Posted: Sun Jul 31, 2011 6:07 Post subject: Suddenly, no internet access over repeater bridge
I've been using a Linksys WRT54G v. 5 with DD-WRT (v24-sp2 (07/22/09) micro) for ages configured as a repeater bridge, and have never had any trouble with it. Flashing went flawlessly, and the wiki instructions for setup were a breeze. Have had to re-do it a couple times due to changes in my home network, and it's always just been a snap and I can have the whole thing reconfigured and back up & running in under 10 minutes.
About a month ago I upgraded from DSL to cable for my ISP (Comcast), and re-configured my home network. Got everything going again no problems, but this time out I decided that rather than go WiFi from my gaming systems across the house to the new cable modem/router (which has a pathetic signal strength), I would add a spare router (Netgear DGND3300) I had, as half of a wireless bridge and connect the gaming systems hardwire to the linksys rather than use their onboard radios. This worked great and my performance on the systems went through the roof vs. using their onboard Wifi. Life, was good.
About a week or so ago, things went south and I have no idea why. Suddenly my gaming systems could no longer connect to the internet. Switching to onboard Wifi worked fine (connecting to the Netgear router directly) but of course, performance sucked.
All devices on my home LAN however, had no problems seeing each other, it was strictly an internet connectivity problem.
After several days of screwing with this, I'm finally at my wits' end and posting here. I've reconfigured the Linksys numerous times, including after a 30-30-30, but nothing changes. I have my laptop physically wired into the Linksys and it correctly receives an IP address, Gateway, etc. via DHCP from my primary cable modem router, but I cannot access the internet. Same if I connect over Wifi. Same with my PS3 wired to the Linksys - gets assigned all the right info, but can't connect outside the LAN. Same also for my iPad over Wifi to the linksys.
So to recap, LAN connection is fine both wireless and wired, with the linksys and netgear forming a bridge.
Internet connectivity from the linksys, is non-existent. It's as if I had it blocked somehow, but I don't.
I would really appreciate some suggestions on what to look at next. I've got a mixed network of Windows & Mac, plus gaming platforms and an Iomega Home Media drive. Everybody sees everybody, but nobody sees the internet if they connect via the Linksys. Internet when connecting from anywhere else (the netgear wifi, cable modem wifi, or either by wire) works fine.
Thanks in advance for any pointers...
Jon
EDIT: Forgot to add that I have all security disabled completely while I try and troubleshoot this.
Great suggestion, unfortunately ping doesn't appear to be available once logged in:
Built-in commands:
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. : [ alias bg break cd chdir command continue eval exec exit
export false fg getopts hash help jobs kill let local pwd read
readonly return set shift source test times trap true type ulimit
umask unalias unset wait
In case this means anything useful, I connected to the router via Wifi on my Macbook and issued the pings.
Pinging the IP address resulted in timeout messages, pinging the domain name resulted in a long hang and eventually "unknown host" so it looks like I have no DNS resolution at a minimum.
OK brain fart on my part. I only tried pinging the domain and not the IP.
Pinging the IP still fails, but at least the command technically is getting issued.
It seems that at a minimum, there's no DNS resolution happening. Though even pinging the IP directly still times out without any response at all.
Any other suggestions?
A numeric IP does not require DNS resolution, so if that is timing out, you have something configured incorrectly. Your problem is probably related to how you have your modem connected.
Sorry if I confused anyone. My mention of DNS resolution was in regards to the ping of google.com failing, both from a telnet session and from a computer connected through the Linksys. Not a reference to pinging the IP.
Pinging the IP, just gets no response at all. No nothing, it just eventually gives up after several minutes.
I'm inclined to agree that there's a configuration problem somewhere, but I'll be damned if I can figure out where. As I said in my original post, I've configured this repeater/bridge setup many times, and have never had even the slightest problem. And it was working fine for weeks and then - poof. Dead. But all LAN access is fine, so it's not a total failure of the router. DHCP from my main modem/router is working, all internal routing is behaving perfectly. It just can't get out to the internet.
It's almost acting like I've got port 80 blocked, or http firewalled off somehow, but I don't as far as I know. The router was most recently reset with a 30-30-30 and then reconfigured from scratch, but there was no change and I still can't get out to the internet from it.
Any suggestions on where to look next? I've poured over everything I can think of.
On the PS3 when I check the connection status, it fails the NAT test every time. Strangely, in the Linksys DD-WRT NAT/QoS menu there is nothing about NAT at all.
Anyone know how I can make sure NAT is enabled on the Linksys?
Major discovery that I can't make heads or tails of.
First, let it be said that I have never in my life enabled DMZ for any device for any reason. I've never had to.
But on a lark... after reading endless posts from people saying the PS3 always needs to be listed as a DMZ IP, I tried setting its IP as the DMZ IP in my primary (cable modem) router.
Instantly, it passed all tests and could connect to the internet. Any other device connected to the linksys however, could not.
So I tried setting the router IP itself as the DMZ... no dice. Nothing could connect outside the LAN.
I set the DMZ to the IP of my Macbook (hardwired to the linksys for testing). Instantly the Mac got online without any problems!
So, it looks like (as I had suspected but ruled out because it made no sense) I've got certain ports (80??) being blocked somehow. I can set any given device as the DMZ in my primary router and it will work fine from the Linksys. But since I have multiple devices on that router, I really want to set the entire router as being in the DMZ, which doesn't work.
Again, I had this setup running fine for weeks with every device on the router able to connect to the internet without issue. I can't fathom how this change could have come about, but there it is.
Anyone have any other ideas now on getting the Linksys DD-WRT router to play well with others? Or know of any hidden port blocking setup somewhere that has gotten enabled??
That's weird... there was another response to this last night that I also responded to, and now they're both gone. Did something roll back to a backup of the forum database and lose some content, or something?
Very interesting question! In fact, my actual MAC address as listed in the webgui, is off by ONE digit! It ends in 32 instead of 31 as on the sticker. What might this mean exactly?
My DHCP server is the primary cable modem/router. It is 10.0.0.1, the netgear bridge (which is hardwired to the cable modem) is 10.0.0.2, and the Linksys is currently 10.0.1.3 as I was seeing if a different subnet would help (it didn't). It was 10.0.0.3 previously.
All LAN activities still work perfectly fine, no problems there at all. If the MAC address is wrong, shouldn't that mean no networking functions at all? It's the fact that everything LAN always works, that has me so confused on this one.
Aha, mystery solved (sortof). My LAN MAC matches the sticker, it's the WAN MAC that is off by one. Wireless MAC is off even more and ends in 33.
????
Also I notice in the WRT, my WAN IP is "disabled". That certainly seems like it would explain a few things!! How do I enable it? Never had to before...
Your mac IPs are fine. They go up by one. I presume that the first numbers match.
WAN IP will be disabled on your router in client or repeater bridged mode. It is supposed to be disabled. Don't try to fix that.
You obviously don't really understand networking, which isn't a dig. I am not expert but I believe I can give you some help.
Your netgear is wired to your modem. To make things very simple, lets get it working first. Restore the netgear to factory defaults. Set the lan ip of the netgear to 10.0.1.1. Set your wireless ssid and security. Plug the MODEM cable into the WAN (NOT LAN) port of the netgear. Make sure it is working without the Linksys. Check both wired and wireless.
Once that is working, you will then do a HARD reset on the linksys and set up your Repeater bridge exactly according to the wiki. You will set the LAN IP of the linksys to 10.0.1.2.