I am trying to recover a LHG5 which suddenly has IP address 0.0.0.0 (don’t know how that happened, hopefully will discover that later).
To do this I try to connect to it using Winbox via MAC address.
This fails with a red ERROR: could not connect to (mac address).
As I have no idea what is going on here, I never use this mode, I tried other devices but no matter what I try they all return this same error.
Is there some secret thing about this? And is there more detail what the cause may be?
I tried it as well on my Linux system where I run winbox under wine and I can trace the network, I see an exchange of several
packets between PC and router but apparently it fails. Not clear why.
How do I debug this so I can try to access the LHG again?
(which I have to do over an RDP connect to a Windows PC at the remote end of the LHG, which is still bridging traffic)
I already tried running as administrator, disabling firewall and disabling a second ethernet interface present in the machine…
Normally it just works, as long as you didn’t disable MAC access on given interface (although I’ve seen it fail once or twice for no apparent reason, so it’s possible). From your description, I’m not sure if you only have Windows to work with, and with Linux it was only independent test, but in case you can use Linux, you can also try MAC telnet (https://github.com/haakonnessjoen/MAC-Telnet). Another way is MAC telnet from other RouterOS device. Or (but this is becoming a little desperate) a CHR started in e.g. WMware Player could work too, if there’s no other physical RouterOS device available.
Try accessing via another router using ip neighbour and then right-click to open with Mac-telnet
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The mac telnet works between other routers, I verified that, but unfortunately this LHG5 does not have it enabled on its wlan interface
and there is no further MikroTik device behind it on the ethernet side. Just a Windows PC.
I get that there is no “mac-telnet.exe” tool that would work from Windows, it can only be done from another MikroTik.
What I don’t understand is that although the config for mac-server and mac-telnet is the same, the same device can be connected
using MAC telnet but not using Winbox. So I was looking at things that might be too restricted on the computers used for the access
but I have been unable to find it.
Check no av, firewall or virtual box on pc. Also try a fixed IP address…
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I downloaded the above MAC telnet on my Linux box and I got it compiled, but I cannot connect to
my own router on my LAN using this, just like from the winbox.exe running under wine.
(even after enabling it for all interfaces)
It is apparently something I am missing…
Someone will go to the LHG5 site today and factory reset it…
pe1chl are you using a laptop?
Sometimes it helps to disable one of the interfaces not being use (e.g. disabling wireless if using cable or viceversa).
Have a look at RoMON, a truly lifesaver.
The windows machine is not a laptop, but it has two ethernet interfaces.
I have already disabled the other interface temporarily but there was no difference.
I’m not sure how RoMON can resolve this situation, is there a RoMON for Windows?
I’ve had this issue on one device. IP went to 0.0.0.0, couldn’t connect by MAC on lan. Hard reset and reconfigure worked, but later on the same day it went back to 0.0.0.0. I replaced it after the 2nd time. Mine wasn’t an LHG5, it was a Hex Lite. I never tried a firmware update, felt like a hardware defect.
This one has been replaced as well to further debug the issue. It is unclear what is happening.
At this moment, MAC telnet works from the wlan side. So when IP again changes, I can try that.
Regarding RoMON: have a look at https://wiki.mikrotik.com/wiki/Manual:RoMON
Rick Frey published a very llustrative/illustrated article.
Don’t need any special software, Winbox has built-in RoMON support.
Regarding the LHG, it may be defective.
But I fail to see how it could help me recover a broken down device where it was not enabled.
I thought you mean RoMON could be used to transport MAC level access from outside to the PC on the inside and then relayed to the LHG, but
that does not appear to be the case.
At the moment, MAC telnet and winbox are enabled on the outside interface and it works.
Now we’ll get to see if they still work when it next breaks down.
Maybe I’ll enable RoMON, but frankly I have not been in the situation that RoMON tries to solve, probably because the network is solidly designed and does not use NAT.
Regarding the LHG, it may be defective.
I am very interested in the kind of defect that would cause this behaviour…
(IP address resetting to 0.0.0.0 and bridge function from ethernet to wlan still working and transporting traffic)
If anything, I more suspect “Quickset” in the hands of a novice operator.
RoMON isn’t enabled by default, so had to do this most of the time when facing these situations:
1.- Connect to neighbor router (or any router) displaying the target device in ip > neighbors
2.- Connect to target router from neighbor router by mac-telnet
3.- /tool romon set enabled=yes
4.- done
I think you still don’t realize what RoMON is for; doesn’t have anything to do with good or bad design, but with an completely independent management layer. (it works at ethernet frame level)
I know that, but it is only required once you have locked yourself out and that tends to occur more
often in badly designed networks.
Still, I do not get how I could have used RoMON to recover from an already bad situation.
I believed you wanted to suggest that I could use RoMON to get inside the network and then connect
back to the LHG (which had MAC-telnet and MAC-winbox enabled on ether1). However, RoMON does
not appear to provide such functionality, it only connects between routers that are L2 connected and
already have RoMON enabled at the time you require it.