Question

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Update after the third day of fighting (27/02):

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1/ no problem with 3 devices plugged on the 3 LAN ports (any combinaison of 3 devices out of the 4 that I need) as long as I do not activate the option "use WAN as LAN"

2/ network broken as soon as I activate the option, with one of the device plugged on the WAN port (see screenshots for examples)

3/ an interesting fact discovered today: the life-cycle of the LEDs that are located on the RJ45 connectors of the devices.

• 3.a - the ones of the 3 LAN devices are switched on and off synchronously at startup. If one is unplugged and plugged again, it gets off at first (obviously) and then is switched on again. The LAN page reflects the change accordingly
• 3.b - the LED of the WAN port has its own life, which is less "animated". It actually needs a reset of the device to be switched on (time for the router to boot up ?) but once "on", it is still not picked up by the router (does not appear on LAN status neither topology). And well, if I plug and unplug it, it stays dead.

-> It looks like the WAN port as its own management system, which is not as dynamic as it should be.

Conclusion: we still have no clue on how to get a reliable working configuration with the option "use WAN as LAN"

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Update on the second day (26/02):

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New sequence added below to reproduce the issue.

I have included a backup of the configuration as well as the troubleshooting export:

• configuration backup (password has been set for the exercice to DmAT25EdBsmsDRBcMyzM)
• troubleshooting dump

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Dear Community, 

We are struggling with the configuration of the WAN port as LAN, which has been working just fine last year. By pure luck apparently, since every unit we are upgrading stops working, even when we rollback the version of the firmware.

I guess we must do something wrong, but we just cannot find what. Any ideas would be much appreciated. 

Here is a sequence:

1. reset factory of the router
2. unplug all cables from LAN/WAN ports
3. upgrade to last firmware
4. switch default network to 192.168.0.x
5. configure WAN to use mobile (no failover)
6. configure LAN to use WAN port as LAN 
7. plug 2 ubuntu on 2 LAN ports (called worker1 and worker2 on following screenshots)
8. plug 1 ubuntu on WAN port (called primary)

everything looks fine so far. Let's go on

8. configure fixed IPs on DHCP (192.168.0.150, 192.168.0.151, 192.168.0.152)
9. the suggestion of the IP for the primary is on a different network (192.168.1.x)
10. submit anyway the desired IPs 
11. we loose the primary once the configuration is applied

• primary does not appear either on LAN status page

• topology does not display anything anymore

12. so we move the primary from the WAN port to the LAN port, which changes the 3 screen aboves as follow:

13. we reset the 3 computer at this point

• and we wait a few more minutes

14. Now we comes the interesting stuff, when we uncheck "use WAN as LAN"
15. every status page comes back to normal, with the proper fixed IP

16. so we check again "use WAN as LAN"
17. and everything remains ok and normal (it is actually better than in step 13, since the WAN port appears empty, as it should)

18. so we plug our fourth (and last) device on the WAN port
19. and everything screws up again

We have tried a lot of different sequences in the past days

but the conclusion is always the same: the network just go crazy as soon as we plug a device on the WAN port, and makes all the device not accessible

I guess we are missing a configuration somewhere... but we have exhausted our idea, including trying the configurations on olders version of the firrmware (down to 5.01.5) so any help will be great.

Cheers,

Emmanuel

- cortexia.ch

Comments

Have you tried adjusting the firewall?

NETWORK > FIREWALL > GENERAL SETTINGS >

The WAN adapter is set to reject traffic by default

I have not used in this configuration but that is the only thing I can think of, sorry if this does not help.

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We actually had some traffic rules on the firewall, that we have not replicated in our tests.

We will try this tomorrow ! Thanks for the hint, I will let you know if that unblock our situation :)

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Unfortunately, no more success when accepting traffic from the firewall :

Another thing we tried: switching the devices on the WAN port (e.g plugging in worker1 instead of primary)

Everytime, the device on WAN disappears, and the ones on LAN appear

Answer 1

There are 2 issues that need to be addressed separately:

1- Reactivity of the WAN port : the device connected on the WAN port must be active in order to get a valid connection. The ubuntu 16.04 on the Jetsons that we were using launched too quickly and did not pick up a valid connection. Further reset or plug/unplug of the cable did not help.

2- Expiration of DHCP bails : the device that was used on several routeurs got a 12 hours valid DHCP address. When changing from one router to another, and when it was picked up, it made the network crash (as described above)

We adapted our setup procedure to plug a camera on the WAN port (instead of LAN). The device sends constantly images through the port, and keeps the WAN port reactive. We also adapted the DHCP expiry time to 1 hour, and we are now cautious  to reset the camera settings if we connect it from one unit to another one.

Thanks @DJI for the support

Emmanuel

-Cortexia

Answer 2

You can change the use of the WAN port to be another LAN port, it is configured under NETWORK > LAN > ADVANCE

Hope this helps, if not please give more information.

Thank you.

Comments

sorry, my message was fired empty. I have just added some more information, with the issue we are facing when using the WAN as another LAN port

Answer 3

I have tried again from scratch on a router with the last firmware.

Reset factory done at the beggining of the process. 4 devices connected on the 3 LAN + 1 WAN ports

Final result is the same as above: the LAN is screwed when a device is connected on the WAN port. It works when the WAN port is freed. I can even connected the device that was on the WAN to a LAN port, it will be properly connected as long as the WAN port remains free.

I have included a backup of the configuration as well as the troubleshooting export:

configuration backup (password has been set for the exercice to DmAT25EdBsmsDRBcMyzM)

troubleshooting dump

Here are the the screenshots:

Comments

Hi,

try this via SSH: /etc/init.d/firewall disable

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Hi,

That does not resolve the issue either :(

• I have unplugged the device from the WAN (otherwise the network was not available)
• I have SSHed into the router and disabled the firewall with the given command
• I have plugged back a device on the WAN port
• and the network is screwed again...

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I am really struggling to think what this could be, it feels like a firewall issue.
I do not have much time to test this end but when I get a chance I will and see if I can help further.

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Whatever it is, it definitively is on the WAN port.

Findings today, all devices work perfectly on the LAN ports (not using the option "use WAN as LAN")

I can change any one for the fourth one and everything keeps playing nicely together...

until plug a device on the WAN port and activate the option "use WAN as LAN"

-> catastrophe

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I just had a thought, none of the PC's you connect to the LAN ports are multi-homed? Could they be connecting with WiFi and LAN and that is causing the problem?

I have some time today so will try and replicate your issue, no promises though ;)

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If you would like to try one more attempt to resolve this using VLAN config.

In the VLAN setup create a new lan and save. Then enable VLAN port based and set ports 1-3 ON for original lan only, and port4 ON for new lan only, save may need reboot to apply.