Mini-8 Acts as a Network Gateway
I've had a Mini-8 for a couple of months and I've noticed a strange issue. My Mini-8 is assigned a static IP address 10.0.0.34. Since I've installed it, it seems to be broadcasting itself as a network gateway. I'll explain what I mean with a couple of examples:
1) I recently installed a new Apple TV. The Apple TV automatically grabbed the gateway address of 10.0.0.34. The actual gateway is 10.0.0.1. Once I statically assigned the network address the Apple TV was able to get on the Internet.
2) Running ipconfig on my Windows laptop shows two default gateways; 10.0.0.1 and 10.0.0.34. I was able to delete the 10.0.0.34 entry by using the route -delete command.
Has anyone else had a similar experience? I have not had any of these type of issues until installing the RainMachine.
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Interesting, we did have another similar report a year ago, and such is a very low incidence.
To debug more could you ssh to Mini-8 (Enable SSH from Settings > System) and issue /etc/init.d/dnsmasq stop ? After that you could restart your router and check if it the issue appears.
P.S. This won't survive between reboots, and it's better so because without dnsmasq you will break the Access Point mode if you ever need to change the WIFI SSID that Mini-8 connects to. It will allow us to know about a potential resolution to this.
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I wasn't able to ssh into the mini-8. I never could figure out the correct user name or password. I tried both admin and root as the username. Is there some default?
Also, it wasn't obvious to me how to change the Mini-8 from a static IP address to a dynamic. Is there some procedure besides resetting to factory defaults?
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Hi Josh,
Did you fix your issue by stopping dnsmasq and changing to DHCP or just changed to DHCP and it fixed it ?
P.S. To set to static IP you can use the same API page but instead of writing dhcp in that field you write static and you set the static IP / netmask/ GW that you want.
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Stopping dnsmasq fixed it; however, I was concerned that the problem would reappear after rebooting the Mini-8. After confirming that stopping dnsmasq worked I also switched to DHCP and rebooted. The problem did not return. It could be that just switching to DHCP would have resolved it as well but I don't know.
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I'm the OP for this issue. I stop by the forum from time to time to check on this issue. My router is an ASUS running ASUS-Merlin firmware. I've also found this issue on my HP laptops and not my Dell laptops for the most part. I believe this has something to do with firmware on Intel WiFi NICs. Has this been added as a feature request? The DHCP services really need to stop after the unit is assigned an IP. If you save a backup prior to the dnsmasq change, will have factory reset restore the setting? As mentioned in the caution, not wanting to brick my Mini after a network change.
@Josh, you may want to be careful. If the change persisted after the reboot, you may want/need to start it if you ever choose to change your SSID, move or have some other major network change.
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This is indeed a problem. There is no reason to have another DHCP server on the network, this is very poor network configuration of RM. DHCP should be disabled once RM is not in AP mode.
If you are skilled, RM runs OpenWRT. You can disable dnsmasq on it completely. If you reset it to factory defaults and try to reconfigure it your phone/PC won't be able to get an IP address from it via DHCP, but that's OK, you can assign a static IP 192.168.13.2 The default IP address of the RM is 192.168.13.1
If you want to be advanced you can ssh in and edit /etc/rc.local (but only if you understand what you are doing and how to recover from it):
# Put your custom commands here that should be executed once
# the system init finished. By default this file does nothing.
if [[ -r /rainmachine-app/has-connected-once ]]; then
( sleep 15; /etc/init.d/dnsmasq stop; ln -sf /tmp/resolv.conf.auto /etc/resolv.conf ) &
fi
exit 0 -
Thank you for the response, drmm8. I wish this was incorporated into the device OOTB. I thought about disabling dnsmasq, but was afraid I'd forget about it and brick it. I like the if/then, but your right it is probably a little advanced for some since normies don't like SSHing into devices. Thx, again.
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on my pro 8 I had a problem with an RM was actually showing an SSID I think was named rainmachine, you could log in to it with no keys and get a 192.168.13.X address. Tech support said the AP side of the unit should have shut off after I configured the WIFI on the RM to be a client. they said it was because I did not following the directions the first time I turned it on (which may be true)
They had me make a backup of RM, then reset it to factory defaults.
I think I had to delete the object on my phone?
than start the RM, than after wifi came up I had to start the app on my phone.
the app than used my phone WIFI to connected to the RM (and was assigned 192.168.13.?)
next I followed the setup and restored my backup.
RM rebooted, and phone auto switched back to my home WIFI.
once RM rebooted the AP side of the RM shut off and now its just a wifi client, not a WIFI AP.
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The AP problem is discussed in this thread:
https://support.rainmachine.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/360014600594-RainMachine-Pro-16It is buggy and doesn't always shut down at the end of the setup as it should.
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Back to setting a static IP on the RM: a default gateway route is not created when setting a static address. Initial configuration for apcli0 in /etc/config/network:
config interface 'wifi'
option proto 'dhcp'route returns:
Destination Gateway Genmask Flags Metric Ref Use Iface
default 192.168.1.254 0.0.0.0 UG 0 0 0 apcli0
192.168.0.0 * 255.255.252.0 U 0 0 0 apcli0
192.168.1.254 * 255.255.255.255 UH 0 0 0 apcli0
192.168.13.0 * 255.255.255.0 U 0 0 0 ra0Changed to static:
config interface 'wifi'
option proto 'static'
option ipaddr '192.168.1.25'
option netmask '255.255.252.0'
option gateway '192.168.1.254'The default gateway route remains until reboot, then the route is missing. After reboot doing
route add default gw 192.168.1.254
adds the route:
Kernel IP routing table
Destination Gateway Genmask Flags Metric Ref Use Iface
default 192.168.1.254 0.0.0.0 UG 0 0 0 apcli0
192.168.0.0 * 255.255.252.0 U 0 0 0 apcli0
192.168.13.0 * 255.255.255.0 U 0 0 0 ra0But does not survive through a reboot. I added that to /etc/rc.local, but it seems like the option gateway should just work. I saw the same issue with another OpenWRT-based device, but there was no resolution.
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