A friend and I both ordered Vera routers and neither of us can get Vera to get on the internet (while our DD-WRT routers are working like a charm). I’ve attached my syslog file for reference. The common thing for both of us is that we are both using a Motorolla SB5120 modem from Comcast. Any ideas?
Can you clarify how your network is setup? Do you have an existing dhcp server? Is it connected to Vera’s WAN port? Or did you connect the WAN port directly to the Motorolla? If so, does the Motorolla give out IP addresses over DHCP (which they usually do)? If so, did you try unplugging the Motorolla, waiting 5 minutes, and then turning it back on? Usually cable modems will only give out 1 IP address, and so if your pc was previously connected and got one, it won’t give one to Vera unless you reset it.
Nothing special in terms of network. This is a standard one router setup using vera as my main router(letting vera do the DHCP for my network), with 2 other computers hanging off that - no other existing DHCP server. Yes, the Motorolla cable modem is connected to the WAN. I believe you are correct in that the motorolla gives out a “local” ip (192.x.x.x) initially until it obtains an outside IP from Comcast. It then passes this IP through so that the router WAN IP is no longer a local (192.x.x.x) ip.
I’ve (re)tried the your suggestion and it is still not working. This time I left the cable modem off for a long time (>5min), then plugged in the modem, waited for it to completely start up, then plugged in my vera router, and let it start up. I’ve noticed that my vera router will very quickly give my computer a standard IP (192.168.81.x), then the NIC says that the link is broken, then finally good again. At this point, I can then access vera’s internal configuration webpage…
Your cable modem may be trying to register only 1 mac address. Comcast may have the mac address of your previous router and since the vera’s mac address is different, It wont provide internet access. My own personal opinion is that you should run the vera device in “switch” mode and assign it a static IP behind another router such as a WRT54GL. Let the WRT54GL handle your network and use the vera device as just a Home automation device. It’s less taxing on on the Vera box to run it as a switch instead of it providing the gateway and all the other services.
Your cable modem may be trying to register only 1 mac address.Thank you for your comment Mark - This got me thinking about the reason why the cable modems require a reset - back when I was playing around with DD-WRT, I found that I only needed to reset the modem when the MAC address was changed (through a clone operation on my DD-WRT or by just plugging in another router).
So, logged on to my DD-WRT router and cloned the MAC address of the WAN port to that of the Vera’s WAN MAC address. I then repeated the standard procedure using my cloned DD-WRT router (unplug, wait, plug back in in the correct order) thinking that this would “register a new MAC address” in my modem. Finally, I replaced my cloned DD-WRT router with Vera.
I can now plug Vera into my modem, and everything works…I now have internet, but the issue is not resolved. This isn’t very satisfying and I’m sure will frustrate MANY people who may run into the same problem. I can clone my DD-WRT router to any MAC address and it works fine. What does the DD-WRT router do differently that allows it to talk correctly with my modem?
Micasa - what diagnostics would you need to see in order to find the issue? I was thinking I could use 2 NICs and bridge them so that I can use wireshark to record the difference between the two transfers. Alternatively, are there log files that can be generated by Vera for comparison? I thought the syslog may help, but maybe not?
Thanks for your help!
I’m glad to see you have it working. I’m not sure how comcast works really. I am using Shaw which is a canadian ISP. I currently have a firewall/router connected to my cable modem. Behind that I have a few different routers feeding different subnets. Whenever I add something like Vera to the system, I always plug it directly into my laptop and set it up how I’d like it before implementing it into the network. I’ve found it solves many issues with collisions,DHCP,etc.
For example Vera claims that if you plug into one of the 1-4 LAN ports instead of the WAN it goes into “switch mode”.This feature is reliably implemented by vera. It is a nice automated feature, but it takes the same amount of time to go through and make sure the settings are correct afterwards, that you might as well manually set it up outside of your network first instead of trusting everything to fall in place. this insures things working the first time, allowing you to move on.
raven_mhal… I want to be sure I understand what happened so we can try to work around it… Did you conclude in the end the problem was that your Comcast cable modem was only providing an ip address to a single mac address, and that even after resetting the cable modem, it wouldn’t give Vera an IP address?
If so, do you have any suggestion for dealing with it? I mean if whatever you connect Vera to refuses to give Vera an IP address, is there something you think we could do to solve this?
Did you conclude in the end the problem was that your Comcast cable modem was only providing an ip address to a single mac address, and that even after resetting the cable modem, it wouldn't give Vera an IP address?This is correct, however the "single mac address" is NOT static - it is dynamic in that it can be changed between reboots of the modem. This is the reason for the suggestion to ensure that the modem has been rebooted. The issue is that even after rebooting the modem, for some reason the new mac address used by Vera is not being "registered." The only way to get around this is by using a DD-WRT router to register Vera's MAC address by going through the process that I've already outlined below. This seems to indicate that something is wrong with Vera.
I mean if whatever you connect Vera to refuses to give Vera an IP address, is there something you think we could do to solve this?It's not that the modem is refusing to give Vera an IP address. Vera is refusing to "register" a new MAC address with the modem, unlike any other router out on the market, so the modem cannot give out an IP. This makes me think that there is something that you can to do solve this.
Looks like a wireshark capture is possibly in order…
Thanks!
Vera is refusing to "register" a new MAC address with the modem
I’m not sure what you mean by “register”. I don’t know of any concept of “registering” a mac address. What Vera does is simply make a DHCPREQUEST with Vera’s MacAddress. This is broadcast packet, so any dhcp server should respond and give Vera an IP address (ie a dhcp lease).
One important thing: Vera will ONLY attempt to get an IP address on the WAN port. Even if Vera goes into switch mode, the DHCP request is only on the WAN port; not the 4 LAN ports. So you must connect the cable modem to Vera on the WAN port. Is that what you did? If so, it should just work. I have a Motorola cable modem and Comcast service at home.
My cable modem (from Cablevision) requires that I physically unscrew the Coax cable from the modem before it will request and assign a new IP.
Note: I did not believe this at all until I was trying to replace my old Linksys WAP with a new 802.11G one last year. Turned it off, hard reset, reboot, etc. Would never recognize the new router/WAP until I unscrewed the coax, left off for several minutes, then screwed it back on. I still think it’s bizarre… but it is a cable company after all.
When I received Vera, I unscrewed the coax from cable modem, unplugged it, connected Vera to cable modem and reconnected it to the coax. Worked fine.
Guys, may be it’s better to pull out that idea that Vera can be used instead of a normal router? The mere fact that Vera is router based doesn’t necessarily means using it as a router must be officially supported – as it can be seen above it’s a straight path to a trouble.
If the goal is to make it hassle-free for non-techies you probably should declare this option as “very advanced”, or there will many RMA that could be avoided…
It works absolutely great as a router and wireless access point. Zero issues with it. I plugged the sucker in exactly the same way I would a linksys or dlink or airport, etc. My cable modem just has to be unscrewed from the cable coax, that’s all.
It’s base chassis is originally a router.
My cable modem (from Cablevision) requires that I physically unscrew the Coax cable from the modem before it will request and assign a new IP.Thank you for the suggestion anthonyris - I'll try this tonight to see if this works.
As 325xi stated - I’m not fully convinced that Vera is really ready for primetime when it comes to acting as a router. I used the term “register” as it is the only thing that closely resembles what is happening. I am unfamiliar with how the Motorolla modem really works on a packet level, so I’ll see what learning I can do from this wireshark capture…
So you must connect the cable modem to Vera on the WAN port. Is that what you did? If so, it should just work.Yes, this is what I did and also the reason why I'm so perplexed. You're right, it should just work...
(Vera as a router) is a straight path to a trouble
I'm not fully convinced that Vera is really ready for primetime when it comes to acting as a router.
I’m not sure I read anything that indicates Vera is doing anything differently than any other router. It sounds like the problem is that the Comcast cable modem isn’t giving out an IP address, right? Perhaps because it’s still “locked” on to the other mac until you remove the cable and let it sit idle for a while. From what I understand, you’d still have the same problem if you bought another router and Vera; any router would still have the same issue, right?
Update: I’m now talking to raven_mhal on IM. Here is my suggestion for debugging this:
) boot up Vera with nothing attached to the WAN port. Vera will go into gateway mode.
2) connect your pc to the lan port and give your pc an ip address of 192.168.81.2 (static ip), netmask 255.255.255.0. Vera always binds to ip 192.168.81.1 whether in switch mode or gateway mode so you can always find Vera on that ip.
3) from your PC, open a web browser to http://192.168.81.1 to get into Vera, and go into ‘Advanced’, ‘Logs’ and enable verbose logs.
4) now turn off Vera and connect it like it should be connected. Power on Vera.
5) from your PC, run telnet 192.168.81.1 to log into Vera. Then from Vera’s console do:
cd /var
tail -f log.NetworkMonitor_bin
That will show you all the logs from the Network Monitor, which is what handles auto configuration
It seems like I’ve got a very similar setup as mark-hc.
I too would plug directly into Vera to do the initial setup, then plug it into my router that handles DHCP, mac filtering, etc… My setup seems to work just perfectly.
I’m just wondering how Vera’s VPN option will work when I start playing around with that feature.
Anyway, I think the Motorolla SB5120 modem from Comcast is to blame, not Vera.
I am interested to see how all this turns out in the end. I hope Micasaverde or raven_mhal give us an update.
I have setup my Vera at home with a Cisco router on DSL and it works perfectly.
Last night I took a new Vera unit to my dad’s house and was setting it up on a Motorola modem through Comcast and never got an IP as mentioned by others here. I will try the disconnection of the coax idea.
For now, I had to use the original Dell router he was using as a mediator and it works that way. I blame the Motorola box. The old Surfboard product has a pretty ugly interface with rather limited features itself.