List associated WiFi clients on command line?

[ColinTaylor]

@grifo Well I don't see any interface called wifi0 or wl1.1 despite what the NVRAM variables say!

Maybe one or other (or both) of them is vlan4000? If you turn off the 5GHz guest network does vlan4000 disappear? What about if you turn off the 5GHz radio entirely?

 

[grifo]

I opted for security over features in making the jump!

I hear you but for now (and I hope for a while still) there isn't any security gain compelling enough for me to update to 384 and lose the 100% functionality and stability of 380.70 . To say that this thing is rock solid isn't doing it justice.

I have a setup where an ISP router/firewall (which I have write access to) is facing the Internet with the 87u behind it, which mitigates the risks and of course all wan side access is turned off apart from a vpn.

 

[grifo]

@grifo Well I don't see any interface called wifi0 or wl1.1 despite what the NVRAM variables say!

Maybe one or other (or both) of them is vlan4000? If you turn off the 5GHz guest network does vlan4000 disappear? What about if you turn off the 5GHz radio entirely?

No it doesn't disappear by turning off the 5Ghz radio, I think the vlan4000 is also tied to switch port 5 which is the wired lan port 1 connected to the quantenna chip.

 

[ColinTaylor]

There isn't anything else I can suggest without having access to an AC87U to experiment with .

 

[grifo]

Yeah unfortunately it's a strange router with the separate Quantenna chipset, maybe the Quantenna deals with the 5Ghz interfaces on its own and then passes the traffic to the main chipset at higher layers, there are a few 169.254.x.x addressed connections going on within the router at all times. I don't think there's a way to access the Quantenna chipset. This is maybe why Asus have said they are not going to support AiMesh on this router.

 

[Jack Yaz]

Yeah unfortunately it's a strange router with the separate Quantenna chipset, maybe the Quantenna deals with the 5Ghz interfaces on its own and then passes the traffic to the main chipset at higher layers, there are a few 169.254.x.x addressed connections going on within the router at all times. I don't think there's a way to access the Quantenna chipset. This is maybe why Asus have said they are not going to support AiMesh on this router.

There is an api for talking to the Quantenna, the thread Colin linked earlier had a couple of commands.

Wouldn't know where to start for querying guests, since mine don't work!

 

[grifo]

You're right, I never saw that thread. I found a list of commands here https://github.com/Noltari/qcsapi/blob/master/call_qcsapi.c

I haven't found a command to list all associated clients, get_associated_device_mac_addr (like get_station_mac_addr) will list one client at a time by index number. wifi0 is the main wlan, wifi1 the first guest wlan, see below

me@87u:/tmp/home/root#  qcsapi_sockrpc get_associated_device_mac_addr wifi0 0
28:::::
me@87u:/tmp/home/root# qcsapi_sockrpc get_associated_device_mac_addr wifi1 0
QCS API error 34: Parameter value out of range

Moved the client to the guest wlan:

me@87u:/tmp/home/root# qcsapi_sockrpc get_associated_device_mac_addr wifi1 0
28:::::
me@87u:/tmp/home/root# qcsapi_sockrpc get_associated_device_mac_addr wifi0 0
QCS API error 34: Parameter value out of range
me@87u:/tmp/home/root#

 

[ColinTaylor]

Do the following commands return sensible numbers even for networks that don't exist, or do they just error?

I'm assuming wifi2 and wifi3 are the second and third guest 5GHz networks.

qcsapi_sockrpc get_count_assoc wifi0
qcsapi_sockrpc get_count_assoc wifi1
qcsapi_sockrpc get_count_assoc wifi2
qcsapi_sockrpc get_count_assoc wifi3

P.S. I assume "28:::::" is a MAC address that you've mangled? There's no point in doing that and it just confuses matters.

 

[grifo]

Yep it's a mac address, I've hidden it because it identifies my laptop but the router shows the full correct mac address in the format 00:00:00:00:00:00

The get_count_assoc returns the number of clients for the wlans that are turned on, see below, at the moment my laptop is connected to guest 2, all 3 guest wlans are active, if I turn off one of them I get the "QCS API error 19: No such device" error for the corresponding wifix number, like I get below for wifi4 that doesn't exist (max 3 guest wlans per radio on this router).

me@87u:/tmp/home/root# qcsapi_sockrpc get_count_assoc wifi0
0
me@87u:/tmp/home/root# qcsapi_sockrpc get_count_assoc wifi1
0
me@87u:/tmp/home/root# qcsapi_sockrpc get_count_assoc wifi2
1
me@87u:/tmp/home/root# qcsapi_sockrpc get_count_assoc wifi3
0
me@87u:/tmp/home/root# qcsapi_sockrpc get_count_assoc wifi4
QCS API error 19: No such device
me@87u:/tmp/home/root#

This should be enough for the script to work shouldn't it? The count will tell how many index numbers to query per wlan.

 

[Jack Yaz]

Yep it's a mac address, I've hidden it because it identifies my laptop but the router shows the full correct mac address in the format 00:00:00:00:00:00

The get_count_assoc returns the number of clients for the wlans that are turned on, see below, at the moment my laptop is connected to guest 2, all 3 guest wlans are active, if I turn off one of them I get the "QCS API error 19: No such device" error for the corresponding wifix number, like I get below for wifi4 that doesn't exist (max 3 guest wlans per radio on this router).

me@87u:/tmp/home/root# qcsapi_sockrpc get_count_assoc wifi0
0
me@87u:/tmp/home/root# qcsapi_sockrpc get_count_assoc wifi1
0
me@87u:/tmp/home/root# qcsapi_sockrpc get_count_assoc wifi2
1
me@87u:/tmp/home/root# qcsapi_sockrpc get_count_assoc wifi3
0
me@87u:/tmp/home/root# qcsapi_sockrpc get_count_assoc wifi4
QCS API error 19: No such device
me@87u:/tmp/home/root#

This should be enough for the script to work shouldn't it? The count will tell how many index numbers to query per wlan.

Yes, just do a for loop with the count as the upper limit. I was going to implement it in YazFi, but with broken guests in 384 for 87U, I can't exactly test it

 

[ColinTaylor]

Thanks @grifo that's useful information.

Yep it's a mac address, I've hidden it because it identifies my laptop

There's absolutely no point in hiding MAC addresses IMHO. My MAC address is 60:57:18:5B:58: D3. What are you going to do with it?

 

[Jack Yaz]

Thanks @grifo that's useful information.

There's absolutely no point in hiding MAC addresses IMHO. My MAC address is 60:57:18:5B:58: D3. What are you going to do with it?

Try to find your public IP and send WoL packets to be dropped by your firewall, obviously

 

[ColinTaylor]

Try to find your public IP and send WoL packets to be dropped by your firewall, obviously

That's precisely my point! You can't associate it with a public IP address and MAC addresses are not routable and don't go outside their local subnet. So knowing a MAC address without already having physical access to the local network is worthless. And if you do already have access to the local subnet...

 

[Jack Yaz]

That's precisely my point, you can't associate it with a public IP address! MAC addresses are not routable and don't go outside their local subnet. So knowing a MAC address without already having physical access to the local network is worthless. And if you do already have access to the local subnet...

Aw, well that ruins my Monday night

 

[grifo]

That's precisely my point, you can't associate it with a public IP address! MAC addresses are not routable and don't go outside their local subnet. So knowing a MAC address without already having physical access to the local network is worthless. And if you do already have access to the local subnet...

The point isn't about hacking but about privacy and staying anonymous on a public forum, you obviously don't care about it as you're using your real name for your nickname but that doesn't mean others don't.

 

[ColinTaylor]

The point isn't about hacking but about privacy and staying anonymous on a public forum, you obviously don't care about it as you're using your real name for your nickname but that doesn't mean others don't.

But my point is that it doesn't provide any additional privacy. It's a false sense of (additional) privacy/security. I value my privacy as much as the next person. But knowing the MAC address of my laptop is of no value to anyone else. As I said earlier when I posted mine, "What are you going to do with it?". How could anyone exploit this information?

 

[grifo]

But my point is that it doesn't provide any additional privacy. It's a false sense of (additional) security. I value my privacy as much as the next person. But knowing the MAC address of my laptop is of no value to anyone else. As I said earlier when I posted mine, "What are you going to do with it?". How could anyone exploit this information?

It's going to stay forever on the web and come up to a search, I have no idea what I may write on this or any forum in future that I would not want to be identifiable to me, that's the point of using nicknames in forums which most people do. Mac addresses uniquely identify your machine like your name identifies you. I have a habit of hiding details that identify myself or my kit on all public forums, others have other habits, as they say to each their own.

But we've gone way off topic, why do we want to saddle someone who in the future is going to be looking for useful info on the RT-AC87U router with these pointless opinions.