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Sob
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What is Detect Internet for?

Fri Jul 22, 2022 5:18 am

This bothers me for a while and I finally have to ask. There's this thing:

https://help.mikrotik.com/docs/display/ ... t+Internet

Which in short "categorizes monitored interfaces into the following states - Internet, WAN, LAN, unknown, and no-link". At first sight, it seems that it surely must be useful for something, right? That's what I thought when I first saw it. Trouble is, at second and subsequent sights, I don't see it. And reading the forum a lot, I've seen several of Detect Internet unexpectedly (not that unexpedly if you read manual) messing up interface lists, but I don't remember single praise for it being useful for something.

So please help me. Do you use Detect Internet? Why? What actual good does it do for you?

--

First discovered use: Mobile application uses it to find WAN interfaces, in order to show their traffic. Seems like an overkill to me. It's not like they are coming and going all the time, one-time manual selection by user would be enough IMO.
Last edited by Sob on Sun Nov 13, 2022 7:47 am, edited 1 time in total.
 
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anav
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Re: What is Detect Internet for?

Fri Jul 22, 2022 6:32 am

I have no clue I always set mine to NONE! :-)
Until Sindy says its useful I will continue to ignore it.
 
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Re: What is Detect Internet for?

Fri Jul 22, 2022 6:58 am

I had used it once, initially, but I disabled it after one software update where I got RB4011 screwed due to detect internet swapping interfaces in interface-list, which caused being locked out due to firewall.
My reason of using it was that when using MikroTik app, detect internet gives you an easy way to monitor your internet traffic for the interface without the need to go deeper into interface -> int -> traffic and then come back to another menu if you have to.
Especially with dual-WAN setup that was an easy way to check bandwidth usage of 2 connections from front page where you can switch from one WAN to the other quickly.
It was a quick shortcut to bandwidth usage, at least for me.
But the “cost” for it was too much and I avoided it after that issue.
 
holvoetn
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Re: What is Detect Internet for?

Fri Jul 22, 2022 8:30 am

My very first Tik was an SXT LTE and seeing how much data volume that "feature" consumed on a rather limited monthly allowance, I switched it off.
No need to waste volume on such a process !

Later I saw that on most threads here it was almost unisono recommended to switch it off.
So for me: default OFF even on my home gear where I have unlimited volume.

But I am equally curious to know exactly what it does. And what the true benefit of it might be.
So apologies for not shedding some light where you want to see it. I'm equally in the dark as you are.
 
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Re: What is Detect Internet for?

Fri Jul 22, 2022 1:58 pm

Detect Internet = "Try that list for see if the interfaces listed are LAN, WAN or Internet"

If used with default group WAN, LAN or default all / dynamic / static can cause a mess...

The correct way to use it, if is really wanted, is to create separate interface groups to do each/wanted test.

Example of correct configuration:
/interface list
add name=di-where-detect
add name=di-detected-lan
add name=di-detected-wan
add name=di-detected-internet

/interface detect-internet
set detect-interface-list=di-where-detect \
    lan-interface-list=di-detected-lan \
    wan-interface-list=di-detected-wan \
    internet-interface-list=di-detected-internet

/interface list member
add interface=ether1 list=di-where-detect

But what is the problem???...
It was originally designed to figure out which ports the internet was connected to, which LANs, etc. for have dynamic WAN and LAN groups on firewall.
But by configuring the firewall automatically, at the beginning the dynamic lists are empty and all the tests are blocked...
So nothing goes...
 
Sob
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Re: What is Detect Internet for?

Fri Jul 22, 2022 2:23 pm

There's no problem with what it does, it's what's described in manual. What's not clear to me, how is it useful? Actual use case where it helps with something.
 
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Re: What is Detect Internet for?

Fri Jul 22, 2022 2:29 pm

By now you know, after reading thousands of my posts, that I like programming / scripting and experimenting, (and that I'm also a dkhd, I know..., I know...)

But jokes aside, I can't think of any way to use it...
 
Simonej
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Re: What is Detect Internet for?

Mon Jul 25, 2022 1:06 am

Came here searching for the same question...
 
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Re: What is Detect Internet for?

Mon Jul 25, 2022 2:35 am

one "useful" use of detect-internet is consume up much cpu resources when enabled on all interfaces on a router running PPPoE server with many active users (many interfaces)
 
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Re: What is Detect Internet for?

Sun Oct 02, 2022 12:29 pm

I found only one situation where it worked well - when I had to deploy a device to a user who was unable to plug things correctly. With detect internet, it did not matter where they plug WAN. any other scenario imho is better manually configured.
 
Sob
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Re: What is Detect Internet for?

Sun Oct 02, 2022 7:06 pm

Interesting, do you have any more details about that? I'm trying to figure out exact config, but no luck so far.
 
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Re: What is Detect Internet for?

Wed Nov 09, 2022 10:12 am

[…] when I had to deploy a device to a user who was unable to plug things correctly. With detect internet, it did not matter where they plug WAN […]
viewtopic.php?p=966649#p966649
 
nomis1234
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Re: What is Detect Internet for?

Fri Nov 03, 2023 9:47 am

I would like to use it to detect which of several interfaces to use for internet access. But how can I route the traffic over one of the detected interfaces?

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