Client List - please show all LAN->WAN clients (regardless of subnet)

[jmjones]

I run two balance routers. A Balance One Core (primary router for the house) with two WAN links active. I also have a Balance 30 that is used for video games (PC and XBox) that has one WAN connected to DSL and the other WAN port connected to a LAN port on the Balance One (using IP Passthrough). The Balance routers use OSPF to exchange routing/subnet information.

Balance One - 192.168.20.0/24 (Vlan0), 192.168.21.0/24 (Vlan3)
Balance 30 - 192.168.19.0/24

My client list on the Balance One only shows the 192.168.20.0/24 and 192.168.21.0/24. No clients from 192.168.19.0/24 ever show up. I can only see the WAN IP of the Balance 30.

Would it be possible to set up an additional LAN subnet on the Balance One and have the clients in 192.168.19.0/24 show up in the list? If not, I would like to request that all LAN ->WAN traffic be displayed in the client list. I understand that the MAC addresses for “unknown” lans would be blank, but the IP and data usage should still be there.

Is there a better way to get a complete client list between the two routers?

[Ron_Case]

I would recommend the following changes to accomplish this:

1. Do not use IP passthrough on the B30 WAN as the WAN IP will be passed to only one LAN client. Reconfigure the B30 WAN that is going to the Balance One LAN to use IP forwarding by clicking the “?” near routing mode. This will get rid of the NAT.

2. On the Balance One configure a LAN DHCP reservation for the B30 WAN IP address so it will not change.

3. A LAN static route is needed in the Balance One Core for the 192.168.19.0/24 network, pointing to the Balance 30 WAN IP address.

[jmjones]

Your instructions are confusing. I am already running IP pass through on the WAN-LAN link from the B30 to the B1. The B30 WAN link uses a static IP outside of the DHCP pool. Routing is exchanged using OSPF and is working. Everything works well except for the useage from clients in 192.168.19.0/24 do not show in the client list.

My issue is that the dashboard will show heavy utilization on my WAN links, but I don’t see the clients using the bandwidth. I have to log into the second router to identify the source of the traffic.

[jmjones]

Also, I can see the active sessions complete with IP addresses from the 192.168.19.0 network on the B1, but this doesn’t tell me client usage. Only that the router knows about the connections, it just doesn’t include these sessions for display in the client list. My guess is because the B1 doesn’t feel that the 192.168.19.0 is a local lan.

[MartinLangmaid]

Do as Ron suggests above I wouldn’t use IP Passthrough its a non standard approach to what you want to do.

Routers are meant to route traffic between subnets - passthrough if for specific cases where you want to bridge a LAN client to the WAN.

So turn off ip passthrough, and instead set your Balance 30 to do IP forwarding on the WAN connected to the Balance one. Then your Balance One can route return 192.168.19.0/24 traffic via the WAN IP of the Balance 30 but more importantly the Balance One will then see the source 192.168.19.0/24 subnet as NAT won’t be in use and show those addresses in its client list as you asked for.

[jmjones]

my apologies, I am using IP Forwarding (not IP Passthrough) already. To be honest, I don’t have the option for IP Passthrough - I just thought that was what it was called. The only other option is NAT. Is something associated with Drop-In mode called IP Passthrough?

The 192.168.19.0 subnet does not show up in the client list on the Balance One. I only see the actual Balance 30 WAN Interface IP in the client list.

To be clear, I have The B30 Wan connected to the B1 LAN. The B30 is using a static IP outside of the B1 DHCP range (but inside the subnet boundaries) for the WAN connection. The Wan link is using IP Forwarding (not NAT). Routing information is shared using OSPF on that link. The B30 is aware of the networks on the B1 and the B1 knows how to route traffic back to the B30. Everything works. Traffic is routing correctly. It is just that the client list on the B1 does NOT include the client IPs inside the B30.

The “Active Sessions” page on the B1 correctly reflects all the connections for every subnet (even the one on the B30). The B30 WAN IP shows in the client list (but only if I check for firmware or if it does an NTP update).

Sorry for the confusion. I didn’t realize that there was a different feature named IP Passthrough. I have been using IP Forwarding for a long time.

[zegor_mjol]

@jmjones

Is there a better way to get a complete client list between the two routers?

I have no comments re. your network topology

Taking that it is what it is, one way to get the client list for the two routers is to employ InControl2. Register the two routers, and define them as an IC2 group.

Then open the groups window and select “clients.” That will provide a list of all the clients of all (ie., both) the routers in the group.

Cheers,

Z

[jmjones]

My apologies @zegor_mjol, I didn’t see this reply.

@zegor_mjol

I have no comments re. your network topology

Oh, I bet you do

All joking aside, I agree it isn’t “normal”; but I have found that I have less “excuses” for losing my games when I have my gaming PC completely isolated to one WAN all by itself. Plus, who is going to get rid of a perfectly working Balance 30? I was having issues with “sharing” the internet with the kid and wife - and I thought that moving it to a separate physical network would rule out any latency due to congestion on the other links. Then I tried to download an update on my 3.5 Mbps dsl link and decided that I could pipe the second WAN port to my “other” router and maintain the isolation (nothing on B1 uses the WAN on B30) across LAN and WAN - but, I could download stuff much faster as the WAN links on the B1 are quite a bit bigger. One thing lead to another and there I was with the goat and a water gun. But that is a story for another time…

Pretty much, it is just because I am an average gamer who is really quick to blame sub-optimal gameplay on pretty much anything I can. It can’t be my aging eyes nor my gorilla thumbs. It is the half a nano-second of latency because of my kid watching disney+ (wink emoji).

FWIW, I asked the question in another post of what would be the best way to set this up; but I didn’t get much feedback. I probably asked it wrong. But, my situation is this…
1 Balance One Core
1 Balance 30 (very old)
2 WISP WAN connections (good for video/downloads, not good for games)
1 DSL WAN (good for games, bad for video/downloads)
1 gaming PC
3 XBox consoles
~25 “other” (home) devices

My current setup is the best my simple brain could come up with to isolate my gaming devices from the chatty LAN devices and onto a dedicated WAN while still having the ability to use all WANs for downloads for the game devices. I always came back to the B1 needs a third WAN interface (like my B30). But wait, you can buy the “third WAN license” for the B1 - but then I would have to get rid of a perfectly good B30. A perfect solution could be to trade the B30 for a “3 WAN license” - but, I haven’t seen that deal offered anywhere yet.

Please note - VLan stuff was just now being introduced into the Balance routers when I set this all up. I am sure there are new features and functions that would allow for what I am trying to do in a much cleaner way. I imagine I could set the LAN on the B30 up as a VLAN on the B1 and then disable the DHCP server on the B1 for that VLAN and achieve what I am wanting - I just haven’t fiddled with it yet. But, I have a few moments to test it out – I will post back when I am done.

[jmjones]

nope, didn’t work. The WAN IP of the B30 cannot be inside the defined LAN network.

FWIW, every (besides the client list) works perfectly. I can even see the sessions in the “Active Sessions” search with the correct client IP.

I imagine I could do something with static NAT mappings to force these clients to show in the client list. But I really want to avoid double NAT, otherwise I would just use NAT on the B30 WAN link. At least then I could see that something behind that router was using bandwidth. It is a bit misleading for the dashboard to show that the links are being heavily utilized, but then the client list show no activity. The session list shows that the router knows there is a session established with the correct source and destination IPs - so, this LAN->WAN traffic shows up in 2 out of 3 places. It kind of makes you think that the third place may need some adjustments.

Router dashboard - shows all LAN->WAN activity
Active Sessions - shows all LAN->WAN activity
Client List - shows only locally defined LAN->WAN activity

FWIW, I have tried both static route as well as OSPF. Both methods work for passing traffic, but neither make a difference on the client list.

[jmjones]

As it turns out, I was able to get all my LAN clients on the client list. The trick was to use static routes instead of OSPF. Even though the routes were exchanged, and I could see them all in the OSPF status, and traffic was routing properly – the client list just simply did not include IPs from these networks.

Once I changed to static routes - everything works as expected. It is less dynamic, so any network I add to either device has to have static routes built in order to function (where before OSPF would do that for me), but since I don’t add networks very often – this shouldn’t be a big deal. I do think that it should work using the OSPF stuff too.

[Jonathan_Pitts]

nice thanks for the updates.