Hello and could use some input

[asustx2020]

Hello,

I figured to be polite and introduce myself first. My name is Russ and I am pretty 'experienced' with routing, networking, asus, etc. DBA by day, frustrated with wifi by night, heh. No, this is not about wifi, got that under control for now ..

I just have something strange going on on my router and, welp.. figured it was time to see if some smarter folks than me could shed any light.

I wire everything.. hate wifi.. but, my wifi is pretty robust. Anyway, I have everything fairly well locked down, but I noticed I have a lot of things pulling an IP. Now, I am not talking all things, this is just active IP assignments. I have a hidden "guest network" that I have separate, not looking at those. I am seeing 63 items on my home network.

Now, once you discount 8 wifi APs, the controller for those APs, that is 10, 3 computers, 1 laptop, 3 phones, 3 TVs, 2 NAS setups.. etc.. I am still not seeing how I can possibly have 63 items.

This is not an issue of living close to people that could be on my wifi.. for one, my wifi password is a beast.. heh.. no-one in this neighborhood, out in the country, could hack my doorknob much less my wifi.. lol.. but, I am seeing things like "Gatewayxxxxx" 4 times, and a couple times, the same IP assigned to more than one thing...in the ASUS network screen, for instance, my iphone and some Intel Corporation both have .112 IP.

I have tried looking at wireshark, Angry IP scanner, and a couple others and cannot figure out what these items are, in fact, some do not even show up except in the Asus.

So, my question is, what out there is a good tool to actually tell me what the heck these things are?

Also, curious if I can force a firmware refresh or upgrade if no upgrade is available?

Thanks!

R

 

[thiggins]

What's the make/model of your router?

Are you looking at the DHCP client list or something else?

Did you try Fing?

In my experience, the device lists shown by routers should be taken with a truckload of salt. They are notoriously inaccurate. Items are not updated quickly, inactive devices are not purged, etc.

 

[asustx2020]

Update - I flashed the Asus with the Merlin firmware, albeit it did not actually apply the firmware, I was able to hard reboot the router and it cleared out the old IPs and refreshed the list.

No idea what is going on. May try dd-wrt again, see how that works.

Yes, I tried Fing. It tells me a lot, but was more concerned with why the router is not taking the changes, but it is functioning..

Oh, sorry, I was looking at the device list on the initial page, network map

Thanks

 

[thiggins]

Yes, I tried Fing. It tells me a lot, but was more concerned with why the router is not taking the changes, but it is functioning..

What do you mean by "not taking the changes".

Merlin may be able to provide insight into how the Network Map is constructed.

 

[EmeraldDeer]

My approach to identifying LAN devices took some time and patience but I see it as worth it.

• I use "Manually Assigned IP around the DHCP list". This maps Ethernet addresses to a consistent IP and a helpful name which I assign. This can be from .100 to .254
• My LAN DHCP pool is .10 to .99 so that I know at a glance that it is from the pool. Guests and Internet of Things devices use this.
  
• I edit NVRAM variable custom_clientlist so that pool and hard coded devices can be identified. This works in Traffic Analyzer.

 

[asustx2020]

Meaning the firmware still shows as version 3.0.0.382_51640. That was the same version it showed before I flashed it with Merlin 384.13_4.hex

 

[EmeraldDeer]

I assume that you have an RT-AC3200. You are 2 versions behind the latest official Asus Version 3.0.0.4.382.51939

You might need to use ASUS Firmware Restoration version 2.1.0.2. It has been so long since I used it that I do not have any helpful hints.

 

[asustx2020]

I generally follow the same route, however I am not sure about the nvram clientlist. I generally take the dummy way out, but keep updates .. up to date. Not sure why it is 2 versions behind, I literally just downloaded the latest client today. I will check that out right now, thank you.

Duh, sorry, typo.

I have 3.0.0.4.382.51640, sorry.

R

 

[asustx2020]

Okay, going to have to try something different. While it is "working", the settings do not look "right". I hide my SIDs.. but while they say they are hidden, they are not hidden.... so, need to reset it to factory default and get it to take a real firmware file.

Sorry, talking out loud. Does not make sense, so, will force it to start making sense again lol.. or, put a new router in. I just happen to have 2 extras .. like any good nerd

R

 

[RMerlin]

What do you mean by "not taking the changes".

Merlin may be able to provide insight into how the Network Map is constructed.

The data mostly comes from the networkmap service, which has been closed source for the last 2-3 years, so I don't know how it has evolved since then. Back then, it was sending ARP packets to the whole /24 subnet (wider subnets are not supported), and then filling up its internal database with the content of the ARP cache. The webui then uses that database, probably combined with a second separate database it uses to store user customizations (like icons and labels), and builds the web interface listing from it.

It has been known to be a bit unreliable for a few years - often missing a few devices. Doesn't help that the RT-AC3200 is based on slightly older 382.xx code versus the 384.xx code used by newer devices, so it's possible it might still be lagging behind in terms of stability. Can't tell for sure since it's mostly closed source now.

Flash failures often happen due to the router being too low on free memory. Rebooting the router first, without any USB disk plugged in, then trying again to upgrade might work better. If it still fails, try a different browser.