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Hidden Networks in TP-Link Routers

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Re: Hidden Networks in TP-Link Routers

#161

Post by datameta »

ceejayoz wrote: post #36
lordnacho wrote: post #32

I had a related problem with their PowerLine TPA-4220 devices yesterday. It turns out there's a DHCP server on it that you can't turn off! It's supposed to be smart and know when there's another DHCP server on the network, but it appears that this sometimes doesn't work. So I found that my laptop sometimes ends up configured on the wrong subnet, which of course kills the internet connection. The thing is, the web int…

I had a similar experience with my Netgear Orbi; they have a dual 2.4/5 GHz network on the same SSID, but certain devices just cannot handle it (including apparently Facebook's Oculus and quite a few smart home devices). Turns out you can split them up into separate SSIDs, but only by telnetting into your base station and each satellite and running some cryptic commands on each. It used to be possible via the web UI,…

Yep, smart bulbs from most manufacturers need 2.4GHz. Had to go back to owning my own router (thankfully) after a brief stint with the standard Spectrum one.

Re: Hidden Networks in TP-Link Routers

#162

Post by lsc36 »

I once bought a TP-Link Wifi router as it was pretty high-speced at the time and people recommended it. I was happy with it until it hijacked my HTTP connection to tell me there's a firmware update. Will never consider their products again.

Re: Hidden Networks in TP-Link Routers

#163

Post by hiptobecubic »

GekkePrutser wrote: post #154
mhitza wrote: post #12

This type of whackery is (the primary reason) why I try to buy computing devices on which I can flash a clean OS (OpenWrt/DD-WRT for routers)[1]. It sucks because it limits my choices down to a few, but at the same time I feel like I don't throw out money at abandonware. [1] don't even get me started on TP-Link releasing routers with the same name but v2/v3/2020/2021 update where it's hard to even know if I'm buying…

Yeah I used to get TP-Link because they were so well supported by openwrt and dd-wrt. But lately they've really become consumer hostile like with their smart plugs, removing local control functions so they can no longer be used with home automation systems :( For WiFi I moved to unifi but they're also becoming more difficult to work with. They are making it harder to use their stuff locally without their cloud servic…

In general, margins in hardware manufacturing are low. Companies will generally do anything they can to increase demand, and establishing a "moat" is a great way to inflate demand. "I have some stuff, but it only works with other stuff from this same company" sucks for us as buyers, but it's obviously great for the seller.

This is also why literally every company ever says that repairing anything they sell will void the warranty unless you also buy all the parts from them unless the law expressly forbids them from doing so.

Re: Hidden Networks in TP-Link Routers

#164

Post by mastazi »

mshockwave wrote: post #151
mastazi wrote: post #140

> Maybe it's finally time to build my own router Can anyone link a good "getting started" guide for this? I have experience managing servers but not managing network appliances, so I'm looking for a relatively gentle intro... Edit: I'm not asking about how to install OpenWRT on an existing router, I'm looking for a guide on how to build a router from general purpose hardware - in the same way that you can build your…

+1 on the same question. I actually saw some posts about x86_64 based router the other day (didn't mention how to build it though), wondered if that's a viable solution.

I saw a similar one for a Raspberry PI based router, but I don't know if that's a good start or not, I would still like to hear from someone with experience: https://www.seeedstudio.com/blog/2021/06/11/how-to-build-a-r...

Re: Hidden Networks in TP-Link Routers

#165

Post by kube-system »

mastazi wrote: post #140

> Maybe it's finally time to build my own router Can anyone link a good "getting started" guide for this? I have experience managing servers but not managing network appliances, so I'm looking for a relatively gentle intro... Edit: I'm not asking about how to install OpenWRT on an existing router, I'm looking for a guide on how to build a router from general purpose hardware - in the same way that you can build your…

OPNsense installs quite nicely on most x86 hardware. I have had a very good experience running it on a repurposed low-powered used 1U server appliance with a couple of good quality networking interfaces.

It's so easy, all you need to do is install from media, and configure one interface as LAN and the other as WAN. Plug in your internet into one interface and your LAN into the other. Configure it like you normally would configure a router, and you're done.

I'm running mine on a very old dual-core i5 with 4G of RAM and a 16GB SSD, and even this is overkill.

Re: Hidden Networks in TP-Link Routers

#166

Post by mastazi »

kube-system wrote: post #165
mastazi wrote: post #140

> Maybe it's finally time to build my own router Can anyone link a good "getting started" guide for this? I have experience managing servers but not managing network appliances, so I'm looking for a relatively gentle intro... Edit: I'm not asking about how to install OpenWRT on an existing router, I'm looking for a guide on how to build a router from general purpose hardware - in the same way that you can build your…

OPNsense installs quite nicely on most x86 hardware. I have had a very good experience running it on a repurposed low-powered used 1U server appliance with a couple of good quality networking interfaces. It's so easy, all you need to do is install from media, and configure one interface as LAN and the other as WAN. Plug in your internet into one interface and your LAN into the other. Configure it like you normally wo…

thank you! Years ago I remember looking into pfSense which appears to be related to OPNsense. Looking into it now!

Re: Hidden Networks in TP-Link Routers

#167

Post by kube-system »

mastazi wrote: post #166
kube-system wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OPNsense installs quite nicely on most x86 hardware. I have had a very good experience running it on a repurposed low-powered used 1U server appliance with a couple of good quality networking interfaces. It's so easy, all you need to do is install from media, and configure one interface as LAN and the other as WAN. Plug in your internet into one interface and your LAN into the other. Configure it like you normally wo…

thank you! Years ago I remember looking into pfSense which appears to be related to OPNsense. Looking into it now!

I had used pfSense for several years but I have had a better experience with OPNsense. OPNsense forked from pfSense.

Re: Hidden Networks in TP-Link Routers

#168

Post by louloulou »

aquafox wrote: post #14
louloulou wrote: post #10

Not sure what they mean by "build my own router", it's easy enough to flash open firmware on a lot of tp-link models. https://download1.dd-wrt.com/dd-wrtv2/downloads/betas/2021/1...

Tried it, but Wifi speed on the Archer C7 was significantly reduced.

Do you know the reason? In my case I just had to boost the power for the wifi a bit in the settings to improve the speed. But I never ran it with the original firmware, so have no point of comparison.

Re: Hidden Networks in TP-Link Routers

#169

Post by jvolkman »

mastazi wrote: post #140

> Maybe it's finally time to build my own router Can anyone link a good "getting started" guide for this? I have experience managing servers but not managing network appliances, so I'm looking for a relatively gentle intro... Edit: I'm not asking about how to install OpenWRT on an existing router, I'm looking for a guide on how to build a router from general purpose hardware - in the same way that you can build your…

My preference is to install Proxmox on a small x86 machine with enough NICs and virtualize OpenWRT. One could also virtualize OPNSense (or VyOS, which I ran previously), but for me, OpenWRT is enough. I use this to route gigabit WAN: https://www.reddit.com/r/homelab/comments/hzvfih/new_router_...

Re: Hidden Networks in TP-Link Routers

#170

Post by tradertef »

londons_explore wrote: post #136
r1ch wrote: post #117

For those curious about the "Wi-Fi spam" comment: even though nothing is connected to the network and it's a hidden SSID, it still has to broadcast beacons every 100ms. The 802.11 standard says beacons must be sent at the lowest rate the AP supports, so your ~350 byte beacon at 1mbps (2.4 GHz) uses around 5% of the frequency. It doesn't take many SSIDs on the same 2.4 GHz channel to make the throughput fall through t…

Would there have been a better way to do design beacons? The general problem is a device needing to advertise itself for other devices to connect to, other devices which might not be capable of any faster rate... Beacons being 350 bytes is pretty stupid though... They could have been 20 bytes long, saying "I'm a device with mac address XXX, plz contact me to know what services I have on offer".

There is out-of-band discovery for devices that support multiple bands. That should help in 6 GHz band but it looks more and more that 2.4 GHz will be only for discovery in the future..

https://www.extremenetworks.com/extreme-networks-blog/the-of...

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