XB7 Command Line Interface

I'm running an XB7 in bridge mode because I have complicated network with 60 reserved IP addresses in the 192.168 space. This means my speed has dropped from 1.2 Gbps to 940 Mbs because bridge mode only looks at LAN1 and doesn't support link aggregation or the 2.5 Gbps port.

I would like to operate the XB7 in normal router mode, but to do that conveniently I need command line access to the IP reservation table. This is easy to do on a normal Netgear router, but the Netgear inside the XB7 has a number of customizations that turn off common features. It doesn't respond to telnet at port 23 or ssh at port 22.

Does the XB7 support command line access?

Responses

user_bb801b

Contributor

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167 Messages

3 years ago

So the web interface is likely the only way to config the XB7 that Im aware of.. But then again, im not SSH or Telnet to the gateway to begin with.

Is the issue hitting the gateway from internal or internet IP address? Guessing ports 22,23 blocked on internet side to avoid scans looking for innocent device on the web..

Just my .2 cents

Thanks and good luck.

(edited)

MtnBubba

Visitor

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4 Messages

@user_bb801b Trying to access from the LAN side, I have remote admin turned off. It's not unheard of for businesses to block ports they consider security risks, but better practice to make them available to people who are willing to take some risk. The XB7 router is Netgear inside and Netgear supports telnet and SSH in their retail products.

3 years ago

BruceW

Gold Problem Solver

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26.2K Messages

3 years ago

... the Netgear inside the XB7 ...

The CGM4331COM is made by Technicolor and the TG4482A is made by Arris. It seems unlikely that either one is "Netgear inside". Do you have any evidence that they are?

MtnBubba

Visitor

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4 Messages

@BruceW It's a look and feel thing. I could be wrong about Netgear, but it probably has some version of busybox because developers need that.

(edited)

3 years ago

user_bb801b

Contributor

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167 Messages

Ya sounds like possible to jailbreak then, but question is when inject into process can you get a shell?

Or even better when accessing via shell on LAN side can you see the config? And assuming your root at this point?

Just my .2cents for instructional computer learning purposes only and on virtual machine test network of course..

Thanks and good luck.

3 years ago

MtnBubba

Visitor

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4 Messages

I'm not trying to jailbreak, I just want to upload an IP address reservation table for the 60+ devices in my home network. The XB7 wants to be my DHCP server but it lacks the administrator tools that DHCP servers need to have. In my current setup I have an Asus router with the DHCP server turned off. I use the DHCP server on a Synology NAS to give me independence from whatever gateway or router I may be using at any particular time.

To use the XB7 outside of bridge mode I would need to set all of my address assignments by hand through the clunky web GUI. Many of my devices - cameras in particular - need stable IP addresses to function.

In bridge mode, the XB7 turns off multi-gigabit operation, which is mildly annoying.

3 years ago

Jlavaseur

Problem Solver

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948 Messages

On the Xb7 you can set the dhcp lease time, days, months, years, or forever, i believe its a global setting if i remember correctly, so just connect a device, it will automatically get a IP from the dhcp server, the lease time will be forever, if its set that way, so the IP will never change, you can specify what range the IPs will fall into, not exactly what you want, maybe it can be a work around...

(edited)

3 years ago

madbrain76

Contributor

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96 Messages

@MtnBubba

You wrote : "In bridge mode, the XB7 turns off multi-gigabit operation, which is mildly annoying. "

This is not true, at least not on my XB7. Software revision below :

I just turned off bridge mode on it. I connected my desktop PC directly to it. Rebooted both the XB7 and the PC.

Windows shows my NIC is running at a speed of 2.5 Gbps. NIC is an Aquantia AQN-107 (NBASE-T).

I just did a speedtest, and download speed was 1419 Mbps, as expected.

Now, if I could find a decent wired router that handles the 2.5 GBASE-T connection of the XB7, I would be golden . Seems that doesn't exist, though.

The router part of the XB7 is ultra crappy. DHCP is broken with large number of devices that I have (>70). I think some nasty bugs in the firmware, unfortunately.

3 years ago

madbrain76

Contributor

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96 Messages

3 years ago

BTW, I am running into the same problems with DHCP on the XB7. The UI in the horrid. It doesn't scale. It's full of bugs. I have 76 "Reserved IP" and many changes I'm making to them no longer take. Changes to existing reservations, or new reservations. I think there is some kind of hard limit in there. And worst of all, there is no way to turn off the DHCP server completely.

I am thinking of trying to use a second DHCP server, maybe on a Raspberry Pi. Not sure if I can make it work, though. Having multiple DHCP servers on the same LAN is fraught with problems. But perhaps I can set the XB7 DHCP range to be a single IP address. And have a single reservation in there, for the Pi itself. The Pi could be configured either to use DHCP, or to use single IP of the XB7 DHCP server range.

Hopefully, any other devices requesting DHCP would not be able to get an IP from the XB7 DHCP server, and these DHCP requests would fall back to the secondary DHCP server running on the Pi. I don't know if I can get this to work or not. But none of it would need to be done if the [Edited: "Language"] router in the XB7 worked in the first place.

It's not going to be fun testing this, sigh.

Edit: it looks like the XB7 requires a DHCP range of at least two IP addresses. A single one won't do. It accepts that, though, even though there are 76 existing "Reserved IP". At least I don't have to delete them one at a time, which would take hours, for the purpose of testing, but this shows how much testing this GUI got.

(edited)

madbrain76

Contributor

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96 Messages

So, I did the following simple test.

1) Set the DHCPv4 range on the XB7 from 192.168.1.100 through 101 .

2) Changed the Reserved IPs for my desktop (10Gb Aquantia NIC) to be .100

3) Changed the Reserved IP for my Raspberry Pi 4B (1Gb NIC) to be .101

4) Removed the Reserved IP for my Odroid N2+ (1 Gbps NIC) . Set it back to "DHCP" in the GUI

5) Connected only those 3 computers and the XB7 to my TP-Link TL-SX105 switch. Nothing on the 5th port. That means the 70+ other devices on my network are all offline during this test.

Result :

a) Both the desktop and the Pi got their expected .100 and .101 IPv4 address from the XB7 DHCP server.

b) The Odroid N2+ did not get an IPv4 address.

c) The Odroid N2+ got an IPv6 address. I checked http://test-ipv6.com, and it shows IPv6 connectivity, but no IPv4 connectivity.

This tells me there is a chance that it might fetch an IPv4 address from a secondary DHCP server, if I installed one on my Pi.

Time to actually do that next.

(edited)

3 years ago

madbrain76

Contributor

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96 Messages

I installed isc-dhcp-server on my Pi, and was able to set it up to give out IPv4 addresses in the 192.168.1.102 - 192.168.1.200 range.

It seems to be happy to coexist with the XB7 DHCP server. DNS seems to work fine, somehow, without me having to do anything.

I'm furiously deleting the 74 unneeded "Reserved IP" in the XB7 DHCP GUI now. If I never have to use it again, it'll be too soon.

Looks like I'll be able to manage the reservations by either editing a file, or installing webmin, but that'll be for another day.

(edited)

3 years ago

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XB7 Command Line Interface

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