Desktop is connected, but does not show up in Router map

[jnelsoninjax]

One of the desktops in our home network has the assigned address 192.168.1.4 and has a name of Cassie-PC, which responds via ping, but I need to setup parental controls on it (it's me niece's) and it does not show up in the network map through the router. I have physically checked the address assigned to the system, and it is clearly set to the .4 address, but it does not show up as an attached device in the router. Why is this, and what can I do to resolve it? For what's it worth I have checked and the cable is plugged directly to the router, prior it was plugged into a dumb switch. The desktop in question is able to access everything on the LAN as well as the internet.

[goretsky Supervisor]

Hello,

 

I'm not particularly familiar with how Linksys does this, but could it be that the Cassie-PC host computer at 192.168.1.4 has a firewall on it which prevents the router from fingerprinting it?
 

I am thinking that as a work-around, you could try cloning the computer's MAC address, IP address and hostname onto one of the recognized devices, set up filtering for it on the router, and then restore that device's prior settings?  Again, I'm not sure if this would be effective, given that the Linksys router does not see the Cassie-PC computer, but perhaps once you have manually created an entry for it, the router will enforce the parental controls.

 

Just to confirm, you have visited Linksys to ensure you have the latest firmware?

 

Regards,

 

Aryeh Goretsky

[jnelsoninjax]

39 minutes ago, goretsky said:

Hello,

 

I'm not particularly familiar with how Linksys does this, but could it be that the Cassie-PC host computer at 192.168.1.4 has a firewall on it which prevents the router from fingerprinting it?
 

I am thinking that as a work-around, you could try cloning the computer's MAC address, IP address and hostname onto one of the recognized devices, set up filtering for it on the router, and then restore that device's prior settings?  Again, I'm not sure if this would be effective, given that the Linksys router does not see the Cassie-PC computer, but perhaps once you have manually created an entry for it, the router will enforce the parental controls.

 

Just to confirm, you have visited Linksys to ensure you have the latest firmware?

 

Regards,

 

Aryeh Goretsky

I will check into the MAC address, the firmware is up to date, as far for firewall, only the windows firewall is installed on that system.

[Circaflex]

Seems to be common across Linksys routers with this "feature."

 

Try power cycling the router

Try viewing the GUI in a different browser

You can try downgrading to the previous firmware and see if that solves it

 

However, it might be worth your while to look into 3rd party firmware if you cant get this to work fairly soon. Some users have reported to get it working again, only to have the issue pop up again randomly. If you are dead set on the Linksys firmware, you might want to look into other parental control solutions. I don't know of any myself, however I bet others here do.

[+BudMan MVC]

Why can you not setup a reservation for the device on dhcp so its always .4 or set the device static on the PC... Then set the parental controls based upon the IP address?

 

If you setup a dhcp reservation for the PC mac address, it should be ALWAYS listed!!!

 

 

[jnelsoninjax]

1 hour ago, BudMan said:

Why can you not setup a reservation for the device on dhcp so its always .4 or set the device static on the PC... Then set the parental controls based upon the IP address?

 

If you setup a dhcp reservation for the PC mac address, it should be ALWAYS listed!!!

 

That is the plan now, I was not aware that it was not setup (dhcp reservation) until late last night when I mentioned it to my brother-in-law, then we both realized that we never set her system up that way, we are going to correct the issue today.

[jnelsoninjax]

OK, so apparently the desktop in question was on the DHCP reservation table, and I went ahead and gave it an assigned IP address of 192.168.1.4, but it still will not show up on the router, and the router has been reset, twice, so what else can I try?

[Mindovermaster Global Moderator]

Might be a long shot, but try reinstalling those drivers on the desktop. Or you could try it with a Live Linux CD/USB, and see if it shows up then. If it does, it's the ethernet port driver thats sending out bad info.

 

[jnelsoninjax]

12 minutes ago, Mindovermaster said:

Might be a long shot, but try reinstalling those drivers on the desktop. Or you could try it with a Live Linux CD/USB, and see if it shows up then. If it does, it's the ethernet port driver thats sending out bad info.

 

Odd since the system is brand new, but when I get a chance I will try to diagnose it further.

[Mindovermaster Global Moderator]

18 minutes ago, jnelsoninjax said:

Odd since the system is brand new, but when I get a chance I will try to diagnose it further.

Odd is never a word when troubleshooting. The stupidest reason can be the answer...  

[Circaflex]

2 hours ago, jnelsoninjax said:

OK, so apparently the desktop in question was on the DHCP reservation table, and I went ahead and gave it an assigned IP address of 192.168.1.4, but it still will not show up on the router, and the router has been reset, twice, so what else can I try?

You might not ever fix this, it seems like a ###### poor implementation from what I can gather. Search google for something as simple as "Linksys+Network Map+Missing Device" and you'll start seeing the threads I mentioned.

 

Try power cycling the router

Try viewing the GUI in a different browser

You can try downgrading to the previous firmware and see if that solves it

 

If none of that works, contact Linksys as this seems to be a firmware bug (I read this many times on the linksys forums).

[goretsky Supervisor]

Hello,

Oh, did you check to see if the computer is randomizing its MAC address on network connections with DHCP leases?  Perhaps that could interfere with fingerprinting by the router.

 

Regards,

 

Aryeh Goretsky

[+BudMan MVC]

That their software doesn't allow you to assign policy based upon IP is just plain moronic... Since clearly whatever they are using for discovery of devices is junk..

 

As already mentioned a simple google shows that is a very common problem with their software.. If their discovery of devices on the local network is this flawed - why would you expect their control policies to work any better?

 

What exactly are you wanting to do and can prob point you to actual method that works   Filter a machines internet access based upon what exactly?  No p0rn, no non approved sites? what?

 

Do you know how they discover devices?  Normally this would be done with arp, since even firewalls don't block answering arp.   A reservation for a MAC should force it to be listed.. As mentioned you sure the mac is correct in the dhcpd reservation?  Maybe that was setup for the devices wifi, and now your on wire?

 

Validate the devices mac address currently be used.. Windows simple ipconfig /all will show you this.. And then validate that mac is what is listed in your reservation on your router.

[Brandon H Supervisor]

speaking as someone that owns a Linksys WRT1900AC I can tell you that their software and policy control is rather flaky; sometimes things work as expected and other times random features/policies just refuse.

 

I moved over to LEDE (now merged back into OpenWRT) and besides being much more stable I'm able to do more with it than I would have been able to.

I have a hard drive plugged in and shared locally and an Aria2 download server pointed to it running directly on the router now; built in ad blocking; and a few other things

[jnelsoninjax]

10 hours ago, BudMan said:

That their software doesn't allow you to assign policy based upon IP is just plain moronic... Since clearly whatever they are using for discovery of devices is junk..

 

As already mentioned a simple google shows that is a very common problem with their software.. If their discovery of devices on the local network is this flawed - why would you expect their control policies to work any better?

 

What exactly are you wanting to do and can prob point you to actual method that works   Filter a machines internet access based upon what exactly?  No p0rn, no non approved sites? what?

 

Do you know how they discover devices?  Normally this would be done with arp, since even firewalls don't block answering arp.   A reservation for a MAC should force it to be listed.. As mentioned you sure the mac is correct in the dhcpd reservation?  Maybe that was setup for the devices wifi, and now your on wire?

 

Validate the devices mac address currently be used.. Windows simple ipconfig /all will show you this.. And then validate that mac is what is listed in your reservation on your router.

It is setup in the DHCP reservation complete with MAC address filtering:

ShadzStore is the NAS

[+BudMan MVC]

Not sure how that answers my question.. Is the device that is not showing up actually using that mac?

 

That mac for 1.4 just comes back as ASUSTek COMPUTER INC., so is that the wireless or the wired nic?  And how is the device currently connected?

[jnelsoninjax]

7 hours ago, BudMan said:

Not sure how that answers my question.. Is the device that is not showing up actually using that mac?

 

That mac for 1.4 just comes back as ASUSTek COMPUTER INC., so is that the wireless or the wired nic?  And how is the device currently connected?

The device is wired via cat5 to the router and the motherboard is an Asus, it does not show up in the network map, but as I showed, it does show (even MAC address) under DHCP reservations,

@Circaflex I tried to access the GUI via Edge, and it does not work at all (won't even load, no error, just does not connect)

[+BudMan MVC]

2 hours ago, jnelsoninjax said:

it does show (even MAC address) under DHCP reservations,

And you actually validated this on the machine that that is the actual MAC??

 

it HAS to show the mac address on a reservation, since that is how it works!!  But for all we know someone set the static IP on the device to .4 and setup a reservation for wrong mac..   Maybe they setup that reservation for the wireless mac or something.

 

On the machine do a ipconfig /all and what does it show for the mac address?  For the interface currently being used?

 

 

Or maybe the mac is correct, but device is set static and never pulled the lease so the router doesn't think there a machine there because no lease was ever gotten for its reservation.  Does the device show dhcp is being used.. See I have it OFF on mine and IP is setup static..  

 

Do a ipconfig /release and then renew on the machine so your sure its pulling the lease from the router..

[jnelsoninjax]

9 hours ago, BudMan said:

And you actually validated this on the machine that that is the actual MAC??

 

it HAS to show the mac address on a reservation, since that is how it works!!  But for all we know someone set the static IP on the device to .4 and setup a reservation for wrong mac..   Maybe they setup that reservation for the wireless mac or something.

 

On the machine do a ipconfig /all and what does it show for the mac address?  For the interface currently being used?

 

 

Or maybe the mac is correct, but device is set static and never pulled the lease so the router doesn't think there a machine there because no lease was ever gotten for its reservation.  Does the device show dhcp is being used.. See I have it OFF on mine and IP is setup static..  

 

Do a ipconfig /release and then renew on the machine so your sure its pulling the lease from the router..

Thanks for the help so far @BudMan, when I get a chance (most likely this weekend) I will look into the issue more. Question: when assigning the system a static IP, is it better to let the router do it, or do it via Windows? Right now I am thinking that the issue might be like you said and I know that the .4 address is set via the network control panel in windows, should I set it to automatic and let the router handle assigning the IP address?

[Circaflex]

5 minutes ago, jnelsoninjax said:

Thanks for the help so far @BudMan, when I get a chance (most likely this weekend) I will look into the issue more. Question: when assigning the system a static IP, is it better to let the router do it, or do it via Windows? Right now I am thinking that the issue might be like you said and I know that the .4 address is set via the network control panel in windows, should I set it to automatic and let the router handle assigning the IP address?

Remove the entry from the Windows control panel and use DHCP reservation's on your router.

[jnelsoninjax]

8 minutes ago, Circaflex said:

Remove the entry from the Windows control panel and use DHCP reservation's on your router.

OK, that's what I will do, I am not sure why it is set in windows and the router, it was most likely an oversight on my part when I was troubleshooting.

[+BudMan MVC]

Well if how the system finds your machine is via it grabbing a dhcp lease.. The setting it on the machine is not going to be good for you

 

I normally run dhcp but you see above its static set because haven't gotten around to setting up new reservations as of yet, when I changed out nics and put in 2 so I could do smb3 multichannel.  I only showed the 1 there is another one with .101, but I don't have a gateway set on that interface because I don' want it used for outbound.  Only for talking smb3 multichannel to the NAS which is on the same vlan as my pc.

[goretsky Supervisor]

Hello,

 

This may be a silly question, but I don't think I saw it mentioned, so apologies in advance if this is a duplicate.

 

Have you contacted Linksys' technical support to see if there are any known issues with detecting PCs?  There might be something about the what it fingerprints the computer based on its networking stack or the NIC itself which prevents it from detecting it.

 

Another option might be to look at third-party firmware, as @Circaflex mentioned, or even install parental control software on the PC (which might be a non-starter is the user has administrative access).

 

Regards,

 

Aryeh Goretsky

 

[jnelsoninjax]

58 minutes ago, goretsky said:

Hello,

 

This may be a silly question, but I don't think I saw it mentioned, so apologies in advance if this is a duplicate.

 

Have you contacted Linksys' technical support to see if there are any known issues with detecting PCs?  There might be something about the what it fingerprints the computer based on its networking stack or the NIC itself which prevents it from detecting it.

 

Another option might be to look at third-party firmware, as @Circaflex mentioned, or even install parental control software on the PC (which might be a non-starter is the user has administrative access).

 

Regards,

 

Aryeh Goretsky

No, I have not contacted Linksys over this issue, I thought I would try my luck here, first. Regarding 3rd party firmware, I haven't looked into it, but I know that was one of the selling points on this router, and parental control software would not work because she has admin access, her dad st this up for her.

[+Matthew S. Subscriber²]

Some of the Linksys routers actually come with OpenWRT on them now, I know the WRT32X does (to my surprise, was wonder what the hell device on my network was running OpenWRT as I didn't install it lol...)