Cannot Access Admin Page on Motorola Router

[tbergman]

In my network, I have a netgear firewall router serving dhcp. Downstream from that I have a Motorola router configured as an access point. I need to log into the access point to reset the pw, but have been unable to do so using the ip: 10.10.10.203, its assigned ip. I confirmed that is the correct ip by looking in the firewall router at the dhcp list and comparing the mac address. I know I can reset it to factory and access by connecting to a pc where I have manually set the ip into a compatible range, but I want to understand why I cannot just enter the AP's ip in my browser and log in. I can ping the address, so I know it can hear me...Any ideas will be appreciated.

[+BudMan MVC]

So this router your using as AP is connected via one of its LAN ports, that is setup via dhcp? This is rare - normally LAN ports of routers are static, I don't know if I have ever seen native firmware that even supported dhcp on the lan side.

To use a router as an AP.. Normally you set the lan to be on your network, turn off its dhcp server and connect it to your network via a lan port not the wan/internet port.

If your connected it to your network via its wan port, the web gui to admin it is normally blocked from the wan side. Unless you have enabled remote admin, and if your using the wan to connect it to your network - most likely its still doing nat for clients connecting to it and its not really in AP mode at that point.

[tbergman]

So this router your using as AP is connected via one of its LAN ports, that is setup via dhcp? This is rare - normally LAN ports of routers are static, I don't know if I have ever seen native firmware that even supported dhcp on the lan side.

To use a router as an AP.. Normally you set the lan to be on your network, turn off its dhcp server and connect it to your network via a lan port not the wan/internet port.

If your connected it to your network via its wan port, the web gui to admin it is normally blocked from the wan side. Unless you have enabled remote admin, and if your using the wan to connect it to your network - most likely its still doing nat for clients connecting to it and its not really in AP mode at that point.

sorry, it has an assigned static ip and its dhcp is turned off.

[+BudMan MVC]

So your sure its the right IP, and your not pinging something else - I would check the mac of the IP your pinging to validate it really is the AP. Can you get into the web gui via wireless? Or do you have that turned off for security reasons. By default many soho routers prevent that out of the box, so it might be something you would of had to enabled.

If your sure its the correct IP, and the gui just doesn't load - it could be it hung.. Did you try power cycle of the AP? You are on the same network segment, quite often when people forget or do not set the gateway on the lan IP when using it as AP.. So if for example your on 10.10.20.x/24 and trying to go to 10.10.10.x/24 the device would need a gateway. But if you say you can ping it that looks to be unlikely.

I would validate the IP your pinging is in fact your AP.. How would that be in your dhcp server if you set it static on the device?

Sorry to say there is little to do in way of troubleshooting if you can not access the gui, other than power cycle - and then if need be factory reset..

[tbergman]

So your sure its the right IP, and your not pinging something else - I would check the mac of the IP your pinging to validate it really is the AP. Can you get into the web gui via wireless? Or do you have that turned off for security reasons. By default many soho routers prevent that out of the box, so it might be something you would of had to enabled.

If your sure its the correct IP, and the gui just doesn't load - it could be it hung.. Did you try power cycle of the AP? You are on the same network segment, quite often when people forget or do not set the gateway on the lan IP when using it as AP.. So if for example your on 10.10.20.x/24 and trying to go to 10.10.10.x/24 the device would need a gateway. But if you say you can ping it that looks to be unlikely.

I would validate the IP your pinging is in fact your AP.. How would that be in your dhcp server if you set it static on the device?

Sorry to say there is little to do in way of troubleshooting if you can not access the gui, other than power cycle - and then if need be factory reset..

BudMan, you da' man! looking in the arp list, the mac address was wrong! I went back into the firewall, corrected the last digit of the mac and presto, it worked just like it was supposed to. In my wildest dreams I would never have come up with that solution. Must be a programming error that the router gives out the wrong mac when asked...or something like that. I have noted that problem in my logs. Hopefully now that the firewall knows the correct mac, it will retain it. Thank you so much for the help.

[+BudMan MVC]

I doubt it gave out the wrong mac - was is just 1 off, or what is completely different.  Did you copy down what mac you were seeing was.  I would guess you had / have a duplicate IP issue with another device since the IP is set static.  And the mac you were seeing was for this other device.

 

Since you said it pings - I have to assume duplicate IP.  So a soho router would normally have 3 macs, the wan the lan and the radio.  If its dual band you would have 4 macs.  Normally they are just 1 offs of each other.  Is is possible you were seeing the mac of the radio vs the ethernet?

 

The duplicate IP seems more likely to me.

 

For a quick test, I would remove any static arp setting you might have done on the firewall..  Turn off the AP... Can you still ping that IP - if so there you dup, track it down and then make sure you don't have duplicate IPs any more.