Static addressed devices disappear from not connected list

[Graham]

I have a NAS server with a static address on an Internet-Box 3. If the NAS is powered down for a time, the entry disappears from the Network->Device List->Not connected list.

This is a problem as the Wake-on LAN option disappears with it and I cannot power the NAS on using the VPN.  As I am 1,500kms from the NAS this is not very convenient when it happens.

If this issue has been addressed before, I have failed to find it.

Graham

[bitracer]

Have you tried assigning reserved IP using DHCP?

[Tchris]

Hi Graham.

Try Wikipedia for "Wake on LAN": the article is quite good.

Some comments on the Wikipedia article:

"Ensuring the magic packet travels from source to destination:

For example, in the router, the computer to be controlled needs to have a dedicated IP address assigned (aka a DHCP reservation). Also, since the controlled computer will be "sleeping" except for some electricity on to part of its LAN card, typically it will not be registered at the router as having an active IP lease."

NOTE that DHCP reservation != manually allocating a static address to the NAS (static != reserved).

I guess "the router" for you is the Swisscom Box ...does it do "reservations" (my router does, but is not Swisscom so I can't answer).

"Other machine states..."

My NAS, 20cm from my non-Swisscom router (and around 900cm from where I usually sit) REGULARLY appears to fail to wake on LAN ...but it is only the NAS wake-up delay: if I try again N seconds later it works fine. (N seems to be some positive exponential function of my blood-pressure).

"Wake on Internet"

A short section that might suggest a solution to your issue.

For humour (???), this section includes "some routers permit a packet received from the Internet to be broadcast to the entire LAN." ...mmm, that would be outright stupid, but would probably solve your issue for the 20 minutes before you lost everything.

Chris

EDIT corrected forgotten-italic & "

[Graham]

WOL works fine until the Internet-Box drops the NAS from the list of "Not Connected" devices. (4 weeks?)  Then there is no way send the WOL command to the NAS.

I can get it back with another VPN device, but I'd like to use the Internet Box as it is simpler (if it works...)

[bitracer]

Try with the DHCP reservation.

[Graham]

Hi Chris,

WOL works fine from the Internet-box.  It is just that the Internet-Box "forgets" the NAS after a few week's of inactivity and it disappears from the "not connected" list along with its WOL command.  

I used to program the NAS to start up automatically for a hour a week, but that was messy.

i would just like ensure the Internet-Box did not lose the entry  for NAS even though it has a static IP.

[Graham]

It does have a reservation.  192.168.1.4.

[Tchris]

Hi Graham,

Is it as simple as static-IP vs reserved-IP in the DHCP server????

ASIDE I had endless problems with some otherwise-clever "smart-managed" switches that delivered 10gps over CAT-5E cabling but just didn't understand reserved-IP (which I normally use for all infrastructure devices). I gave them static-IP and got rock-solid 10gps over crap cables for the past 3 years.

I hated the static-IP, but it worked (and maybe they fixed their firmware since).

Similarly (exactly oppositely!), persuade whatever is serving DHCP (to the network that NAS is living in) to give a reserved IP to the NAS.

If you have control over the DHCP-server, AND the DHCP-server understands reservations (we are back in the early 1990's for this not to be totally normal).

Find the DHCP-server GUI.

    Ensure your NAS address is not in DHCP-pool (change pool range and/or NAS address to suit)

    Reserve that address for NAS with DHCP-server.

Find your NAS GUI:

    Configure NAS to join the network via DHCP (not static address).

Midnight++ here: gone,

Chris

[Tchris]

Fumbling in the dark:

arp -a 

...sees my (currently sleeping) NAS (with a reserved IP)

...and a laptop with a reserved IP that is hard-OFF for the past 6 days.

NAS did not wake with the arp-tickle (of course).

NAS is a current resource on the Mac I'm typing at now, but NAS has not been accessed for over 12 hours.

ping my.nas.reserved.address

...Request timeout for icmp_seq 0 (..seq 999)

NAS sleeps: ping won't fix it.

If t'was my problem, I might try with something like a remotely executable script to send the "magic WoL packet" ...but I don't normally play with this stuff: I wish you luck but I'm out, sorry.

Chris

[Graham]

Thanks Chris

I think that the issue is really an Internet-Box software issue rather than anything to do with WOL and IP/Ethernet.  The Internet-Box knocks anything that BT produces into a cocked hat - particularly their VOIP offerings.

I think that I'll bother Swisscom when I am back in the country.

Graham

[Tchris]

Hi Graham,

Don't wait!

This is not an officialy-monitored Swisscom forum, so you only get unofficial opinion (with rare interventions from Swisscom).

Contact Swisscom direct: they are usually pretty responsive to subscribers for simple problems (and yours is a problem that is at least simply-expressed, if not simply resolved).

regards, Chris

[bitracer]

That’s not true, Swisscom employees monitor the forum. You see the replies in the threads.

I wouldn’t wait either. Set the DHCP reservation and see how that goes.

[Tchris]

My statement is precisely true!

Swisscom-folk visit (and occasionally intervene).

But posting on this forum is NOT the same as me-customer  telling Swisscom-supplier  "Your stuff doesn't work as advertised - fix it, or I'm gone!" .

..this never happened to me: whenever I had issues they got swiftly and professionally fixed by Swisscom.

I've happily lived with Swisscom's plusses and minuses for many decades: expensive(yes); responsive(yes); works (yes - or else!!!!), future: who knows?  Fibre is 20m from my home ...who will offer me FTH first?

Chris

[bitracer]

Of course, for that you have the Customer Support. This is hardly a case of “fix or else”.

[Tchris]

@bitracer 

Agreed (not an or-else!! case)...

...at least for my situation where I don't need to access my NAS from a remote site 1,500km distant). Personally, I don't want anybody (including sysadmin-me) accessing any part of my network from more than 15m distant (and admin-VLAN is wired-only on a couple of ports so just 2m).

If I were 1,500km distant, I might have a different opinion.

I had a look at remote-WoL this afternoon: it is Layer-2 broadcast stuff, so not obvious (to simple-minded me) how you would get the WoL magic packet safely through a Router (Swisscom or otherwise) without being "virtually inside" the LAN (VPN). Once VPN-ed into the LAN, the Swisscom router is out of the equation: not guilty; not innocent; not there as far as WoL is concerned! 

The internet (as always) proposes various kludges for forwarding WoL packets, sometimes with some sort of security (a password) to deter Smurf & friends, sometimes using Arduino or R-Pi hardware. I only skimmed it since I have no interest in implementing remote-WoL myself.

IP-Directed-Broadcast seems to be blocked/off-by-default on just about everything these days (blame Smurf & friends, not Swisscom).

Good-luck to Graham, but I guess VPN is his only route.

Chris

[Tchris]

The reserved  vs static issue:

Somewhere up above, arp -a successfully finds my (sleeping) NAS: the DHCP reservation associates the NAS MAC-address with an IP-address somewhere in bowels of the DHCP-server: my NAS is there (sleeping or otherwise), but its MAC and IP addresses are both known to the network!

Contrast with assigning a static IP-address to NAS: sure it will be able to claim that IP-address (unless you screwed up and static IP is in DHCP-pool or statically given to more than one device), and sure it will have the same MAC-address (if you are still using the same ethernet port on the NAS).

...but WoL is Layer-2 (MAC-addressed, not IP-addressed)

...and doesn't give a damn about IP-addrersses

...gimme the MAC-address!

...if the device went to sleep, nothing on the network can provide the MAC-address!

Chris

[bitracer]

@Graham have you considered placing the files you need frequently on cloud storage service like myCloud (or iCloud, Google Drive, OneDrive, Dropbox, ...).

Or just keep the NAS permanently on. It will go to sleep and spin down the drives when not in use.

[Graham]

The Internet-Box holds a mapping of MAC to IP reservations for DHCP.  This is persistent.

The only place where the WOL command appears on the Internet-Box (as far as I am aware) is in the "Not Connected" list.  This list is not persistent, with entries ageing and disappearing over time.  It would be convenient if those entries which had a reserved IP did not "age".  I think this is a new problem that I did not have in previous version of the software/hardware.

I do have a back door VPN which is functional, but messy -  the VPN is L3 and WOL is L2...

I have found Swisscom's Customer Service to be excellent in the past, so I am sure that when I contact them next month, I will get an excellent response. I wish other Telco's were half as good.

Thank you for all the useful comments.

Graham

[Graham]

It did occur to me, but in today's energy world, I would feel bad about leaving it on.  It is only a few watts, but...

Graham

[bitracer]

It doesn't make sense to make this list persistent. It would show every device that has ever connected to the network even if it will never be connected again. That fits your use case but it's not really a universal solution.

Try the approach with the DHCP reservation.