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Bad luck with wireless access points
May. 15th, 2021 09:45 pmI have been using wireless access points for, I don't know, coming up to twenty years without any trouble, I had 802.11a ones back in Delaware, Ohio. However, recently I have experienced a surprising run of bad luck.
In getting my Intel NUCs online in the room they are presently in, I do not yet have wired ethernet run there, but I remembered they have built-in wireless so I configured that. Later, this reminded me why I wasn't using that before: it's flaky. I suspect a driver issue, once they are otherwise happily online I shall be upgrading them substantially. I figured, I have a TRENDnet Wireless N300 that supports client bridge mode, let's use that to get them online via the wireless. However, using the settings of my WLAN, in client bridge mode it fails to associate. I've no idea why but some searching online suggests that I am not the only one seeing an issue.
Figuring that someday I shall want good wireless coverage anyway, I decided to spend a bit more on something decent, so bought a Grandstream GWN7600. It arrived without a power supply, that's what I get for going more toward enterprise hardware. So, then I bought a PoE injector and the access point lit up happily and am I currently online through it so it works.
However, I could not find its configuration. The ways to discover its IP address are some Windows executable or going to a specific domain served from the device itself. That domain wasn't resolving for me, every indication was that it was just passing on to me the resolver settings from the router. I tried pinging the subnet's broadcast address but my ARP table didn't reveal anything. Eventually, I thought of checking my router's DHCP client status page and discovered the IP for reaching the access point directly for configuration.
The next phase of fun was bringing the firmware somewhat up to date. It won't allow me to simply upload a firmware image directly that I obtain from Grandstream's website. Instead, it must fetch the firmware itself, except it was preconfigured with broken URLs and would mysteriously report that the upgrade had failed. Fortunately, I discovered that its system log bore a curl error that revealed the sought URL. I managed to find a file with that name inside a zip archive elsewhere on Grandstream's site, I unpacked that and put it on my own website and configured the access point to use mine instead. It claimed that it failed but seems to have worked.
I suspect that one my earlier tries with other official URLs for the upgrade could have worked had I noticed that, beyond the URL setting, and the
Another day will tell if the device actually works okay in client bridge mode. I have already determined that at least two other configuration settings on different pages must be set appropriately before that mode becomes available.
In getting my Intel NUCs online in the room they are presently in, I do not yet have wired ethernet run there, but I remembered they have built-in wireless so I configured that. Later, this reminded me why I wasn't using that before: it's flaky. I suspect a driver issue, once they are otherwise happily online I shall be upgrading them substantially. I figured, I have a TRENDnet Wireless N300 that supports client bridge mode, let's use that to get them online via the wireless. However, using the settings of my WLAN, in client bridge mode it fails to associate. I've no idea why but some searching online suggests that I am not the only one seeing an issue.
Figuring that someday I shall want good wireless coverage anyway, I decided to spend a bit more on something decent, so bought a Grandstream GWN7600. It arrived without a power supply, that's what I get for going more toward enterprise hardware. So, then I bought a PoE injector and the access point lit up happily and am I currently online through it so it works.
However, I could not find its configuration. The ways to discover its IP address are some Windows executable or going to a specific domain served from the device itself. That domain wasn't resolving for me, every indication was that it was just passing on to me the resolver settings from the router. I tried pinging the subnet's broadcast address but my ARP table didn't reveal anything. Eventually, I thought of checking my router's DHCP client status page and discovered the IP for reaching the access point directly for configuration.
The next phase of fun was bringing the firmware somewhat up to date. It won't allow me to simply upload a firmware image directly that I obtain from Grandstream's website. Instead, it must fetch the firmware itself, except it was preconfigured with broken URLs and would mysteriously report that the upgrade had failed. Fortunately, I discovered that its system log bore a curl error that revealed the sought URL. I managed to find a file with that name inside a zip archive elsewhere on Grandstream's site, I unpacked that and put it on my own website and configured the access point to use mine instead. It claimed that it failed but seems to have worked.
I suspect that one my earlier tries with other official URLs for the upgrade could have worked had I noticed that, beyond the URL setting, and the
updatebutton below, scrolling rather further down brings one to a separate
savebutton that, I think, must first be used.
Another day will tell if the device actually works okay in client bridge mode. I have already determined that at least two other configuration settings on different pages must be set appropriately before that mode becomes available.
