The difference between 'Save Startup' and 'Save Routers' should only be the order in which they load. I want to say things saved in 'Save Startup' run at the same time as rcS runs, whereas the firewall stuff runs upon rcS completion. That is purely speculation on my part, so don't quote me .
I've been making note of all this stuff. The next version I release will address the problems mentioned so far, I'll also put in some checks to make sure all the necessary dependancies are running prior to snooping around for open access points. That way the Startup vs. Firewall shouldn't matter anymore.
...
I have noticed three problems with this setup when the connection between the openAP and my AutoAP is flaky
1. On more than one occasion I lost internet however connecting directly to the open ap with my laptop I can reach the internet.
2. I have had instances when the internet dropped, but autoap.html was accesable, however it read "attempting to ping gateway [0.0.0.0]" repeatedly
3.I have had instances in which I could not reach the web interface or autoap.html at all.
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AutoAP currently caches open networks and tries to minimize the load on the router as long as everything is currently stable. However, there is a glitch with the logic that ensures that the connection is still active, and while rare, it's possible for it to get into a loop that keeps it from properly refreshing a new connection, or from reassociating with an active AP. This would account for number 1. The next release should change the logic entirely to use a more black and white decision making scheme.
Number two sounds like a side effect of the first problem.
The third sounds like a seperate problem. It can (does) happen if /tmp is full or almost completely full when the script initialzes. This should be extremely rare, as the logfile and symlink are under one kilobyte when they're first created. The next version incorporates the web interface into the firmware, and will hopefully offer use of syslogd functions instead of logging directly to a specific file (although that will remain an option as well).
JP.. That is awesome stuff.. You will have many routers to play with in a matter of days.. I added a couple of those WGA54A/G game adapters that I had around here because I thought you might find them to be an interesting curiosity.. We will talk more about those later.. They are pieces of crap, but I think you will be intrigued by the way they function..
The two buffalos in there are both new and are in perfect condition, but the GS model is actually in an HP case.. So there are two HP units in there, but one is really a GS.. I have marked them as to which is which and the power supplies for each one is taped to the device, because the HP uses a 5V supply and the GS uses a 3V supply, so you don't want to mix those up...
The list is growing, so you will just get a box of routers, many good, many in a semi-bricked state.. You will be able to tell which ones are the new WRT54GL's because they still have the RUN CD FIRST sticker on them.. I threw in 3 linksys power adapters, but those are what I am always in short supply of, so hopefully you have some power adapters laying around from other bricked routers.. If not, let me know and I will dig a little deeper before Monday, when I will most likely actually get these out the door...
I built a prototype mobile repeater today with two buffalo HP's and configured it as I described above and it is actually working just fine.. With the current state of the program, if you just set the watch dog timer in the autoap unit to ping some server ever so often, it will reboot and recover if it gets into a loop as described by boody.. No problem.. Works great!!! Every now and then the network notification bubble will pop up at the bottom of the screen in windows, and you know the system just reset and found a new connection... So, to some degree, it announces to you when it has found a connection.... THAT'S AWESOME STUFF!!!
Bye for now,
wo-fo
Last edited by wo-fo on Mon Nov 20, 2006 1:48; edited 2 times in total
I have found that to connect this to another router for the downlink side of the repeater, you have to set the wireless mac address restriction in the downlink router with the wireless mac of the autoap device,, along with setting the ssid filter and mac filter in autoap.. This way the autoap client definitely cannot connect to the downlink side and create a data loop, thereby hanging up the system in an infinite loop...
I found that just putting the command into "save firewall" worked fine. however before i figured that out, i did try setting the downlink router to limit incomming connections to the mac address of my pc only. strangely the autoap still stated it was connected to the downlink router. also simply choosing not to broadcast the ssid of the downlink router worked to keep the auto ap from connecting.
Mostly everything works fine for me. the only problem i have had is when the autoap looses the connection with the openap, but still finds it to be the strongest connection available. I think the wds watchdog trick above my correct this and i will try it now.
A million thanks, those will help immensely. I've been anxious to test on other platforms, this should help implement some other ideas too . You're a huge asset to this cause. Thanks again.
(p.s. i've got lots of random power adapters sitting around i can rig up for the test routers.)
Posted: Mon Nov 20, 2006 8:12 Post subject: Hows the web interface coming
Just wondering how the web interface is coming?
I wont be using the software in the near future so I am waiting for wo-fo to confirm that it is working and I will donate $100AUD to Johnny or whoever does the interface. I think having a good working interface is important to make this a mainstream addon.
Thanks xerovis... I am sure it is coming along, but he bricked all of his routers and ground to a halt temporarily.. I have a box of routers on its way to him in the morning and he will be back at it in no time..
I appreciate your help too and I am sure JP will appreciate it...
the web interface is more or less in place, like wo-fo said i've been out of commission since bricking my router last time (annoyed the hell out of my roommates), but wo-fo was gracious enough to supply dev routers so i can continue worry free (and test on new platforms), he's been a huge source of support to this effort.
you can see a screenshot of the web interface on page 7 of this thread. i've been toying around with the source in my free time, and have got the web management stuff worked out for the most part.
i'd like to implement the entire solution in C at some point and integrate it fully into dd-wrt if possible.
anyways, once i'm up and running on the new dev routers ill have a release out asap. thanks for the support .
Hi guys... I need to clarify something so no-one ends up beating their heads against the wall on the WDS/Connection Watchdog...
In short... I can't get it to reset the device at all... Sometimes things seem like they are working, but when the dust settles and you have a chance to gather enough data, you realize that what you thought was working is in fact NOT working...
I haven't had time to backtrack and try the WDS / Connection Watchdog in just plain old V23_SP2_NOKAID firmware... This is the only time I have ever seen it not work...
That does not mean that there is not some issue with SP2 in general regarding this, there may be.. I just don't know.. Maybe someone can elighten me...
Is anyone able to get this particular firmware to reset automatically with the WDS / Connection Watchdog? Or how about just SP2 in general ?
I know it will not matter shortly, as I got those routers out the door and Johnny Primus has the tracking number and they will be there in just a few days at the most... Then, when he gets a chance to play around with them a bit, I know we will get a new release with probably most everything we have discussed and things we can't even think of without the same insight the JP has to it... That's awesome...
Maybe someone could tell me about the Watchdog thing.... I would appreciate it.. I use that feature often to keep systems stable.. Or at least to make them reconnect in a hurry so no-one know's it was ever down...
If anyone wants to try to repeat the recipe, and help optimize it, please reply to this thread with your mileage.
The only problem I have currently is that my client (running XP) gets confused sometimes, and although the repeater is working fine and repeating, I have to renew my connection on the client side (using XP "repair" connection). I think this might have something to do with bridged mode, and perhaps because there are currently two DHCP servers running on the latest release of 2.4 (udhcpc & dnsmasq) which may confuse the client, but this is conjecture.
So for those who want to help optimize:
1) eliminate the step to repair the connection occasionally on XP (upon connection and at intermittent times)
2) maybe eliminate the bridged mode (so port forwarding is not required sometimes)
The wiki was created, and this article was posted, using the UWR
JohnnyPrimus said:
2 DHCP servers on a bridged network opens the possibilty to issue conflicting IP addresses. Having one of the routers forward dhcp requests to the second router, and setting the second router up as the authoritative DHCP server may fix this problem.
As to autoap, there've been a couple of revisions since the last update I made to the standalone tool. I'll upload the latest in its place.
Meanwhile, I am confident that a new rev. with a buttload of changes is coming out soon.. My particular focus is not exactly on the autoap feature, as I know it is in good hands and I will do anything I can to bump it along...
There are a few other key functions that must also work with THIS EXACT AUTOAP FIRMWARE for the whole thing to work properly, so I am spending my time trying to figure out the following and would appreciate any help from the rest of you out there who could be of assistance..
1) I am looking into why I can't get the WDS/ Connection Watchdog or any KEEP ALIVE function to work on this edition at all... It is not specific to the WRT54GL or the Buffalo.. It is non-functional on either device with this firmware..
It is pretty important to be able to have the device reset itself if it gets into some sort of loop and is sitting there doing nothing... This is a simple recovery method that works well, as long as the damn thing doesn't reset itself every 5 minutes when it should be staying up just fine.. But as kind of a "last ditch effort" to recover from a lock up of the scanner... Because this is pretty much like a police scanner for internet...
2) The whole ACCESS RESTRICTIONS page is non-functional, as far as I can tell... This also an important page.. I have done my reading around here about setting up the policies, but I must be doing something wrong, or it also is non-functional.. I would appreciate it if someone who is knowledgeable of these settings would try it and see if it works or not..
It is important for this firmware to be able to utilize "Blocked Services", "Website Blocking by URL Address", and also by "keyword"... I suppose if someone wanted to use one of these fundtions they very well might want to use any combination of them..
When I set this up and create a policy and block a couple of sites and services as a test, I reset the device and then I can't get into ANYTHING... It says "Web Site Found, Waiting for Reply" at the bottom of the screen so it hit something out there, but we are blocked from there... even from google... no jack nothing...
So it is all or nothing at the moment as far as I can tell...
Ultimately.... This will be a device that will keep itself on and either connected or continuously attemting to connect, and if it gets into some sort of loop, it will either recover withing the software or it will recover from the Watchdog Timer....
We know it will be able to filter ssid's and mac's, which it does now just fine... It will eventually be able to prioritize ssid's and mac's and attempt to connect in a specific order.. That will be the shiz-nit right there, but it is secondary to the immediate goal of a functionally debugged autoap system...
That will all come in time, but right now we are looking for stability and connectivity.. We will be happy to see this come from the next rev.. That will be an impressive feat in itself...
We know there will be a web interface included which will massively simplify the operation of the autoap feature, which will absolutely REVOLUTIONIZE DD-WRT!!!
I have to tell you that I am amazed that BrainSlayer has not caught on to the significance of JohnnyPrimus' develpment... This is absolutely the biggest thing to happen to dd-wrt since it came out.. It needs to be rolled into every version of the firmware from here forward, or even BrainSlayer's revisions of dd-wrt will be obsolete.. Who would want dd-wrt without the scan feature? Not me.. That's for sure..
NOW THAT WE HAVE IT THERE IS NO TURNING BACK!!!! LMAO!!
You gotta' love that, and we owe the thanks to all the clever brains that contributed here, including Marc Johnson for taking a shot at it, and besides BrainSlayer himself for creating dd-wrt in the first place, we owe the rest of the credit to JohnnyPrimus.. He is the one who really took the concept and made it a reality...
JohnnyPrimus has spent way more time on this than he got any donations for.. I am going to kick right down for some more revisions from him because I see results... big time... and I hope the rest of you will kick down whatever you can too.. I know xerovis is going to donate also and that will definitely help.. He is the man for that...
I can see a light at the end of the tunnel on this, and I have brought the whole thing and its full implications up to BrainSlayer in a PM, and I appreciate him letting us sit out here on our own little tangent... Eventually, I hope he will actually see how VALUABLE this could be to him also, and how it could push the whole dd-wrt firmware into a realm all of its own as far as third party firmwares go, and get in here and help us iron these things out and really create a loaded up version of dd-wrt that has these features built into it...
It does not need half of the other routing features that are built into dd-wrt, so in the interest of really refining this particualr Autoap version of dd-wrt, a whole bunch of things could most likely be hacked and slashed from the menus and create a bunch of space to work with for more programming to reside...
It of course has to roll over into V24 with the ALL IN ONE REPEATER MODE, so we can do all of this with one router, just as Marc Johnson is trying to leap ahead to now, and I actually aplaud him for that... I'm all about it.. I will help you in any way I can...
Take care,
wo-fo
Last edited by wo-fo on Wed Nov 29, 2006 4:00; edited 2 times in total
Just to jump in I also noticed that the wds/connection watchdog feature was not reseting the router. I then tried just the simple auto reboot. I set it to reboot the router every 6000 sec. well my router says it's been up for over 2 days since then so i guess it's not working. oh well good luck figureing this stuff out!
Sorry for being so long winded, but I am seriously commited to rounding this idea out and perfecting it for several good reasons I have personally.. I am not sure if anyone else sees the same value in this as I do, but trust me, it is worth pushing it through to the final product....
AND IT IS SITTING RIGHT HERE ON THE INTERNET FOR FREE to anyone who knows what the heck to do with it...
I am all about it... You guys take this stuff and go out and find some wi-fi... that is what it is all about....
Take care,
wo-fo
p.s.: This issue has gotten deep... I have found that communications get longer and longer as the subject matter gets more complicated and in depth... This is what is required at this point of this project, so anyone still reading all of this at this point has to be really anxious to hear the answer or learn more about any little details of the idea..
Each time we make a major advancement, we stop and update the previous tutorials and file download links, so the people who go there and read just those posts and download those files there will get the most up to date thing we have going without having to read this novel that is being laid out here... This is just for the people who feel like reading it...
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