Dynamic IP not refreshing, mistakes were made, related?

[bitbitbit]

Hi all,

First I'm just going to start with the shamefully obvious: I did some things I didn't fully understand and I think the problem(s) I'm having now came as a result. Maybe not! I also have a pretty terrible ISP.

My dynamic IP is not changing. I have had the same public IP for a few weeks now. I have been unable to renew it. I first noticed this and it became a problem when I tried to signup and post on a different forum and was blocked for "spam." I emailed the board admin who told me my IP was on a blacklist and that there was nothing they could do. They suggested I just change my IP address. I did the usual unplug/reset of the modem and router with no affect. Trying `ipconfig /release` and `ipconfig /renew` also had no affect. I've disconnected everything from the router and modem and left them both off for 30 minutes. I've done a hard reset on the router multiple times, re-flashed firmware, etc. Nothing gets me a new IP.

Usually I wouldn't care but given the fact that I'm stuck on a blacklisted IP that someone used to spam in the past and that I'm having regularly connection issues (a few days ago I was having trouble on a video call (the only thing really happening on the network at the time) and a speed test gave me 2.32mbps down/6.54mbps up. I reset the router and got 67.0mbps down, 43.3mbps up. Just now I took it and got 515.0mbps down, 0.06mbps up.) I feel like whatever is happening here is probably a symptom of something else that is causing a wider range of annoying problems. Maybe I get a dynamic IP again and still have the connection issues but then at least I know it wasn't that!

Here's a rundown of info that might be relevant:

• My primary machine is a laptop with Windows 10 Home, connected via wifi
  • I have two other machines connected through a TP-Link TL-SG105 unmanaged switch which is then connected directly to the back of the router
    • An old desktop running latest Xubuntu, connected via ethernet
    • A laptop with Windows 10 Enterprise that is connected via ethernet
      • It uses an always-on Zscaler corporate proxy
• I have a 500mbps connection (from Breezeline fka WowWay, a mediocre ISP)
  • They do not offer a static IP and I have confirmed that with them
  • I asked if they could assign a new IP and they said they could not and that I would have to go through their tech support specialists for help.
    • I haven't yet bothered with that as I feel like it's just going to be a very long and annoying experience that doesn't solve anything.
      • Spending an hour on the hold to get told to restart my router is a last resort right now.
• I'm using my own personal equipment rather than their rental options:
  • Modem: ARRIS SB8200
  • Router: ASUS RT-AX58U
    • Currently running latest stock firmware buthad been running the latest Merlin until recently.
      • Rolled back to stock in an effort to undo anything I had done that might be causing current trouble. No effect.
• I have slowly been working on learning & setting up a variety of self-hosted resources
  • Two Raspberry Pis are connected to the router via ethernet
    • Pi #1 is running Home Assistant OS
      • Nortek HUSBZB-1 Z-Wave/Zigbee radio directly plugged in via USB
      • Sonoff Zigbee 3.0 radio plugged in via USB 3.0 extender cord (to reduce interference)
    • Pi #2 is running Jellyfin media server and a subsonic client with Navidrome
      • Plus three external HDDs via USB as a JBOD "NAS" setup
      • Occasional access via remote SFTP connection (with username/password)
  • At one point I had tried to install PiHole on Pi #2. I was taking things slow through the setup but I definitely didn't/don't have a full understanding of everything. It definitely involved making changes to DNS and DHCP settings. I was having connection trouble once it was "up" and so after some struggling and attempted "fixes" of various kinds I decided to roll it back and get rid of it until I better understand things. This was a while ago and I didn't take notes so I don't really remember this whole situation well. I know that I had went through the process of manually assigning Pi #2 a static IP but I also undid that after facing connectivity issues.
    • The internal IP of Pi #2 has not changed.
    • Manually assigning IPs is disabled in the router settings.
    • Every client on the Network Map appears with a DHCP tag.
  • In setting up remote SFTP access on Pi #2 I had a bit of trouble. The 3 HDDs are NTFS formatted so I was running into permissions issues when trying to make them accessible while jailing remote users (I use it to transfer large files to a friend).
    • At some point I tried again with a static IP, this time using the command line on the Pi.
    • It did not work and would just cause me to lose connection, so I did not pursue it any further and I'm 99% sure I removed all changes I had made.
    • I worried this might be an issue so I swapped the Pi SD card for one with a totally untouched clean OS. This had no effect on the problem so I've switched back to my original SD/OS.
• I am currently using Cloudflare DNS, set in the router settings. At various points I have also used Google, Adguard, and my ISP. No effect.
• Spoiler: Results from running: time drill -D archlinux.org @8.8.8.8 (on ethernet connected Linux PC)

  ;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, rcode: NOERROR, id: 36082
  ;; flags: qr rd ra ; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 1, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 0
  ;; QUESTION SECTION:
  ;; archlinux.org. IN A
  
  ;; ANSWER SECTION:
  archlinux.org. 1723 IN A 95.217.163.246
  
  ;; AUTHORITY SECTION:
  
  ;; ADDITIONAL SECTION:
  
  ;; Query time: 47 msec
  ;; EDNS: version 0; flags: do ; udp: 512
  ;; SERVER: 8.8.8.8
  ;; WHEN: Mon May 8 10:41:10 2023
  ;; MSG SIZE rcvd: 58
  
  real 0m0.054s
  user 0m0.000s
  sys 0m0.007s
• Spoiler: Results from pinging Pi internal IP from Linux PC

  24 packets transmitted, 24 received, 0% packet loss, time 23558ms
  rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 0.186/0.241/0.422/0.049 ms
• Spoiler: (Latest) Results from running `journalctl | grep -Ei 'dhcp'` from Linux PC

  May 06 14:43:57 {Linux PC Name} audit[695]: AVC apparmor="STATUS" operation="profile_load" profile="unconfined" name="/usr/lib/NetworkManager/nm-dhcp-client.action" pid=695 comm="apparmor_parser"
  May 06 14:43:57 {Linux PC Name} audit[695]: AVC apparmor="STATUS" operation="profile_load" profile="unconfined" name="/usr/lib/NetworkManager/nm-dhcp-helper" pid=695 comm="apparmor_parser"
  May 06 14:44:08 {Linux PC Name} NetworkManager[782]: <info> [1683398648.5583] dhcp-init: Using DHCP client 'internal'
  May 06 14:44:11 {Linux PC Name} NetworkManager[782]: <info> [1683398651.9717] dhcp4 (enp4s0): activation: beginning transaction (timeout in 45 seconds)
  May 06 14:44:15 {Linux PC Name} NetworkManager[782]: <info> [1683398655.9686] dhcp4 (enp4s0): state changed new lease, address=xxx.xxx.xx.208
  May 06 14:44:27 {Linux PC Name} dnsmasq[1098]: compile time options: IPv6 GNU-getopt DBus no-UBus i18n IDN2 DHCP DHCPv6 no-Lua TFTP conntrack ipset auth cryptohash DNSSEC loop-detect inotify dumpfile
  May 06 14:44:27 {Linux PC Name} dnsmasq-dhcp[1098]: DHCP, IP range 10.0.3.2 -- 10.0.3.254, lease time 1h
  May 06 14:44:27 {Linux PC Name} dnsmasq-dhcp[1098]: DHCP, sockets bound exclusively to interface lxcbr0
  May 06 14:47:52 {Linux PC Name} NetworkManager[782]: <info> [1683398872.0737] dhcp4 (enp4s0): canceled DHCP transaction
  May 06 14:47:52 {Linux PC Name} NetworkManager[782]: <info> [1683398872.0737] dhcp4 (enp4s0): activation: beginning transaction (timeout in 45 seconds)
  May 06 14:47:52 {Linux PC Name} NetworkManager[782]: <info> [1683398872.0737] dhcp4 (enp4s0): state changed no lease
  May 06 14:47:52 {Linux PC Name} NetworkManager[782]: <info> [1683398872.0974] dhcp4 (enp4s0): activation: beginning transaction (timeout in 45 seconds)
  May 06 14:47:52 {Linux PC Name} NetworkManager[782]: <info> [1683398872.5389] dhcp4 (enp4s0): state changed new lease, address=xxx.xxx.xx.208
  May 06 16:55:22 {Linux PC Name} sudo[14081]: {Linux PC Name} : TTY=pts/0 ; PWD=/var/lib/dhcp ; USER=root ; COMMAND=/usr/sbin/netplan ip leases eth0
  May 06 16:55:37 {Linux PC Name} sudo[14094]: {Linux PC Name} : TTY=pts/0 ; PWD=/var/lib/dhcp ; USER=root ; COMMAND=/usr/sbin/netplan ip leases ens160
  May 07 02:47:52 {Linux PC Name} NetworkManager[782]: <info> [1683442072.1788] dhcp4 (enp4s0): state changed new lease, address=xxx.xxx.xx.208
  May 07 13:39:24 {Linux PC Name} NetworkManager[782]: <info> [1683481164.1830] dhcp4 (enp4s0): state changed new lease, address=xxx.xxx.xx.208
  May 08 00:53:22 {Linux PC Name} NetworkManager[782]: <info> [1683521602.1541] dhcp4 (enp4s0): state changed new lease, address=xxx.xxx.xx.208

 

[ColinTaylor]

You seem to be confusing internal IP addresses (e.g. your Pi's) with your router's public IP address. They are not connected.

It sounds like your problem is that you want to change your public IP address because it's been blacklisted. Everything else is unrelated. Cable modems usually issue a public IP based on the MAC address of the device connected to it. In this case it will be the MAC address of the router's WAN interface.

If this IP address is "sticky" (i.e. doesn't change after a reboot) the quickest/easiest way to change it is to "clone" a different MAC address onto the router's WAN interface. This can be done by going to WAN - Internet Connection and clicking on the MAC Clone button. This replaces the router's MAC address with that of the PC you're currently using (but any MAC address would do). Apply that change and wait for it to take effect.

At this point you probably won't have a working internet connection - this is normal. Just power off the modem and the router. Wait a couple of minutes and turn the modem back on. Wait another couple of minutes before turning the router back on. You should now have a working internet connection with a different public IP address.