Can't ping routers' gateway address

I have a simple router config problem that is giving me grief, can’t seem to solve it. Running 6.0rc6 on all routers (maybe THAT’s the problem!)

I have two Routers: A and B. (A) uplinks to the internet (eg: eth1, 1.1.1.2/31, gw: 1.1.1.1), and has a private net (10.20.1.1/24) on eth2. Eth2 is links to router (B).

On Router (B) I have three interfaces:

  • eth1 (10.20.1.2/24) which links back to router (A).
  • eth2 (10.21.1.1/24)
  • eth3 (10.22.1.1/24)

I have devices on the eth2 and eth3 segments (10.21.1.10 and 10.22.1.10, and some DHCP clients, etc).

I have static routes on Router (A):

  • dst-address 10.21.1.0/24: gateway 10.20.1.2 (reachable)
  • dst-address 10.22.1.0/24: gateway 10.20.1.2 (reachable)
    Also, I have default route of 0.0.0.0/0 on Router (B) to send back up to router a at 10.20.1.1 (reachable), and the same on router (a) to 1.1.1.1.

From router (A), I can ping the devices on eth2 and eth3 fine (10.21.1.10 and 10.22.1.10), and those devices can ping anything, including the internet just fine.

Problem: I cannot ping the gateway addresses on eth2/eth3 on Router (B) 10.21.1.1, or 10.22.1.1 from Router (A) (which means anything upstream from router A as well cannot ping these addresses).

When I attempt a ping from Router A (Mikrotik) to GW on Router B eth2 or eth3, (10.21.1.1 or 10.22.1.1) I get a bunch of “redirect host” replies and TTL timeouts. ???

Other weird observations: When I ping the gateway from the router that owns that gateway (eg, pinging 10.21.1.1 from router (B) ping tool, it replies but the reply times are 2-8ms – which makes no sense since it’s ON THE SAME ROUTER, should be ~0ms. All devices can get out to the internet. And all non-router devices can ping all other non-router devices. I just can’t ping the router gateway ip addresses on Router (B) on eth2 or eth3. I can ping the gateway addresses on Router (A) just fine (10.20.1.1 and 1.1.1.2) from anywhere.

Any ideas helpful!

Sounds like an addressing/routing issue. Can you upload the routing tables from the 2 routers?

So to be accurate to this routing table, I’m trying to ping (from Router A) any of these:

  • 10.20.1.1 or
    10.21.1.1 or
    10.22.1.1 or
    10.30.1.1

I replaced the first three digits of the public IP with 1.1.1:

Router A:

DST-ADDRESS PREF-SRC GATEWAY DISTANCE

0 A S 0.0.0.0/0 ether6-pub 2
1 A S 10.2.1.0/24 10.20.1.201 1
2 ADC 10.20.1.0/24 10.20.1.1 ether1-priv 0
3 ADC 10.20.1.201/32 10.20.1.1 0
4 A S 10.21.1.0/24 10.20.1.2 1
5 A S 10.22.1.0/24 10.20.1.2 1
6 ADC 1.1.1.2/32 1.1.1.2 ether6-pub 0Router B:

DST-ADDRESS PREF-SRC GATEWAY DISTANCE

0 A S 0.0.0.0/0 10.20.1.1 1
1 ADC 10.20.1.0/24 10.20.1.2 ether2 0
2 ADC 10.21.1.0/24 10.21.1.1 ether1 0
3 ADC 10.22.1.0/24 10.22.1.1 ether4 0
4 ADC 10.30.1.0/24 10.30.1.1 ether3 0Router B Addresses:

ADDRESS NETWORK INTERFACE

0 10.20.1.2/24 10.20.1.0 ether2
1 10.30.1.1/24 10.30.1.0 ether3
2 10.22.1.1/24 10.22.1.0 ether4
3 10.21.1.1/24 10.21.1.0 ether1Ping Example:
[admin@RouterA] > ping 10.22.1.1
HOST SIZE TTL TIME STATUS
10.20.1.20 84 64 5ms redirect host
10.20.1.20 84 64 48ms redirect host
10.20.1.20 84 64 127ms redirect host
10.20.1.20 84 64 287ms redirect host
10.20.1.20 84 64 465ms TTL exceeded
10.20.1.20 84 64 7ms redirect host
10.20.1.20 84 64 463ms TTL exceeded
10.20.1.20 84 64 1ms redirect host
10.20.1.20 84 64 423ms TTL exceeded
sent=3 received=0 packet-loss=100%

Had a very quick look while drinking coffee and didn’t see a reason for the problem. Could you try a trace route?

Here’s the traceroute. It never finishes…
[admin@RouterA] /tool> traceroute 10.21.1.1

ADDRESS RT1 RT2 RT3 STATUS

1 10.20.1.20 2ms 1ms 1ms
2 10.20.1.1 2ms 1ms 1ms
3 10.20.1.20 3ms 3ms 5ms
4 10.20.1.1 2ms 3ms 3ms
5 10.20.1.20 0ms 4ms 0ms
6 10.20.1.1 4ms 5ms 3ms
7 10.20.1.20 5ms 0ms 6ms
8 10.20.1.1 6ms 5ms 5ms
9 10.20.1.20 0ms 7ms 0ms
10 10.20.1.1 12ms 8ms 7ms
11 10.20.1.20 7ms 0ms 11ms
12 10.20.1.1 12ms 10ms 10ms
13 10.20.1.20 0ms 18ms 0ms
14 10.20.1.1 49ms 69ms 96ms
15 10.20.1.20 22ms 0ms 52ms
16 10.20.1.1 92ms 86ms 34ms
17 10.20.1.20 0ms 89ms 0ms
18 10.20.1.1 39ms 90ms 63ms
19 10.20.1.20 24ms 16ms 0ms
20 10.20.1.1 93ms 96ms 34ms
21 10.20.1.20 18ms 0ms 26ms
22 10.20.1.1 107ms 32ms 20ms
23 10.20.1.20 0ms 142ms 0ms
24 10.20.1.1 110ms 143ms 54ms
25 10.20.1.20 49ms 45ms 0ms
26 10.20.1.1 118ms 149ms 56ms
27 10.20.1.20 44ms 0ms 184ms
28 10.20.1.1 160ms 59ms 42ms
29 10.20.1.20 0ms 187ms 177ms
30 10.20.1.1 72ms 50ms 42ms
31 10.20.1.20 0ms 161ms 0ms
32 10.20.1.1 115ms 120ms 45ms

Where is the address 10.20.1.20 assigned to?

10.20.1.20 is a wirless radio (UBNT Rocket) that is physically connected to ether2 on Router (B). It is pingable from both Routers. It’s responsible for one end of the link between the routers. On the Router (A) side, there is another corresponding radio device at 10.20.1.13 connected to ether6.

Suggest you check the ARP table on router A and see what MAC address it thinks the ping target it is on. I

This where my skills aren’t as good.

On Router (A), I went ip->arp and printed the ARP table. I deleted (from the list here) entries that are not in the 10.x subnet. I don’t see any 10.21.x.x or 10.22.x.x in the ARP table. I do see 10.20.1.20 in there, and those pings would pass through that device, but that’s not the target’s MAC address.
[admin@RouterA] /ip arp> p
Flags: X - disabled, I - invalid, H - DHCP, D - dynamic

ADDRESS MAC-ADDRESS INTERFACE

5 D 10.20.1.13 00:27:22:8A:A1:ED ether1-priv
7 D 10.20.1.20 00:27:22:8A:A7:2C ether1-priv
8 D 10.20.1.50 00:27:22:DE:87:EA ether1-priv
9 D 10.20.1.10 DC:9F:DB:14:9A:76 ether1-priv
17 D 10.20.1.195 00:27:22:DE:87:EA ether1-priv
18 D 10.20.1.2 00:27:22:8A:A7:2C ether1-privDo I need to be looking in the IP / Neighbor list?

If you look at those ARP entries the problem seems to be that the same MAC address is showing for 10.20.1.20 and 10.20.1.2 even although 10.20.1.2 is assigned to router B.

I suspect this is being caused by something in the configuration of the radio devices. The ping request to is probably being circled around until the TTL expires.

Ah ha. You just helped me solve this. Thanks very much!

Here’s the rest of the story:

The :2C MAC is the radio (Ubiquiti Rocket M5) on the receiving radio (connected to Router B), and is responsible for all traffic to Router B. I’m using a Ubiquiti Radio and it has what is called a “WDS Transparency mode” that is disabled by default. This mode does what (I now know) is called ARP NAT – it presents itself on behalf of all other MAC addresses on the other side of the network. I don’t know why this would be disabled by default, it should be enabled, but whatever. I turned WDS on and those ARP entries are now reflected on Router A and everything pings now as it should.

What I still don’t understand (but doesn’t block me) is: How could it still ping other devices through Router B. Curious, but I’m up and running.

Thanks again.