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Feature request - reboot router if Internet connectivity down for X amount of time

oviano
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30 Oct 2021 15:35 #100045 by oviano

Feature request - reboot router if Internet connectivity down for X amount of time was created by oviano

There is a rare issue I’ve noticed with my 2927 router and G.Network ISP connection in that twice now, in the router has lost connection to the G.Network gateway and it’s required a reboot to resolve.

The router is sometimes unattended for weeks at a time, in particular the summer when we are elsewhere. So far this issue has not occurred when we’ve been away, but if it does, then I believe I will lose access to all the server and NAS etc services that I rely on when I’m away. For example, I have a Git server for my coding work.

I know you can get devices that sit on a WiFi network monitoring for an internet connection and can then power cycle things like routers but ideally I’d prefer not to introduce another point of failure into my network.

What would be ideal would be for there to be an optional feature in the DrayTek front end where I can specify that either the router reboots when a particular WAN cannot reach a chosen IP address for a specific period of time, or maybe even just completely refreshes the connection somehow, as it seems that when the issue occurs the router still thinks it is connected.

When this happened yesterday I observed my connection on PingPlotter and I saw it start reporting ping failures to G.Network servers, but the connection still showed a valid IP address in green on the dashboard.

I realise this is either a bug in the router, or a glitch on G.Network’s service, and ideally whichever it is would be resolved, but as a catch-all option it would be very useful to know that at any time I’m away, if the router can no longer reach, say, 8.8.8.8 for let’s say one hour, then it would reboot.

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piste basher
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30 Oct 2021 16:37 #100046 by piste basher

Replied by piste basher on topic Re: Feature request - reboot router if Internet connectivity down for X amount of time

Interesting - how do you actually connect to this ISP? I'm assuming through a modem of some kind but I'm not familiar with G.Network. If there is such a device presumably you've checked that it's not that which is losing the connection?
If it is the 2927, then I guess a work around, although not very satisfactory, would be to set it to reboot come what may at an interval that you could live with.

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hornbyp
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31 Oct 2021 17:30 #100050 by hornbyp

Replied by hornbyp on topic Re: Feature request - reboot router if Internet connectivity down for X amount of time

oviano wrote:
I know you can get devices that sit on a WiFi network monitoring for an internet connection and can then power cycle things like routers but ideally I’d prefer not to introduce another point of failure into my network.

The latter approach is the one I've taken with our 'holiday cottage' - I have a Vigor 2830 and Zyxel modem powered by a Sonoff S20 Wi-Fi plug, for which I wrote new firmware; if it fails to get the time from Zen's NTP server, it cuts the power, counts to 30 and re-applies it. I gave it a web interface as well, so I can see what it's up to. No problem in sharing the code, if you're interested.

There's an overview of the approach here: https://diyprojects.io/hack-connected-sonoff-s20-plug-esp-easy-rules/
(though in this case, they're loading one of the myriad of other S20 firmwares)

and he wrote:
I realise this is either a bug in the router, or a glitch on G.Network’s service, and ideally whichever it is would be resolved...

If the Router is alive and kicking (and capable of rebooting itself), then it ought to be capable of re-initialising the DSL modem...

I wonder - if you had a 3G/4G dongle (and a SIM with a real-world IP address), is the Vigor Management GUI accessible through it? - thus giving out-of-band access .

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oviano
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02 Nov 2021 08:40 #100058 by oviano

Replied by oviano on topic Re: Feature request - reboot router if Internet connectivity down for X amount of time

Piste Basher wrote:
Interesting - how do you actually connect to this ISP? I'm assuming through a modem of some kind but I'm not familiar with G.Network. If there is such a device presumably you've checked that it's not that which is losing the connection?
If it is the 2927, then I guess a work around, although not very satisfactory, would be to set it to reboot come what may at an interval that you could live with.

G.Network provided a Nokia modem which they set to bridged mode so that I could use my own router.

Unfortunately, no, I did not check the modem when the outage occurred the other day, which with hindsight was pretty dim of me. The fact the Nokia modem did not need to be rebooted suggests though that the issue is maybe between the Nokia + DrayTek, maybe even an issue with bridged mode itself.

The issue is extremely rare, and if it wasn't for the couple of months when we're away I wouldn't care, but I guess I'm trying to make sure there is a contingency if it were to happen when I'm not around.

I've considered the timed reboot. It's a solution, and likely I could find a time in the night, between backups or whatever, when it would be appropriate, but it feels such a blunt force approach. Experience has taught me that when you have a plethora of devices, servers, cameras, WAPs, sensors etc on a LAN all talking with each other, that when everything is working perfectly one prefers not to reboot the router...

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oviano
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02 Nov 2021 08:43 #100059 by oviano

Replied by oviano on topic Re: Feature request - reboot router if Internet connectivity down for X amount of time

hornbyp wrote:

oviano wrote:
I know you can get devices that sit on a WiFi network monitoring for an internet connection and can then power cycle things like routers but ideally I’d prefer not to introduce another point of failure into my network.

The latter approach is the one I've taken with our 'holiday cottage' - I have a Vigor 2830 and Zyxel modem powered by a Sonoff S20 Wi-Fi plug, for which I wrote new firmware; if it fails to get the time from Zen's NTP server, it cuts the power, counts to 30 and re-applies it. I gave it a web interface as well, so I can see what it's up to. No problem in sharing the code, if you're interested.

There's an overview of the approach here: https://diyprojects.io/hack-connected-sonoff-s20-plug-esp-easy-rules/
(though in this case, they're loading one of the myriad of other S20 firmwares)

and he wrote:
I realise this is either a bug in the router, or a glitch on G.Network’s service, and ideally whichever it is would be resolved...

If the Router is alive and kicking (and capable of rebooting itself), then it ought to be able capable of re-initialising the DSL modem...

I wonder - if you had a 3G/4G dongle (and a SIM with a real-world IP address), is the Vigor Management GUI accessible through it? - thus giving out-of-band access .

That would be another solution, yes. I know you can access the DrayTek router UI from any of the external IP addresses of the WANs that are active as I have tried this before at another location.

Very interesting re: your holiday cottage solution - thank you for sharing.

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j1mbo
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04 Nov 2021 14:37 #100085 by j1mbo

Replied by j1mbo on topic Re: Feature request - reboot router if Internet connectivity down for X amount of time

I power a 2862 via a PoE to 12V dongle. This works fine (note non WiFi model). It would be possible to put an 'PD Alive' check on the PoE switch to do what you want with a target of 8.8.8.8 for the port to which it is connected. Actually I've done exactly this as it's a good idea imo.

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