@bengalih,
@sfx2000 and I have had our share of disagreements and we both have very strong feelings about certain things. Same with a few other members on here, but we can all admit when we are wrong or when the other has a good point that we hadn't considered. That's the key, sometimes no matter how much you know or how much experience you have, someone (and very frequently not me, especially when it comes to wireless and linux based stuff) has more knowledge and experience than you.
Heck I'm sure if you look at a few interactions I've had with SFX and a couple others here you'd think we all hate each other and wonder why in the world he would be backing me up in this discussion, but in reality even strong wills can admit that they are wrong or when someone else's idea is better. Well, we won't admit it in writing, but there's an unspoken understanding
Of course if someone argues with me about network design or Cisco, then the gloves come off. If I can't get that right after 25 years, I might as well work the drive through somewhere. But hey, even when I'm doing my bread and butter I collaborate and incorporate good suggestions into my work, as do my peers, subordinates, and superiors.
Thanks for your response. As I mentioned above I'm just going to continue to discuss this since it went OT anyway (and I should have known better to think that it wouldn't have). Let me start by saying that I continue to approach this without any degree of animosity. I still believe that your opening comment in this thread was way off color, and I also mostly disagree with your assessment of my situation from the your 2 posts.
You made your points, so please allow me to make mine (and I apologize for the length I realize this got to, but I wanted to address all your points):
I don't want to get into a pi**ing match about who has the higher qualifications. It sounds to me like your overall direct networking experience is probably beyond mine. Nonetheless, I have a 20-25 year career in IT as well. The Cisco certifications I earned probably lapsed years before IPv6 was even a thing (I was only a CCNA/CCDA), and my main area of expertise was in Active Directory. Main point being that while I may not know as much about configuring routing on linux based systems, my overall approach to technology challenges, how to troubleshoot, etc, is not something I am a neophyte in. That's not to say I think I'm always right, but I too have a lot of experience informing my actions as well. And sure, I might be the new guy here, but I've been a member here for about 9 years and before this I was using things like openwrt/dd-wrt, etc. I was hacking palm pilots and running BBS on my 300bps modem. Again, no humble-bragging, just making it clear that it is virtually impossible for me to accept advice (from anyone) without having my own years of experience also cloud those responses.
I also stand by my statement that this device/firmware/forum is used by a lot of hobbyists, and I'm far from alone when I add configuration to my device. If you want to call it "hacky" well then, I suppose it is, but so is everything else any of us are doing the minute we start adding more info into /jffs/scripts or configs. Just because I have a higher level of customization doesn't mean that it is bad or wrong. I 100% agree that the more you "hack" the more likely something is to go wrong. There are a lot of moving pieces. But this forum isn't just meant for those who have only added Skynet. It is for people that want to break out their wireless networks from the main bridge, or configure a ddns script for a service that isn't supported OOB. My customizations have grown for the ~8 years I've been using this device, and I'm pretty proud with what I've been able to get it to do and happy with how it performs.
None of my posts over the last few days were actually looking to solve any problems I'm actually having (with the exception of my possibly bad USB disk). Everything is working great! I have no performance problems, everything is stable and that's all due to the configuration I've done (no small amount of with help and advice from others here and elsewhere). In going through my syslog with a more fine-toothed comb (for the USB issue) I began seeing various log events that I thought I could eliminate and in the process maybe optimize my configuration even more.
Is the fact that I am getting the br0 DHCP messages a problem? Probably not, other than cosmetics, but if I could clean them up (especially by fixing the root of the messages...dnsmaq) then I'd like to. While my Guest Wifi configuration may not be the current recommended way to set things up, it works without issue (and as I proved by removing my custom WiFi configuration to test, seemingly has nothing to do with the br0 dhcp messages).
Is the fact that I am seeing those occasional throttle loops in my ddns client an issue? Not really, the overall processing overhead that accounts for is negligible and it doesn't impact functionality at all. Nonetheless, I wanted to ask more about the watchdog service so I could understand why it could be happening.
The point is I know that introducing changes introduces complexity, but complexity is not in and of itself a bad thing if it is managed.
- Can I use iptables to block DHCP to my subnet? Yes - that's a possibility and not one I fully ruled out. But it still doesn't answer the question as to why the issue is happening (as it doesn't appear to be from my Guest WiFi setup). I've *never* been one to settle if someone says "hey run this and it will fix the issue" I always want to know how and why it fixes it.
- Can I use DNS-O-Matic to fix my ddns issues? I didn't like the idea of abandoning my script when I knew the script wasn't the issue, but likely some race condition with dns/ddns that might have been solvable. Nonetheless, I tried setting it up as per your suggestion. Unfortunately their CloudFlare implementation only works with the Legacy API GLOBAL key, which I consider a security risk to use as it grants whomever has it r/w access over your entire account. Instead I opted to reduce the throttle time, even though in this case I still expect the root issue will only be minimized, not actually solved.
- Can I just use a VPN instead of this whole rigmarole with my bypassing my ISP's device? Perhaps, if that was my main goal. But you assumed that because I mentioned the word "tracking" that I thought they couldn't still sniff my traffic if I didn't use their equipment (clearly I know that not to be the case). Their equipment doesn't offer a true bridge mode, which can interfere with some NAT, they lock down certain configurations relating to protocol connections and timeouts, and they can enter into your device issue FW updates, reboots, and see other local network information. Also, I see no reason to support supplying power to two boxes and introduce an extra point of failure and another heat source into my setup. I'm not the only making this choice, there are entire other forums dedicated to discussing how to do this, including at least a few others doing it on Merlin routers.
I really think you have been misinterpreting my posts (with the exception of the USB drive, which I think we have landed more or less copacetic on). I'm not here complaining that nothing is working, I'm trying to learn how certain things work under the hood for the sake of understanding them. Again, despite some errant messages in my logs, things really work 100% reliably for me.
I take your point when you say "neither you or I or most people other than
@RMerlin himself really understand the stuff under the hood, we can only figure out bits and pieces through trial and error." And I'm ok with that, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't ask questions or search for the answer.
(oh man this is getting so long I have to do another post :sigh:/sorry!)
