 BST
Lease Expires 2009-06-11 17:28:38
Hmm yeah, under 6 hours until your lease expires. Looks like you need the firewall rule back in.
Hmm yeah, under 6 hours until your lease expires. Looks like you need the firewall rule back in.
Rule reapplied.
So, James runs a DG834Gv4 w/o the rule, and the lease refreshes.
I run a DG834GT, AFAIK the same board with a different mini PCI Wireless card, and cannot reproduce his results.
I have always made the assumption that the firmware code for the two was based on the same sources, given the configuration of the Netgear GPL page.
Oliver, tried both the manual DNS and static DNS with the same results.
Oliver341
11/06/2009, 14:06
Oliver, tried both the manual DNS and static DNS with the same results.
Did you hear back from O2/Be about this yet? The solution seems pretty simple to me; change the DHCP server so that the same IP address is used for sending and receiving packets.
Oliver341
11/06/2009, 14:14
There's actually something else you can mention to O2/Be, James.
When the router cannot renew the IP lease, the router subsequently sends multiple requests to renew the lease in the 6 hours before lease expiry. The effect of this basically means that Netgear users on O2/Be who have not applied my firewall rule (probably most of them) are causing a considerable amount of extra work for the DHCP servers, due to all the failed IP renewal attempts.
Therefore O2/Be would be doing themselves a favour by easing the load on their DHCP servers if they fixed this.
Whilst sharing the sentiment, there are troubling aspects to this.
There are the multiple threads from other fora discussing the issue.
Be showed no interest in these.
Be apparently issued one of the affected routers to some customers, and showed no interest in resolution.
In my previous life I dealt with Account Managers. The assumptions made here are that the manager does not have his own agenda, wants the ADSL24 business, and will deal with technical support, and that the technical support personnel are actually capable.
I would point out that I had a live technical support ticket in the final days with my previous ISP. They telephoned me about this, and read the account entry 'Moved to ADSL24'. They interpreted this as a move to ADSL2+, whatever I said to them about changing ISP.
They did not strike me as high-grade technical support.
Oliver341
11/06/2009, 15:54
There are the multiple threads from other fora discussing the issue.
Be showed no interest in these.
Be apparently issued one of the affected routers to some customers, and showed no interest in resolution.
I suppose this is a side-effect of O2/Be sending out their own routers with their service. For whatever reason, Thomson routers appear to be unaffected by the IP lease renewal issue. Therefore the standard response from O2/Be to their customers is "use our router".
As far as I know, ADSL24 are the first and only resellers of Be, and they do not send out their own routers. Therefore they cannot tell customers to "use our router". I was hoping that ADSL24's addition to the Be network would get Be more "third party friendly". It remains to be seen.
We have contacts so will be continuing to pressure as much as we can to get more info regarding this issue as if it's affecting our customers it's affecting us and that's no good.
The latest I have is that it was passed to the team to be dealt with.
James
Be have acknowledged a problem
http://www.beusergroup.co.uk/
Thats good news.
Although I suspect that there is more to it.
1. The additional rule matched.
2. Some people have the problem with a static IP.
Kobrakai
18/06/2009, 17:50
Any news on this?
No, but it seems to not be as apparent as we've had contact from some customers in the past week that they are no longer suffering from this. It seems to be random, possible certain exchanges/equipment/setup but the network guys are investigating and will come back to me as soon as they find anything.
prisoner
19/06/2009, 22:06
It does seem to settled down. I was initially losing routing on DHCP renewals (With firewall rule) But since then I have been using V5.01.12 - DGTeam Rev. 0849 firmware and the OPENDNS DNS servers (Still using firewall rule) and everthing has been fine. In fact I lowered the S/N margin to 3dB and its been very stable. All in all I am very pleased with the upgrade.
I have a very long line and my IP profile used to very between 1750 & 2000 on Enta so these stats are welcome improvement, especially pleased with the upstream speed increase.
Connection Speed 3203 kbps 1083 kbps
Line Attenuation 66.0 db 37.4 db
Noise Margin 3.0 db 3.0 db
Brief update...
The problem only appears to mainly affect certain Netgear routers.
Router status page shows the DHCP worked ok and it picks up the DNS server 87.194.255.154
All of a sudden, the connectivity becomes lost.
Can ping the gateway from router telnet session, and from PC command prompt, but can't ping the DNS server from either telnet or command prompt.
Can still access websites via their IP, e.g. http://84.234.16.39 but not http://adsl24.co.uk
So far, this all points to a DNS issue.
Running a ping or nslookup from the router diagnostic page or router telnet session fails to resolve any domain name, as the router is still using 87.194.255.154 as DNS which won't resolve anything.
Changing the network card properties to use a third-party DNS (e.g. openDNS, 208.67.222.222) restores connectivity to the PC, but only select websites still work.
Can't access microdirect.co.uk via hostname or IP...
Tracing route to microdirect.co.uk [195.8.163.147]
over a maximum of 30 hops:
1 1 ms 3 ms 1 ms 192.168.0.1
2 * * * Request timed out.
3 * * * Request timed out.
4 * * * Request timed out.
5 * * * Request timed out.
6 * * * Request timed out.
7 * * * Request timed out.
8 * * * Request timed out.
9 * * * Request timed out.
10 * * * Request timed out.
11 * * * Request timed out.
12 * * * Request timed out.
13 * * * Request timed out.
But can access bbc.co.uk via hostname or IP...
Tracing route to bbc.co.uk [212.58.254.252]
over a maximum of 30 hops:
1 1 ms 1 ms 2 ms 192.168.0.1
2 * * * Request timed out.
3 * * * Request timed out.
4 * * * 10.1.2.5
6 22 ms 21 ms 21 ms bbc-gw0-linx.prt0.thdoe.bbc.co.uk [195.66.224.103]
7 20 ms 21 ms 20 ms 212.58.238.129
8 22 ms 20 ms 21 ms rdirslb0.thdo.bbc.co.uk [212.58.224.136]
9 21 ms 23 ms 21 ms virtual3.rbsov.bbc.co.uk [212.58.254.252]
So it can be "kind of fixed" by manually entering a third-party DNS server address in your PC's network card TCP/IP properties, but still some sites randomly don't work for no reason.
I'm leaving this router in its current state so I can keep doing more diags or to see if it corrects itself, or to let our wholesale provider remote in if they so wish. I've passed this info on to them.
James, please would you confirm the router model and the firmware version you are using. For the record, I was experiencing the problem using a DG834GT with both Netgear firmware v1.02.19 and DGTeam firmware 848
I am on the DG834G v4 with firmware 5.01.14
Oliver341
22/06/2009, 22:09
The problem only appears to mainly affect certain Netgear routers.
Only or mainly? :)
Anyway, good news that you've got something to diagnose now. For the record I'm using a DG834 v4 with firmware V5.01.14 - no issues to date. Keep us up to date with anything else you find out.
There is an additional setting you will require on any Netgear router if you are on a dynamic IP to ensure your Connecion stays up each time the DHCP lease is renewed from the servers.
Go in to your Netgear setup at http://192.168.0.1 and login with admin/password (default)
Go in to Firewall rules on the left, and under Inbound Services click on Add
Service type: BOOTP_CLIENT
Action: ALLOW always
Send to LAN Server: 192.168.0.1
WAN Users: start = 82.132.253.0 finish = 82.132.253.254
Log: Always
Click Apply and then on the next page also click Apply
Hi
When I try to set this I get the message 'Server IP address cannot be router's LAN IP address.'
Not sure how to get around it. :o
So far the performance on the problem netgear v5 seems ok. I've had no drop in connection since switching over at 16:30 and my downstream is 7900kbps
Whats your full line stats :)
Whats your full line stats :)
Where do I get this info from?
Oliver341
25/06/2009, 13:32
James, any news on getting O2/Be to implement a fix?
Oliver341
25/06/2009, 13:37
When I try to set this I get the message 'Server IP address cannot be router's LAN IP address.'
I've seen this said before. It appears DG834G v5 users cannot implement my firewall rule fix because it does not allow the firewall rule to use the same IP address as the router. In my view it makes this issue even more important to fix.
I believe O2/Be need to alter their DHCP server so that it sends and receives DHCP packets using the same IP address.
I've seen this said before. It appears DG834G v5 users cannot implement my firewall rule fix because it does not allow the firewall rule to use the same IP address as the router. In my view it makes this issue even more important to fix.
I believe O2/Be need to alter their DHCP server so that it sends and receives DHCP packets using the same IP address.
It doesnt seem right that the V5 was recommended, I bought it and now it isnt recommended (although it is still ticked as recommended in their store) and because I didn't buy it from ADSL24 there's nothing they can do.
Oliver341
25/06/2009, 14:48
It doesnt seem right that the V5 was recommended, I bought it and now it isnt recommended (although it is still ticked as recommended in their store) and because I didn't buy it from ADSL24 there's nothing they can do.
The DG834G v5 would be an adequate router if O2/Be were to fix their DHCP server.
I've switched back to V3, got the following stats.
DownStream Connection Speed 14638 kbps
UpStream Connection Speed 1203 kbps
It's not recommended but the V5 was even giving problems connecting to the router across the wireless network. Hopefully this will be better.
The v5 is rubbish on ADSL2+ with any ISP. Unfortunately we could not know this until we launched our LLU. We were not informed by Netgear that they changed the chipset to a Conexant instead of Broadcom at the last minute, and also that it seems to be defective for ADSL2+ - Unfortunately this is a Netgear problem and they could fix it with a firmware upgrade including a new ADSL driver, I presume.
(although it is still ticked as recommended in their store)
Where are you seeing this? On our store, under the v5, we've been saying the following for a while now:
This router is based on the Conexant chipset - ideal for normal ADSL up to 8Mb
We have tested this router on both the BT and LLU ADSL2+ platform and do not recommend this new v5 router for this service. It does however work perfectly on the standard up to 8Mb ADSL services on any ISP.
Where are you seeing this? On our store, under the v5, we've been saying the following for a while now:
Sorry, not the store.
http://adsl24.co.uk/support/llu/
Ah, that's incorrect and I've updated it. I don't know how it was on Yes to be honest as that page was not put up until after we knew it was poor on ADSL2+. Just seems like a simple typo error.
Ah, that's incorrect and I've updated it. I don't know how it was on Yes to be honest as that page was not put up until after we knew it was poor on ADSL2+. Just seems like a simple typo error.
Nay bother, it's changed now. it did stitch me up a bit though as I went on that for recommedation for my router.
Can you advise why the Netgear V3 isnt recommended (possibly because its texas instruments chipset) because it seems to be running just fine for us.
It works but you won't get as fast a speed. If you are happy with it then no probs :D
This problem seems to have got much worse for me ove rthe last few days. In the early days of switching to LLU I never had the problem though I did use the script recommended for my DG834GT
For the last few days I am getting regular freezes all cured by releasing the lease etc but not much use if I have something downloading overnight.
Oveall I'm over the moon with LLU, on a long line only "guaranteed" by BT at 500kps which usually ran at 75-1000 I'm consistently running at 2200. This lease glitch is a real nuisance though.
Although the BOOTP rule works for me with the DG834GT, I have again lost all access to nameservers without releasing and renewing the lease, after 205 hours of stable operation.
Be have not solved this issue.
It appeared to work for me until the last few days, now it doesn't seem to.
It's getting silly now.
Lease renewed fine at 13:50 then 15:40 no connectivivity.
Pleaase sort this James.
BTW the time is not on BST, 13:50 renewal was actually 14:50BST
It's being looked at. We've tried all other routers and they dont have this issue from that testing, so its as much of a bug in the Netgear firmware than it is on Be's network. Don't worry though, it is being looked at by the network team, but its difficult to actually find the issue as its not the same problem as the "lease" on, as the lease is being renewed, but it just loses connectivity. When it happens next, can you try setting the nameservers on your PC in the network card settings to:
DNS1: 208.67.222.222
DNS2: 208.67.220.220
and see if it works?
I'm happy to try anything. Should I do this before it happens and if not presumably I'll have to renew the lease after doing it?
I thought I'd got away without getting this, weird how it's just started happening.
When it happens next, can you try setting the nameservers on your PC in the network card settings to:
DNS1: 208.67.222.222
DNS2: 208.67.220.220
and see if it works?
The issue still recurs, I've tried it.
Hi spanfan. Set the manual DNS once it 'dies' and then try to browse etc.
Using a Netgear DG834Gv4 with Firmware Version V5.01.09 on Premium Plus (dymamic IP)
Had the disconnection problems using original Router Setup Instructions. Now resolved by setting DNS to "Get Automatically From ISP" Rock solid for 2 days now
Speed much better on LLU than on BT/Enta too. Up from erratic 1 to 1.5 Mb to stable 2.4 MB
A happy customer
Just had another freeze, with loss of internet access. Had a network configuration set up with OpenDNS nameservers, so activated that. No effect.
Changed to GaTi 0.6 beta1 firmware about 30 hours ago. No effect.
Renew the lease - problem cleared.
This is very annoying.
Have just read
http://forums.thinkbroadband.com/o2/3634555-anyone-regularly-losing-routing.html?fpart=30&vc=1
and preceding pages.
As an ADSL24 Customer, this is an issue I expect to be addressed.
If you have received a formal response from Be about both the issues in this thread, it would be illuminating to see it.
If ADSL24 have not received a response, they should have done.
You have 200 plus customers on the LLU service. Your shop sells Netgear routers, and they performed well in your empirical tests.
Some of us like Netgear routers.
Are you going to offer customers with the problem free static IP addresses to see if it solves the 'losing routing' problem?
Typically I haven't had the problme since I last posted! Weird as nothing has been changed at my end
It's happened to me only twice over the last couple of weeks.
I can live with that.
http://www.speedtest.net/result/502883751.png (http://www.speedtest.net)
Just posting to say I'm another user with a DG834Gv4 who was experiencing the DHCP lease problem with the following settings:
Firmware 5.01.14
BOOTP_CLIENT rule added
Explicit DNS server configuration
Setting dynamic DNS has solved the problem for me. The router now renews its lease without the need for intervention.
http://www.speedtest.net/result/508599315.png (http://www.speedtest.net)
Kobrakai
05/07/2009, 20:22
This is starting to get VERY annoying as it happens around 9pm every night. Just now I was near the end of a 2 hour game of supcom with friends using VOIP and it basically ruined the game.
Just after 6 hours uptime, it disconnected 4 times in the space of a few minutes:
http://img110.imageshack.us/img110/2286/disconnect.jpg
I have a Netgear DG834N with latest firmware.
I shouldn't have posted about only having 2 disconnects in 2 weeks.
I've now had another 2 in the last 2 days.
James Let's hope Be can get to the bottom of this soon.
I shouldn't have posted about only having 2 disconnects in 2 weeks.
I've now had another 2 in the last 2 days.
James Let's hope Be can get to the bottom of this soon.
I do wonder if there are 2 related phenomena here:
DNS lookups slow down considerably. These occur when you are accessing the internet 'infrequently' via http:// , say, once an hour. Mail client access is immaterial.
DNS lookups fail totally. These occur when you make no attempt to access the internet using http:// for 8 hours or more. Mail client access is immaterial.
I had a slow down yesterday, and a complete failure today.
After the failure, I pinged the gateway IP address. This worked as a ping, but had no effect on the problem. Yesterday, the slow down apparently cleared with a ping.
I switched to an OpenDNS network configuration today. This had no effect.
As usual, releasing and renewing the lease has temporarily cleared the problem.
DG834GT currently running GaTi 0.6 beta 1 firmware.
None of us know the Be network topology. In case it matters, I am on the Poynton exchange.
Affected again this am.
In other words, a daily event now.
There seems no rhyme or reason to it.
After 4 or 5 doses in a couple of days I've only had it once in the last 4 days.
I do wonder if there are 2 related phenomena here:
Yes there are, and we're in danger of getting them completely mixed up, if we haven't already. I'm sure Oliver will be along to correct me if I'm wrong in some respects, but my summary/recap would be :
1. The issue first raised on the TBB thread concerns loss of routing i.e. you still have an internet connection (no loss of sync) but cannot reach it as your pc has lost connection via the router (all lights on but no-one at home). This occurs for me when I have switched off my pc overnight and try to reconnect (especially with wireless), usual solution is to release/renew the DHCP lease or in extremis reboot the router. This issue seems to have started in mid-May, it's also being reported on both the O2 (http://forum.o2.co.uk/viewtopic.php?t=22311) and Be forums, but O2/Be still seem to be ignoring it as "we don't support 3rd party routers and we've changed nothing" :rolleyes:.
2. Some folk appear to be having regular disconnections i.e. complete loss of internet sync. and this is a different issue, possibly caused by electrical interference, excessive line noise, low snr or other reason.
3. The Netgear firewall rule (originally suggested by Oliver) is a fix to keep alive the lease renewal (which an O2/Be box does automatically) because the O2/Be servers appear to send back a response which the Netgear cannot correctly interpret, as it appears to come back from a different ip address to that pinged.
James when you get back from hols I hope you can sort out these different issues so that Be cannot use confusion as an excuse to do nothing.
Oliver341
07/07/2009, 10:12
I'm not affected by the loss of routing isue (yet), but I found something interesting.
I connected using DHCP, noted the details, then used those details to connect using a static IP address. I'm past 12 hours, so if the connection was only set up for a 12 hour lease it would have expired by now.
If this works for days, it would be one way of using a static IP address without having to pay for one, and therefore maybe getting around the loss of routing issue.
I'm not affected by the loss of routing isue (yet), but I found something interesting.
I connected using DHCP, noted the details, then used those details to connect using a static IP address. I'm past 12 hours, so if the connection was only set up for a 12 hour lease it would have expired by now.
If this works for days, it would be one way of using a static IP address without having to pay for one.
I won't hold my breath but on the other hand will await further reports/developments with interest! Let's hope Be/O2 don't realise ;)
Oliver341
07/07/2009, 10:19
I'm sure Oliver will be along to correct me if I'm wrong in some respects
Your summary looks pretty good to me. :)
This thread was originally about issue 3, the firewall rule to enable DHCP renewals on Netgears. It's now muddled up with issues 1 and 2 so things might be quite confusing for some people. I've already seen a post here or elsewhere suggesting issue 3 is linked with 1 and 2, but I'm pretty sure it's not.
Oliver341
07/07/2009, 10:21
I won't hold my breath but on the other hand will await further reports/developments with interest! Let's hope Be/O2 don't realise ;)
The DHCP issued IP addresses are so sticky, they are practically static. I don't think they'd mind too much. Indeed, by specifying the IP addres statically we are saving some load on their DHCP servers. ;)
Perhaps others people can try what I did, and feed back here.
Yes there are, and we're in danger of getting them completely mixed up, if we haven't already. I'm sure Oliver will be along to correct me if I'm wrong in some respects, but my summary/recap would be :
1. The issue first raised on the TBB thread concerns loss of routing i.e. you still have an internet connection (no loss of sync) but cannot reach it as your pc has lost connection via the router (all lights on but no-one at home). This occurs for me when I have switched off my pc overnight and try to reconnect (especially with wireless), usual solution is to release/renew the DHCP lease or in extremis reboot the router. This issue seems to have started in mid-May, it's also being reported on both the O2 (http://forum.o2.co.uk/viewtopic.php?t=22311) and Be forums, but O2/Be still seem to be ignoring it as "we don't support 3rd party routers and we've changed nothing" :rolleyes:.
...
To clarify:
I appreciate your summation of the three unrelated conditions being addressed in this thread.
The point I was attempting to make is that your issue (1), loss of routing, may in fact be 2 -or more- separate phenomena:
A. As you describe - will not clear without a lease renewal
B. As you describe - but clears if you ping Gateway
C. Clears spontaneously after a several minute delay.
The DHCP issued IP addresses are so sticky, they are practically static. I don't think they'd mind too much. Indeed, by specifying the IP addres statically we are saving some load on their DHCP servers. ;)
Perhaps others people can try what I did, and feed back here.
One issue I am not clear about is when -and on which basis- the DSLAM and modem/transceiver change the sync rate.
This can happen at any time, but also seems to happen at lease renewal.
I shall try your suggestion and see what happens to both the issue at hand and sync.
Oliver341
07/07/2009, 10:46
This One issue I am not clear about is when -and on which basis- the DSLAM and modem/transceiver change the sync rate.
This can happen at any time, but also seems to happen at lease renewal.
There's definitely something wrong if a lease renewal causes a resynch event. That never happens for me.
In fact I've been playing with the "Basic Settings" page over the last few days, and my synch hasn't changed once.
There's definitely something wrong if a lease renewal causes a resynch event. That never happens for me.
In fact I've been playing with the "Basic Settings" page over the last few days, and my synch hasn't changed once.
That's good to know. I have adopted your suggestion.
To clarify:
I appreciate your summation of the three unrelated conditions being addressed in this thread.
No personal criticism intended :)
The point I was attempting to make is that your issue (1), loss of routing, may in fact be 2 -or more- separate phenomena:
A. As you describe - will not clear without a lease renewal
B. As you describe - but clears if you ping Gateway
C. Clears spontaneously after a several minute delay.
Granted, but the result is the same and, even if A and B are actually different solutions, solving one phenomenom may not solve the over-riding cause or symptom. Personally I've never experienced the spontaneous recovery so can't comment on that.
Unfortunately unless Be/O2 tech staff can be bothered to take us all seriously, it will continue to be logged by them as an intermittent fault with 3rd party router(s). My routing loss can occur each time I use a pc, or I can run for a few hours or days before it happens - I can't prove it definitively (because I may not be at the keyboard or even have the pc turned on) but it does seem to happen following a lease renewal.
There's definitely something wrong if a lease renewal causes a resynch event. That never happens for me.
In fact I've been playing with the "Basic Settings" page over the last few days, and my synch hasn't changed once.
Agreed. A resync is normally associated with a router restart or reboot.
Agreed. A resync is normally associated with a router restart or reboot.
Yes. But that is not the whole story. The rest may be called 'Seamless Rate Adaptation' - I am unsure - but SYNC is reset at a reboot and then, in my case, drifts down from, say, 16,500kbps to 15,600kbps and then cycles around this lower figure by a few hundred kilobits for the next few hundred hours. I assume this is the normal behaviour.
Back on topic.
The TBB thread mentions the concept of using a Thomson router as a bridged modem, and using the Netgear box just to route.
Would this solve the problem? Or is it creating a secondary problem of lower SYNC with a second bridging device present?
Oliver341
07/07/2009, 18:43
Yes. But that is not the whole story. The rest may be called 'Seamless Rate Adaptation' - I am unsure - but SYNC is reset at a reboot and then, in my case, drifts down from, say, 16,500kbps to 15,600kbps and then cycles around this lower figure by a few hundred kilobits for the next few hundred hours. I assume this is the normal behaviour.
Seamless Rate Adaptation is not enabled on the O2/Be network. The UK Online network is capable of SRA, but it is disabled by default. Even if the ISP supports it, many routers do not support SRA, or can only support it via telnet tweaks or firmware hacks (in the case of Netgear).
Seamless Rate Adaptation is not enabled on the O2/Be network.
That is _very_ useful to know. Thank you.
Oliver posted a thread on the o2 forums on TBB saying that he took a note of the IP/Subnet Mask/Gateway that the Netgear router status page showed for his connection, and then went in to Basic Settings and instead of choosing the "Obtain an IP automatically" he chose "Use Static IP" and entered in the information he noted down from above. This has given him a solid connection for around 20+ hours now. I'ts not a "fix" but can anyone still affected by the loss of connectivity try to do the above and report back?
http://forums.thinkbroadband.com/o2/t/3662473-re-anyone-regularly-losing-routing.html
I have adopted the pseudoStatic IP configuration, but only 3h 40min ago.
Ok, let us know what happens.
Oliver341
07/07/2009, 21:07
This has given him a solid connection for around 20+ hours now.
I've gone past the 24 hours mark now. I have no idea why this works, as I had assumed the connection would die after the 12 hours lease expired. I figured that when the customer orders a static IP address, O2/Be alter their routers so that IP lease renewal is no longer required. Below is a screen shot that shows my Netgear is convinced I'm on a static IP.
http://www.uvon.co.uk/static-ip.png
Just tried Oliver's suggestion.
I'll post to say how I get on.
Hmm... I havee too been trying this static IP 'workaround' by entering the dynamic IP details etc as a static IP in the router, and I lost connection around 20 mins ago (it was up for around 3hrs).
From the router command line, I could not ping the DNS servers 87.194.255.154 and 87.194.255.155 but could ping OpenDNS etc. I could browse websites via their IP so it was a DNS issue.
I went in to Basic Settings, hit Apply, and then everything worked again, even on the 'static' settings that have not been touched. It's almost as if the Netgear just drops everything like a screwed up firewall, or releases the IP from the routing table so it has no default route. Absolutely bizzare. I'll keep plodding on with more tests and will find out exactly what it is, and thus ensure it is sorted if its an issue Be/o2 have any control over (e.g. their network).
Oliver341
07/07/2009, 22:02
For the record, my IP address is in the 94.194.xxx.xxx range, and I'm using the Be DNS server 87.194.255.155.
For the record, my IP address is in the 94.194.xxx.xxx range, and I'm using the Be DNS server 87.194.255.155.
Similarly
IP 94.192.xxx.xxx
DNS 87.194.255.154 87.194.255.155
fjs, I am also in 94.192.xxx.xxx with the same DNS
Reporting back at 16 hours.
_No_ DNS issue this am. None of the troubles of the previous 2 days.
System working fine. Running GaTi 0.6 beta 1, which allows me to turn off sesdrop and turn on CoMinMgt and i24k through the web interface.
Changes in period
INP moved to 2 at my request
phyReMnt set on at my end
As I have run out of algorithms to manipulate the next 24 hours should be a better test.
Oliver341
08/07/2009, 09:32
James, have you asked O2/Be about the specific point of changing the DHCP server so that it sends packets out using the same IP address that it receives them on? Have they given any reply?
I've give them all this information but not had any clear response. Our account manager is out today so I'll have to contact him tomorrow to press for a new update.
Oliver341
08/07/2009, 16:41
I've give them all this information but not had any clear response. Our account manager is out today so I'll have to contact him tomorrow to press for a new update.
Perhaps the "baby steps" approach is good. Changing the DHCP server so that it sends packets out using the same IP address it receives them on should not be a huge task for them to implement. Once we have got that long-standing quirk out of the way, the second "loss of routing" issue can be tackled.
Hi James, I think you're already monitoring this (http://forum.o2.co.uk/viewtopic.php?t=22311&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=45) O2 forum thread, but can I ask you to look at recent posts from grunson, wilderbeastie in particular about what might be happening. Since almost all of us having the routing problem agree that problems started mid-May, perhaps these theories could be tested against anything O2/Be - or indeed BT - may have done around that time?
Subjectively DNS lookups are slowing around 26 hours on pseudoStatic IP.
As I posted last night I set my router to a static IP and entered settings manually.
Everything seemed to be ok but I forgot I had electricians coming in today who proceeded to turn off the power and screw things up while I was at work.
However I don't seem to be losing routing (apart from my router being shut down by electricians). Looking at my router stats now it's showing WAN up for 11:28:17 which is the longest it's shown since I moved over to LLU. Also my router has synced faster since the enforced restart by the electricians.
ADSL Link Downstream Upstream
Connection Speed 16538 kbps 1403 kbps
Line Attenuation 33.5 db 19.6 db
Noise Margin 3.6 db 3.0 db
Considering my attenuation of 33.5 I feel that is good.
So far so good and I'll keep posting on how the loss or not of routing progresses.
http://www.speedtest.net/result/512898949.png (http://www.speedtest.net)
Oliver341
08/07/2009, 20:46
Looking at my router stats now it's showing WAN up for 11:28:17 which is the longest it's shown since I moved over to LLU.
The WAN uptime figure is actually pretty meaningless. This is because the uptime figure is reset at every IP lease renewal (every 6 hours assuming one uses my firewall rule). When using a static IP configuration obviously the IP lease is not renewed, and therefore the WAN uptime figure is not reset. However, this doesn't in itself mean you have a more stable connection, because contrary to what the Netgear reports, IP lease renewal is not downtime.
The WAN uptime figure is actually pretty meaningless. This is because the uptime figure is reset at every IP lease renewal (every 6 hours assuming one uses my firewall rule). When using a static IP configuration obviously the IP lease is not renewed, and therefore the WAN uptime figure is not reset. However, this doesn't in itself mean you have a more stable connection, because contrary to what the Netgear reports, IP lease renewal is not downtime.
OK Oliver a good point. I should have added that I haven't yet lost internet connection. ie I have had no need to go to the router config, basic settings and click on apply, routing hasn't been lost apart from the electrician scenario :)
Oliver341
08/07/2009, 21:14
OK Oliver a good point. I should have added that I haven't yet lost internet connection. ie I have had no need to go to the router config, basic settings and click on apply, routing hasn't been lost apart from the electrician scenario :)
That's good to hear. Personally, I've stopped running the "dynamic configured as static" configuration after 40 hours of uptime and counting. I'll certainly keep it as an option if the "loss of routing" issue affects me though.
Nice to be able to join you on this forum, I've been wanting to respond to this message. Apologies for the length of the message and the dissection...
Hmm... I havee too been trying this static IP 'workaround' by entering the dynamic IP details etc as a static IP in the router, and I lost connection around 20 mins ago (it was up for around 3hrs).
I always thought of it as a diagnostic rather than a workaround. I was hoping it would fail because when the Netgear has the ip address configured manually the DHCP client isn't running. So Netgear DHCP and leases in general can be pretty much eliminated from the equation.
It also tends to confirm that there is nothing particularly dynamic about the network topology. There doesn't have to be an active lease for an address to be routeable.
From the router command line, I could not ping the DNS servers 87.194.255.154 and 87.194.255.155 but could ping OpenDNS etc. I could browse websites via their IP so it was a DNS issue.
So you basically have partial routing but unfortunately your DNS servers seem to be on the part that isn't routing. When I have problems I can't ping OpenDNS or any of the few websites I have the IP of.
What it does prove is that the Netgear is working perfectly happy on the net with regard to its basic settings.
The other thought I had is that if there is only partial loss of routing, the problem might happen more often than we think but unless it takes out our DNS servers or the sites we are connected to we aren't going to notice.
I went in to Basic Settings, hit Apply, and then everything worked again, even on the 'static' settings that have not been touched. It's almost as if the Netgear just drops everything like a screwed up firewall, or releases the IP from the routing table so it has no default route.
This is where you lost me. You know the Netgear is working pretty much as it should do because you are browsing the net with it, albeit without DNS. If you check the interface addresses, routing table and ARP table on the Netgear when there are problems you will see they are exactly the same as when all is well. I really don't think anything the Netgear is doing anything wrong. Whether it is doing enough to keep the Be/O2 net happy is another matter.
Having discussed this over on the O2 forum, we feel that the key thing about applying basic settings is that it wipes the ARP cache and sooner or later an ARP request is broadcast and we think that is the key to restoring the routing.
Many of us have been using a simple ping from the PC or router to 'fix' the problem with complete success. Pinging the gateway address e.g. 94.195.xx2.1 doesn't help but any other address on the local subnet does. Doing that ping results in an ARP request being sent out. Pinging the gateway doesn't because it is in the cache.
My only worry about that statement is that ARP caches are meant to be cleared eventually which should mean that pinging the gateway address should work given enough time or indeed the problem really ought to clear itself.
As a final test when I had problems earlier today I added a route to 123.123.123.123 with my routers WAN address as the gateway so as far as my Netgear was concerned it was on the same logical IP subnet and pinging it would generate an ARP request. Pinging it indeed 'fix'ed the problems suggesting that it didn't matter what the request was for, as long as there was one.
It really does look like whatever the cause of the problems is, the fix (at least for some of us as we shouldn't rule out multiple similar issues) is to generate an ARP request from our routers.
We should also acknowledge that as well as Netgear, this problem seems to have affected Linksys, D-Link, Belkin, Edimax, Siemens and Cisco routers. Indeed a thread on the O2 forums suggests something similar happening back in February, way earlier than May when most people started seeing it (I didn't notice it until June).
As to what the actual problem is I don't know. There seems to be some anecdotal evidence that certain services like VoIP or tunnelling remain up, making me wonder if established connections remain up, and the problem just affects new ones (the other possibility being that these services are configured by IP address and these users are among those who seem to keep most of their routing but lose DNS).
G.
Lost DNS lookup on pseudoStaticIP at 36 to 43 hours ie overnight. Could not ping my way out.
Ended experiment in view of results of ARP investigation by grunson et al.
The issue is that you could try 10 other non-Netgear routers and they would all work fine (I appreciate some other routers will be affected as you have seen. Possible they all run some standard part of the firmware that handles the routing, after all they are all linux based). It's for the most part only affecting Netgear routers (probably cause they are popular), so their firmware or hardware must be doing something differently to all the other routers that work without an issue. Even if the DHCP server is responding on a different IP, other routers are not bothered and work with this, so its got to be something specific to the way the Netgear (and a few other) routers works otherwise everyone on Be with a dynamic IP would be losing routing. That's what I can't get my head around...
It's for the most part only affecting Netgear routers (probably cause they are popular),
For the most part, yes, but not exclusively. As you say popularity might be a factor, as would be the threads on various forums being started by people with Netgear issues.
so their firmware or hardware must be doing something differently to all the other routers that work without an issue.
If indeed all the other routers are working without an issue. Many users wouldn't have identified the problem for what it is and would just restart their routers.
Even if the DHCP server is responding on a different IP, other routers are not bothered and work with this, so its got to be something specific to the way the Netgear (and a few other) routers works otherwise everyone on Be with a dynamic IP would be losing routing. That's what I can't get my head around...
Two different issues getting mixed up there I feel. The Netgear is, in my opinion, quite correct to drop DHCP responses from a server it has not made a request to. However that just potentially results in a loss of connectivity after twelve hours, although I never noticed that happening even without Oliver's firewall rule in place on my DG834GT.
The loss of routing is a separate issue and there are other questions to be asked. Why is it that if you have an O2 router and a Netgear router configured with exactly the same Mac address you will get different IP addresses assigned to them? Why is the O2 router being treated differently? Why does an O2 router apparently (I haven't tried my own) have extra routes for the DNS server through the gateway, and the local subnet through another IP address? These routes are presumably configured by the action of Be/O2 so why only on their supplied routers?
What if you have a vanilla Speedtouch instead of a Be/O2 customised one? Does that get configured differently and does it have issues?
It is quite possible that Be have a fundamentally broken network and it is just their supplied routers doing something a bit different that makes it work. Perhaps for example their remote access capability means there is always traffic on the net and it keeps it alive. I can't understand why they aren't apparently treating it as a really major issue. Without knowing why Netgear and other routers have problems they can't honestly say they know why their network works at all. What are they going to do if Alcatel/Thomson withdraw the existing models and replace them with ones that don't work quite the same or if someone cuts a deal to supply Netgear routers instead? That's their own businesses under threat, and thats without their resellers being stuffed.
Oliver341
09/07/2009, 18:35
Even if the DHCP server is responding on a different IP, other routers are not bothered and work with this, so its got to be something specific to the way the Netgear (and a few other) routers works otherwise everyone on Be with a dynamic IP would be losing routing.
The "loss of routing" issue seems to be unrelated to the "DHCP IP lease" issue.
Anyway, I see absolutely no downside to changing the O2/Be DHCP servers so that they send out DHCP packets using the same IP address that they receive them on. I can however see a large upside; Netgear users will not have to implement a firewall rule to stop connections being dropped every 12 hours.
So why not press O2/Be to implement it?
Oliver341
09/07/2009, 18:40
The Netgear is, in my opinion, quite correct to drop DHCP responses from a server it has not made a request to.
I agree with you. Why does the O2/Be DHCP server have to use a different IP address to send out packets? Why not use the same IP address which receives the packets?
It seems a nonsense to me, and to Netgear.
I suspect absolutely nothing will be done, and the effort should be redirected to workarounds.
grunson has determined and posted on the 02 forum that the Be servers could well have Alcatel components.
Suppose you are an ISP wanting to launch an ADSL2+ service in the UK.
You lease the fibre from OpenReach,
You put the equipment out to tender, and choose the lowest, Alcatel.
You then lease your equipment from Alcatel, who provide maintenance and software support from an employment deprived area of France.
They just happen to win the contract to supply your routers, as they are cheaper than anyone else.
All the Alcatel software and router firmware is written and maintained by a third party software house in, say, Bangalore.
Conjecture? Yes.
In this model, James talks to Be. Be passes his issues along a chain.
The person at the end rings Alcatel. If it is not a major server issue, Alcatel says it is not a problem, because they do not want to pay their third party contractor for software modification.
If it all goes wrong one day, 02 sells the division. End of problem
Please shoot me down.
Oliver341
09/07/2009, 21:29
Please shoot me down.
I'd love to, I really would. But I share your pessimism. :(
In reply to a comment from grunson on the 02 forum, I would point out that the GaTi 0.6 beta 1 Netgear has an arp command.
http://atuts.blogspot.com/
In reply to a comment from grunson on the 02 forum, I would point out that the GaTi 0.6 beta 1 Netgear has an arp command.
I'm a bit surprised Netgear haven't included one. At least you can 'cat /proc/net/arp' to see the current ARP table which is something.
G.
Oliver341
10/07/2009, 09:31
I'm a bit surprised Netgear haven't included one.
I don't think they consider the telnet interface part of the router's end user functionality. It's not documented at all by Netgear, as far as I have seen.
Sorry if this has been mentioned before and/or it's a red herring, but I've noticed the O2 router does a time server sync every hour but my Netgear doesn't. Worth pursuing?
Sorry if this has been mentioned before and/or it's a red herring, but I've noticed the O2 router does a time server sync every hour but my Netgear doesn't. Worth pursuing?
If we assume that a Be/O2 router works fine if configured onto the same IP address on the same broadband connection that gives problems to third party routers (I can't remember if we established that or not), then I think we need to consider everything that it does differently or has configured differently such as the SNTP, apparently having extra routes configured, possible incoming connections to the remote control ports etc.
I say 'we' but really there is pretty much beggar all we can do apart from help to identify symptoms. It is Be who need to do the diagnosis and the curing.
I can have routing drop out with just a few minutes of activity so a time server sync every hour doesn't sound like it would be a factor for me, but who is to say we all have exactly the same problems.
Oliver341
10/07/2009, 15:20
Sorry if this has been mentioned before and/or it's a red herring, but I've noticed the O2 router does a time server sync every hour but my Netgear doesn't. Worth pursuing?
You could disable automatic NTP updates on the O2 router to see if it makes a difference. Log in as SuperUser / O2Br0ad64nd and manually configure the time/date.
Just to confirm - I've tested a 585v6 / v7 (retail, not o2/Be branded) and it works fine without any additional rules or settings. I've also tried a D-Link DSL-2640B/DSL-2740B and a Linksys WAG54GS all with no such loss of routing problem. In fact, the only router I can replicate this issue on is the Netgear, so if it was Be*s network then it would affect all the routers, or the majority of them. No doubt there is something somewhere causing the Netgear's to not play nice, but it could be a bit of both - the way the Netgear works and the way the Be* network expects the router to work.
Be* are investigating, I had an update today with that message, but they have not found out the source of the problem yet. I've give them as much info as I can do at this time.
Oliver341
10/07/2009, 18:26
In fact, the only router I can replicate this issue on is the Netgear, so if it was Be*s network then it would affect all the routers, or the majority of them.
Another complication is the firmware in use at the DSLAM. I'm not seeing the "loss of routing" problem with my DG834 v4, but other people with exactly the same router and firmware are seeing issues on other exchanges. To me, it appears that different firmware is used at different exchanges, and this accounts for the fact that most/all Netgears used to work fine but many now do not. It also accounts for the fact that some people have issues, and some don't.
It would be very interesting to see what firmware was rolled out by O2/Be to which exchanges and when, but I doubt any of us will see that data.
I'm watching the O2/Be service status pages very carefully. If I see work due at my exchange, it could be a potential firmware rollout, which could mean I am due to be hit by the issue.
Unfortunately as there are now at least three threads going on this problem on different forums (here, tbb and O2) it is sometimes difficult to keep track of all thoughts. For completeness on this thread, nredwood has posted the following on tbb forums thread which may be of some use :
I've fed back the findings by yourself (grunson) and Wilderbeastie to Be* and have specifically asked if there have been any config changes on the network in relation to ARP
I also came across this which looks to be a very similar issue
http://www.geekzone.co.nz/forums.asp?ForumId=44&TopicId=19313
Be* are investigating, I had an update today with that message, but they have not found out the source of the problem yet. I've give them as much info as I can do at this time.
At least they are looking, which is the critical thing.
As the firmware on my Netgear (DG834GT 1.02.19) only dates from late April it is quite possible that its behaviour changed into something that gives issues with the Be* network, but I haven't come across any reports of it giving issues with other networks and I certainly didn't notice a correspondence between firmware upgrade and problems starting. Equally however, Be* were apparently doing 'maintenance' on my local exchange on 1st May so things will likely have changed on both sides in the same timescale.
Oliver341
11/07/2009, 18:01
As the firmware on my Netgear (DG834GT 1.02.19) only dates from late April it is quite possible that its behaviour changed into something that gives issues with the Be* network, but I haven't come across any reports of it giving issues with other networks and I certainly didn't notice a correspondence between firmware upgrade and problems starting.
I think I've seen users with old and new firmware report the issue. You could always downgrade your firmware as a test: http://kb.netgear.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/932
Firmware 1-02-19 has bugs as i reported on here before
Well I received my response from support and it sounds they are admitting a problem with the latest firmware and suggested that I roll back to 1.02.16. See Below:
Thank you for choosing Netgear. My name is **** and I will be your support engineer. I appreciate the opportunity to assist you.
I apologize for any inconvenience this issue has caused. Regarding your concern, I would suggest you to rollback the firmware to Version 1.02.16 until we issue a newer firmware.
I believe this answers your query. If you need any further help, please email us back so that we can continue to work on a solution.
Oliver341
11/07/2009, 18:08
Firmware 1-02-19 has bugs as i reported on here before
Well I received my response from support and it sounds they are admitting a problem with the latest firmware and suggested that I roll back to 1.02.16.
Are you on the O2/Be network? What was your issue?
I've never upgraded to 1.02.19 of the firmware but stayed with 1.02.16 albeit the DGTeam version. I am still suffering from loss of routing, I actually thought the problem had gone away as everything was fine for a few weeks but seems to have returned again over the last few days.
I got the dg834v3 never update the firmware and am suffering loss of connection
I have been watching this thread for a while and thought I should report that I don't appear to be suffering from this problem.
I'm using a Netgear DG834PN with firmware V1.03.39. I occasionally get a disconnection, around once a week, but it reconnects itself very quickly. I'm on a long line and this is considerably better than the BT Entanet connection.
I'm on a dynamic IP address, 78.86.xxx.xxx, and this appears to be in a different range to those reported earlier in this thread.
I wonder if the problem is limited to particular exchanges or just the DG834G.
On my router the link led no longer lights up but I assume that this is because no login is required.
I'm no expert and really don't know if this is relevant or at all helpful so apologies if this does not help.
Glyn
http://www.speedtest.net/result/515862210.png (http://www.speedtest.net)
Correct about the link light not showing as that is normally only if your ISP uses PPP which LLU doesn't. Out of interest, what exchange are you on?
I got the dg834v3 never update the firmware and am suffering loss of connection
I would suggest getting the latest firmware on the v3
... Out of interest, what exchange are you on?
Aldershot (Hampshire)
Glyn
Correct about the link light not showing as that is normally only if your ISP uses PPP which LLU doesn't. Out of interest, what exchange are you on?
Perhaps it may be worthwhile finding out if there is a trend here and having everyone suffering from this problem post their exchange.
Probably best to start a new thread for it though.
Copied from TBB thread, post by nredwood
Be*'s Network Team believe they have a solution for the problem.
They will be testing the fix this week, with a view to rolling out to the live network thereafter should testing show no issues
James, do you know any more?
Yep, this has been confirmed to me this morning by the network team. I'm trying to find out more but I'd rather they spend their time fixing it ASAP rather than me keep pestering. All I know is they think they have found a fix and are testing the resolution now with a view to rolling it out network-wise next week if all goes well.
Oliver341
16/07/2009, 11:26
Yep, this has been confirmed to me this morning by the network team. I'm trying to find out more but I'd rather they spend their time fixing it ASAP rather than me keep pestering. All I know is they think they have found a fix and are testing the resolution now with a view to rolling it out network-wise next week if all goes well.
Are they also going to change the DHCP server so that it sends packets out using the same IP address it receives them on?
Are they also going to change the DHCP server so that it sends packets out using the same IP address it receives them on?
I have found an account of the same DHCP server problem, again with Netgear routers, on the Swedish Telia network in 2007, IIRC. It was not resolved, and they did not have the benefit of your firewall rule.
I do wonder if this DNS problem is a DSLAM firmware issue, a more subtle version of the Optus incident in Australia, in which case I would not expect a resolution of the DHCP server issue, as they are looking elsewhere.
I do not think there is much expertise in these major ISPs. I also note that Belgium, which appears to have a monopoly telco, is mandating that everyone buy the same Sagem router for their VDSL rollout, against all EU legislation.
That is one way to deal with these problems. Let's hope it is not in the UK's future.
Oliver341
16/07/2009, 13:09
I also note that Belgium, which appears to have a monopoly telco, is mandating that everyone buy the same Sagem router for their VDSL rollout, against all EU legislation.
Sky insist you use their supplied router with Sky Broadband. Users can and have been kicked off for using their own hardware.
Sky insist you use their supplied router with Sky Broadband. Users can and have been kicked off for using their own hardware.
Well, I can't deny that. The DG834GT initially, with custom firmware. 'DG943G', and then our friends at Sagem, IIRC.
It's crept up without me realising what was happening.
Oliver341
17/07/2009, 00:13
It's crept up without me realising what was happening.
Rubbish, isn't it. The EU has taken a strong "anti-competitive" stance against Microsoft, forcing them to ship Windows 7 without a browser, and not allowing them to sell upgrade versions for existing users. How about the same treatment for ISP's who force their customers to use a particular brand of hardware?
How about the same treatment for ISP's who force their customers to use a particular brand of hardware?
What a good idea.
The wilderbeastie fix (he uses echo, but this does the same and is preferred)
sysctl -w net.ipv4.neigh.nas0.ucast_solicit=0
You will appreciate that this does not survive reboots.
see
http://forums.thinkbroadband.com/o2/f/3676008-anyone-regularly-losing-routing-2.html?mode=f&fpart=18
and 2 or 3 pages prior.
The wilderbeastie fix (he uses echo, but this does the same and is preferred)
sysctl -w net.ipv4.neigh.nas0.ucast_solicit=0
I agree it would be more elegant but my DG834GT with 1.02.19 firmware doesn't have the sysctl applet in busybox, so I imagine nor do many other Netgears. So it has to be:
echo 0 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/neigh/nas0/ucast_solicit
That also assumes nas0 is the WAN interface, don't know if it varies. Default value is 3.
G.
I agree it would be more elegant but my DG834GT with 1.02.19 firmware doesn't have the sysctl applet in busybox, so I imagine nor do many other Netgears. So it has to be:
echo 0 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/neigh/nas0/ucast_solicit
That also assumes nas0 is the WAN interface, don't know if it varies. Default value is 3.
G.
<nas0> is always the WAN interface on Netgear routers, AFAIK
I ran ifconfig -a
to check, which is present in standard firmware.
Apologies for suggesting a command not present in standard firmware - I did not appreciate <sysctl> was absent.
I would suggest the use of modified firmware, with useful commands added, makes life easier.
The only problem then is the lack of a clean reboot when reverting to standard firmware.
I am using GaTI firmware
http://atuts.blogspot.com
which, despite lack of source code and rational dialogue with programmer, works well.
Uptime now 60 plus hours without DNS problems.
whiskerp
31/07/2009, 14:11
Another complication is the firmware in use at the DSLAM. I'm not seeing the "loss of routing" problem with my DG834 v4, but other people with exactly the same router and firmware are seeing issues on other exchanges. To me, it appears that different firmware is used at different exchanges, and this accounts for the fact that most/all Netgears used to work fine but many now do not. It also accounts for the fact that some people have issues, and some don't.
I am on the Weybridge (01932) exchange and am running Netgear V5.01.14 firmware on my DG834G v4. I am having absolutely no problems at the moment - the line is staying up for weeks with no loss of connectivity that I've noticed. All I've had to do is add the BOOTP_CLIENT firewall rule, and I've kept the same IP address since the beginning of June.
Peter
I have morphed the Negear DG834GT into a modem/transceiver, running DGTeam 0848, as this build collapses gracefully into modem firmware.
The router I am now using is a WHR-G125, running DD-WRT v24 SP2.
DD-WRT requires firewall modification for the BOOTP_CLIENT to operate
iptables -I INPUT -p UDP -i vlan1 --dport 68 --sport 67 -j ACCEPT
is the rule I am using for present, conveniently written to nvram
So, back to the Oliver341 point:
Should Netgear routers require the BOOTP_CLIENT rule?
Is this an anomaly?
Or is the firmware on the routers that do not require the rule potentially coded in an insecure manner?
as to ucast_solicit
I ran the DG834GT with GaTI 0.6 beta 1 , the BOOTP_CLIENT firewall rule and the appropriate ucast_solicit=0 configuration for 167.5 hours without interruption or DNS problems.
I shall now wait with the new setup to see if DNS Lockups occur.
Oliver341
02/08/2009, 18:40
Should Netgear routers require the BOOTP_CLIENT rule?
Is this an anomaly?
Or is the firmware on the routers that do not require the rule potentially coded in an insecure manner?
I don't know how other routers handle it, but I believe it is silly for routers to accept a DHCP reply from a different IP address to that which it makes the request to. It's the equivalent of asking staff at a bank what your bank balance is, and some random bloke in the queue giving you the answer. Why should I trust him?
On the same subject, your firewall rule is not secure because it makes no limitation on the source IP of DHCP replies. Don't accept DHCP replies from outside the range 82.132.253.0 to 82.132.253.254.
... your firewall rule is not secure because it makes no limitation on the source IP of DHCP replies. Don't accept DHCP replies from outside the range 82.132.253.0 to 82.132.253.254.
You are correct, of course. I shall see if iptables will accept a range of addresses as an argument.
You are correct, of course. I shall see if iptables will accept a range of addresses as an argument.
It does not. It would be interesting to know how the Netgear handles it.
iptables -I INPUT -p UDP -s 82.132.253.0/32 -i vlan1 --dport 68 --sport 67 -j ACCEPT
seems to work.
Interestingly, I have had a DNS Lockup on a Buffalo WHR-G125, about 10 minutes after I rebooted.
Solved using
echo 0 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/neigh/vlan1/ucast_solicit
as
DD-WRT does not have sysctl
The advantage of DD-WRT (not available for Netgear routers) is that commands can be introduced via the web interface and written to nvram, and so persist across reboots.
Oliver341
02/08/2009, 23:04
iptables -I INPUT -p UDP -s 82.132.253.0/32 -i vlan1 --dport 68 --sport 67 -j ACCEPT
seems to work.
82.132.253.0/24 is the netmask I always used. It should equate to 82.132.253.0 to 82.132.253.255.
82.132.253.0/24 is the netmask I always used. It should equate to 82.132.253.0 to 82.132.253.255.
Thank you for the information. I have modified the rule.
http://www.adsl24.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?t=7628
http://www.adsl24.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?t=7628
I will be interested to know of your success with James' modified firmware.
I find it interesting that I have to incorporate his 3 unicast changes in DD-WRT to stop DNS slowdowns and lockups, not just the original one.
Well, the modem's been sync'd since 22.50 last night, had three lease renewals bang on time, and I've connected laptop via both cable and wireless at various times today without problems. Having said all that, routing loss was sporadic for me, sometimes less than a day, sometimes overnight (especially wireless connection), and sometimes not for a day or so, plus the lease renewal occasionally got delayed. so I'm not counting any chickens yet. The only additional setup I've done on top of James's firmware is Oliver's firewall rule.
Laptop connected ok via wireless this morning, modem still sync'd up (35 hours) and no loss of routing. But ...... the lease renewals of yesterday which I swear I saw recorded in the router log have somehow disappeared from the log, and the renewal time has slipped by about four hours. The last two lease renewals have been recorded correctly with a 6 hour interval and I've now taken a copy of the log so I can compare it with any future 'lost entries'. IP address is still the same one I had with the O2 box (I was only offline for a few seconds when I changed routers).
Update : laptop turned off at 13:10, turned back on at 15:55. Network storage drive left connected and turned on throughout. 834GT still sync'd up and still no routing loss, but six hour lease renewal which should have taken place at 14:14 didn't. Lease renewal finally took place at 16:29
Is anyone else noticing similar issues with non-standard renewal timings?
Non-Standard lease renewals.
Yes. On 3 occasions when I have applied similar fixes the first one, or in one case two, lease renewals were delayed, but not past the 12 hour limit.
They then moved back to 6 hours.
The log is funny, I think it randomly clears itself - maybe overnight, not sure.
As fjs states, the renewal can be anything up to 12 hours - the router will try to renew it after 6 hours to be safe if it gets chance.
Yes James, I know it's a 12 hour lease, and the O2 box always renewed at 6 hour intervals 'on the button'. Just booted up laptop (first time since about 19:00 yesterday) and since yesterday afternoon my Netgear has recorded lease renewals as
16:29:52
01:52:22
07:52:22
13:52:22
so as fjs noted, maybe knickers have been untwisted!
Still not wishing to count any chickens, but I'm still sync'd and no loss of routing after 66 hours. Maybe a small smile should cross my lips :)
Extracted from Be forum, quoted on TBB O2 forum
Just to give you an update.
Last I heard from the network operations team is they believe they have a fix for the problem they've applied it a Test Vlan and monitoring it to make sure it does fix the issue and not cause any other problems.
They plan to roll it out to the Be Vlans within the next couple of weeks and then to the o2 ones afterwards.
_________________
Matthew Pease
Forum Manager
Unfortunately Be are not able or willing to share exactly what they believe they've fixed, or how they're testing the fix, or whether it actually works with 3rd party routers. Maybe James you can find out something more?
Meantime my DG834GT with amended firmware has a continuous uptime of and constant sync rate for 114 hours with no routing issues. My only concern to date is the variable nature of the lease renewal which mainly sticks at 6 hours but has occurred several times at around 8/9 hours.
After 2 episodes in 2 days, I am forced to apply the command to the modem, to modify ucast_solicit on nas0 on a DG834GT.
It has its own ARP Cache, even when operating as a 'modem'.
Do customers on home30 (adslmax) with an IP block of 8 need to do this if they have a Netgear router?
No, as you are not on LLU.
Oliver341
03/09/2009, 10:13
Happily, as of 2 September 2009, my WAN IP has started to renew every 6 hours without my firewall rule in place. It's still early days, but it looks like this might finally be fixed.
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