Posted: Sun Feb 23, 2014 10:32 Post subject: Help getting set up on isp's network
Good afternoon guys,
I am currently stationed in Afghanistan and using the only supplied isp called SniperHill. My problem is trying to use a router on their network. My buddies brought routers with them from the states but none of them are able to get a connection. We all started purchasing European TP-link routers from the local market and they can get a connection but it constantly drops. I decided to flash my TP-Link TL-WR841N(wiki says its a SOC@20dBm) with the suggested version of DD-WRT and see if I could get a steady connection.
I lived in another part of the post that used an isp called ifone and my router worked flawlessly. Now I have moved and only SniperHill is available. From here I can connect to the isp's web based login page and I can successfully log into it but once I do my routing stops and I can't continue to the internet.
With the original software I could connect to the internet but only for about a min before it would disconnect me and I would have to log into sniperhill again. As you can imagine it is a huge pain in the butt. Esp when I want to skype with my family.
I am hoping to be able to use my tablet with my router so I can ship home my computer in the not to distant future. I have also been researching this problem in my spare time for almost a month but my networking knowledge is not very high so its a steep learning curve.
I also have access to two routers for comparison(one default tp-link, the other dd-wrt). I matched up everything I could find between them and was still unable to get to the internet on my dd-wrt. I even learned about route tables and tried to find a difference between them but I am not too terribly sure what I am looking at. I will include them in the attachments. Good router = default tp-link. Bad router = dd-wrt.
Sorry if I rambled on but I wanted to give as much information as possible. If there is anything else that would be helpful please let me know and I will supply it.
Oh, the isp is using mikrotik hotspot
Thank yall very much in advance for the help,
Keith
P.S. The isp does not offer tech support or help in any way.
I am dealing with the exact same issue... did you get a fix yet? Couldn't get my Cisco to connect, but now with a TP Link from the local market, with a cloned MAC address, I am able to get 3-4 devices on the net before they start getting kicked off. Can't solve that. Nor can I solve the every-few-minutes requirement to log back in to SniperHill. Disabling the DHCP server works... but limits only one device on the router at a time.
I'm befuddled too, anybody have any ideas? Aside from buying another computer to use a VPN program to share the connection... routers are too smart these days to not be able to do this!
Here's a couple of ideas:
1. (This one may have already been tried by HotMike). Anyway, first you'll need a device that can connect directly to the HotSpot and open a web browser. Do that, and then log into the HotSpot service. With your dd-wrt router set to defaults, log into the DD-WRT gui and clone the WAN MAC to match the MAC address of the computer you just used to log into the hotspot service. Now, connect the WAN side of your dd-wrt router to the HotSpot. You should now be able to connect to DD-WRT and be able to access the internet. That is, at least, for however long the the HotSpot lease is. When it expires, you'll have to connect directly to the hotspot again (using the computer with the same MAC as your DD-WRT's WAN) and log in again. If the lease is only 1 or 2 hours, this could get annoying.
Thanks for the post. I have already done item 1, and it works... until the ISP bumps the connection. As soon as one computer connects via the cloned MAC router, it's good... until the login dumps, then any one of the devices has to log in again through their web interface. The problem is that when I am running hard-wired OR disable DHCP and use one device at a time, the ISP never dumps me. As soon as I have multiple devices on the wireless, the dumps happen much more frequently. Sometimes a couple of times a minute, sometimes once or twice an hour. It is completely random. Even if I set auto-login through the router at an interval of every 1 minute, it would get kicked back as seeing a MAC already on that login and bump the already working connection off.
The key here is that for some reason, hard wiring is fine. As soon as it is split via the Wireless net, the kickoffs come with a vengence. Connectify works great for a lot of the guys here, using their computer as the hotspot... so how can I get the router to act like a computer, log in to the ISP, then create a sort-of VPN to share the internet without the ISP ever seeing any other IP or MAC (which is, I assume, why I'm getting constant re-login screens while sharing on wireless)?
I'm about to buy a personal sattelite dish like I did in Iraq 10 years ago!
Thanks for the help, I know this can be figured out!
Actually, quick question - with the auto login and set interval, do you think it would be seamless? IE, if the ISP is logged in, and the DD-WRT router goes to log in again, would it throw away the old login and do the new one in a second or two? If so, I assume I could set a 30 second interval and my network would be nothing but a bunch of 30 second internet connections stitched together... but if it can't log out and log in simultaneously, the new log in attempt would get denied (since it sees the previous one) and there would be a conflict of login causing (I assume) a dropped connection.... hmmm...
it's good... until the login dumps, then any one of the devices has to log in again through their web interface.
This is part of the issue. The only device that can re-authenticate to the hotspot is the one whose MAC was cloned to the router's WAN. Othewise, everyone will get bumped.
What you might try is setting up access restrictions on the router such that the only device that can connect to the hotspot's login page is the one whose MAC was cloned. Then disable wireless (or whatever it takes) on the hotspot device in order to prevent users from directly connecting to the hotspot's modem.
This should prevent people from logging in fouling up the system. However, you'll need to have the device from which the MAC was cloned at the ready so you can log in once everyone's internet drops.
If this works, then you might try using step 2 to automate things. If it doesn't, step 2 will get you nowhere.
I haven't had any problem with people breaching my wireless security, so the only bumps are from the people I have on my network. The ISP has to be bumping me (or us) off because when the login page shows up, any device can log back into the ISP with the user name and password. It's like the ISP doesn't even care about the router MAC address either. What I can't figure out is why I am getting bumped from the ISP only when I am using the router. If I use my Cisco router, everyone gets the login page and it only allows one in at a time, so I assume the TP-Link router I am using is (at least partially) hiding the MACs of the users accessing my wireless network.
I will give the automation a try once I get an hour or so to tinker with the settings. A beer would help too, I'm not good with this advanced networking stuff!
