Cant ping or SSH into my raspberry pi

[rageagainstmachine]

I have just changed my router recently from a sky stock model, to a TP link VR2800. All devices on my network appear to have adjusted ok to the new router with the exception of my raspberry pi. I am not sure if what it is doing now is correct behaviour, but its certainly different to what it was previously. Let me explain.

 

My raspberry pi is a dedicated torrent downloading device, hardwired, which I have given a static IP to .37.  I have Open VPN installed with a connection to IPVanish. I have Transmission installed to download my favourite linux distros, and I can remotely access the device from my phone as I have forwarded port 9092 to 192.169.0.37 (raspberry pi address).  This setup has been working flawlessly on my old router \nd my now new router. Howver,  I can now no longer SSH in to it, nor ping it.

 

I can see the raspberry pi on my router dashboard with the right IP address assigned, but I am unable to ping the device from either my laptop or my phone. Would the VPN on the raspberry pi prevent me pinging?

My torrent box actually seems to be working as expected, however, my issue is I cannot now SSH into it in anyway shape or form. I don’t even get to the username and password. its like SSH has been disabled by PI, but when  I checked, its still on. I am still finding my feet with my router, but is it possible that the new router is blocking me from SSH? Or is it possible that the VPN is blocking me SSH in to it? I never had an issue with SSH like this on my old router.

 

Any help would be gratefully received.

 

Thanks.

[+BudMan MVC]

your running the vpn on the pi, then yeah that could for sure block you from accessing it on the local network, or from any network other then the vpn.

[rageagainstmachine]

weird how I was able to SSH into using my old router though. 

[+BudMan MVC]

Was the vpn on the router before?  if the vpn is set on the client, and its set to route all traffic out the vpn - then yeah it can cause exactly what your seeing.

[rageagainstmachine]

No the OPENVPN has always been running on my pi. Literally haven't changed anything on my pi. 

[BritBronco]

I assume you kept the same network setup? 192.168.0.0/24? if that changed and the PI is still on that you would have issues. Can you hook up a screen and keyboard and log into the pi directly and see if it can access the network correctly?

[rageagainstmachine]

Hi mate. Well, I think I did! But let me see if I can do what you suggest. The /24 is a submask of 255.255.255.0, right? My router is definitely 192.168.0.1 as it was before. 

 

 

Now, I'm running retropie so it will boot straight into that splashscreen. You wouldn't know how I could do as you suggest, would you? 

[+BudMan MVC]

Here is the thing - your router has ZERO do to with you access it from another machine on the same network..   ZERO!!  Firewall running on pi?

 

Example

your router is 192.168.0.1/24

so you have 2 machines on this network

192.168.0.42/24

and say

192.168.0.37/24

 

When .42 wants to talk to .37 your router could BE OFF!!  Has nothing to do with the conversation..

 

Are your clients both wired or wireless?  Your new router might have say AP isolation on, which prevents wireless from talking to wired, or wireless devices talking from talking to each other, etc.  When you ping the pi IP from your client, do you even get back its mac address?  Look in your clients arp table.

 

edit:  Well you can not turn if off if also your switch or providing wifi   But you get my meaning I hope.

[rageagainstmachine]

Just checked and AP isolation is not enabled. Not aware of the pie having a firewall enabled, but will try and check. 

 

My pi is wired, and my phone and laptop both WiFi 

[+BudMan MVC]

can you try from something wired, is your wifi set to "guest" mode they also would not be able to access wired devices.

 

I would think you should be able to plug your laptop into a wire.

[rageagainstmachine]

That's a good shout Budman. Currently reinstalling win on laptop, but will try as you suggest over next day or two. Pretty sure guest WiFi is not even enabled but will double check 

[DaveLegg Developer]

If you set the IP static on the Pi, have you checked that the .37 IP address doesn't fall into the DHCP scope used by the new router? It might have handed out that IP address to another client on the network causing a conflict

[rageagainstmachine]

My DHCP starts from 0.100 up to 0.254 and my pi is static on 0.37. 

 

I'm now starting to wonder if I was only able to ssh the pi previously with its VPN enabled because of the sky DNS issue I was having. Like a by chance scrnerio. Maybe, as Budman says, this is now expected behavior. 

 

My thoughts today are:

 

Wondering if its possible to run the VPN on the router instead of the pi, removing it completely from the pi. In my head (not sure if this is even possible) could I configure the routers VPN to operate for either a set range of local IPs, say 0.30 to 0.40,or allow it be active for a specific subnet only, 1.0 to 1.254? Then change the static ip of router to 1.37? I don't particularly want the rest of my devices /traffic to sit behind a vpn. 

 

Also Budman. No difference hardwiring the laptop. Still cannot ping. Should have mentioned, i also have a NAS with a static ip of 0.26 which doesn't currently give me any issue. Pingable from both wired and wireless devices. 

[+BudMan MVC]

Well turn off the vpn on you pi, can you now get to it?

 

What router do you have - you can for sure run vpn on router and then just policy route what devices on your network you want to use the vpn..  This is clicky cickity on say pfsense.

[rageagainstmachine]

Seems like a logical thing to do, and I would have done that earlier however I currently not sure I can. The VPN starts automatically with a script when ever the pi it boots up., therfore I'd have done this via an ssh command previously. I think I will need to reimage the raw retropie OS on to its sd card, and then ssh back in all my code with the exception of the VPN. Not a huge task but will take me a few hours in-between family life. 

 

It's a TP link Archer vr2800. Would welcome your thoughts on the art of the possible regards the VPN implementation on this device. My VPN provider is Ipvanish

 

Thanks mate 

[+BudMan MVC]

That is gateway device is it not?  Ie modem/router combo - I doubt it has such functionality, and you prob can not run 3rd party firmware that would support it.

 

Can you not console in to the pi, or just use a keyboard and mouse to interact with it to turn off the vpn?  Maybe it block it from access vpn, or disconnect it from the internet network for a while to disable the script?

[rageagainstmachine]

It is, but does have VPN support for various protocols including OPENVPN. 

 

 

[+BudMan MVC]

As a client?  Or as a server - there is a HUGE difference..

 

From the emulator I just hit - looks like just server

[rageagainstmachine]

Ye that's what my page looks like. So not useful then I take it? 

 

 

[+BudMan MVC]

Nope not if you want to policy route some clients behind to a vpn service.  Can you not just fire up a different router?  You have anything you can run pfsense on, or box you can setup VMs on that could be your router?

 

Also that they still over a PPTP as vpn server is scary!  That has not been secure in over 5 years for sure..   prob more like 7, 2012 is when it came apart I do believe..

 

From that interface sure looks like you can put it into bridge mode and just run a router behind it.

[rageagainstmachine]

Would I not therfore be better just returning it and buying a cheaper modem, and separate router? What parts can you recommend mate. Its needs to be capable of MER (option 61), for sky 

 

 

[Brandon H Supervisor]

  On 19/09/2019 at 13:35, rageagainstmachine said:

Would I not therfore be better just returning it and buying a cheaper modem, and separate router? What parts can you recommend mate. Its needs to be capable of MER (option 61), for sky 

 

 

Expand  

yes. for this and a few other reasons I always recommend having the router separate from the modem.

 

Main reasons are:

1. Combos tend to be more locked down as you've noticed
2. Combos don't get as frequent updates and can easily be left unpatched when a security flaw is found
3. Combos tend to have more of a bottleneck as well compared to separating them

Get a basic modem that's compatible with your service provider and a router capable of using OpenWRT and your possibilities will be almost endless

Asus routers are also great as there is an extended firmware based on the official one called Merlin and it adds a bunch of useful features and bug fixes while keeping the native interface.

[rageagainstmachine]

  On 19/09/2019 at 13:44, Brandon H said:

Get a basic modem that's compatible with your service provider and a router capable of using OpenWRT

Expand  

What about a Netgear DM200 Modem with an Asus RT-AC86U router?

[Brandon H Supervisor]

on a little research it looks like the ASUS routers support VPN but only OpenVPN; if that protocol works for your VPN then that router should work splendidly for you with the Merlin OS

https://www.asuswrt-merlin.net/about

 

it looks like the newer Asus routers don't support full 3rd party firmwares like OpenWRT though so if OpenVPN doesn't work for you you may want to look into another router brand like Netgear

 

for a similar price it looks like the Netgear Nighthawk X6 has good OpenWRT support

 

https://www.amazon.com/R8000-100NAS-Nighthawk-Tri-Band-Ethernet-Compatible/dp/B00KWHMR6G/ref=sr_1_3?keywords=netgear%2Br8000&qid=1568906256&s=gateway&sr=8-3&th=1

https://openwrt.org/toh/hwdata/netgear/netgear_r8000

[+BudMan MVC]

I would not suggest any of those soho routers, even if they support 3rd party to be honest... Get a real router, and then AP.. Yeah its even more separation.

 

Something like the sg1100 would be an entry level router.. $179 (price went up)

https://www.netgate.com/solutions/pfsense/sg-1100.html

 

Then a real AP, say uap-ac-lite or pro 80$ for the lite.

 

Then switch that can do vlans, say $40...

 

Now your talking $300...   But there would be pretty much nothing you couldn't do.