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Author Topic: ZyXEL VMG 1312-B10A unresponsive to http port 80, 8000 and telnet  (Read 1032 times)

Weaver

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I have a number of ZyXel VMG 1312-B10A modem-routers (in modem-only mode and no WLAN). They are running the Feb 2020 release of Johnson’s custom firmware.

Just recently, one became unresponsive to http on both ports 80 and 8000 both and to telnet. It was working fine as a modem other than that. Has anyone else had this happen with ZyXEL modem-routers of any sort ?

To be clear, this affected the standard http server, and telnet, and Johnson’s Mongoose port 8000 server all at the same time.

I simply left the unit alone for a few hours and then found I could eventually access it using telnet, so I executed a ‘reboot’ command and this fixed the problem. I don’t recall this happening before. All four modems have been running problem-free for at least eight months, probably much longer.
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hushcoden

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Re: ZyXEL VMG 1312-B10A unresponsive to http port 80, 8000 and telnet
« Reply #1 on: October 08, 2020, 12:32:39 PM »

No issues so far with mine, I forgot when I had to reboot it last time...
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burakkucat

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Re: ZyXEL VMG 1312-B10A unresponsive to http port 80, 8000 and telnet
« Reply #2 on: October 08, 2020, 04:28:04 PM »

I have a number of ZyXel VMG 1312-B10A modem-routers (in modem-only mode and no WLAN). They are running the Feb 2020 release of Johnson’s custom firmware.

Just recently, one became unresponsive to http on both ports 80 and 8000 both and to telnet.

What about ssh and https access?

Probably a power-cycle would have cleared the problem.
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Weaver

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Re: ZyXEL VMG 1312-B10A unresponsive to http port 80, 8000 and telnet
« Reply #3 on: October 08, 2020, 06:30:42 PM »

@Burakkucat - I didn’t try https port 443 or SSH. For some reason, SSH doesn’t work properly when used with my favourite client iPad app, Prompt2. There is a prompt about not being able to verify authenticity of one or t’other endpoint and a black window appears very briefly before disappearing so it seems that the session lasts only a moment, for god only knows what reason. Since then I have discovered that another app, NET-Toolbox, which contains an SSH function amongst its very many tools, causes only happiness with the ZyXEL.

@hushcoden Your experience is I would say quite possibly consistent with mine as my reliability has been very high, at 1 failure per modem in ~1200 days ( ~108 s ) assuming all my modems are the same.
« Last Edit: October 08, 2020, 06:49:19 PM by Weaver »
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Weaver

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Re: ZyXEL VMG 1312-B10A unresponsive to http port 80, 8000 and telnet
« Reply #4 on: October 08, 2020, 06:51:07 PM »

Has anyone seen a phenomenon where a modem becomes annoyingly slow/unresponsive to login when using telnet or ssh but with far far more modest delay response times, several seconds, I’m guessing 5 - 30 secs ?  Once you are logged in, all is well though. Can’t remember if logging cures the phenomenon in the sense that after you log out it is gone. I have seen this problem quite a few times; there seems to be no pattern to it.

I don’t know if this is related to the amount of traffic going through the modem. My DSL link is so slow that there should hardly be any challenge to the CPU given that it is designed to cope with far higher traffic rates
« Last Edit: October 08, 2020, 07:05:32 PM by Weaver »
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hopkins35

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Re: ZyXEL VMG 1312-B10A unresponsive to http port 80, 8000 and telnet
« Reply #5 on: October 09, 2020, 11:25:33 AM »

Hi Weaver

I'm with Andrews & Arnold like yourself and I find that very occasionally and seemingly at random one of my two 1312B10As (usually the one connected to my TT line) picks up the MAC address of some unknown bit of equipment at the remote end of my WAN connection. This rogue MAC address then gets added to the ARP table of my router (Firebrick) and then I lose HTTP/telnet connectivity to the modem through its VLAN. Might be worth checking the ARP table on your router to see whether it's a Zyxel MAC address associated with the relevant IP address.
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Weaver

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Re: ZyXEL VMG 1312-B10A unresponsive to http port 80, 8000 and telnet
« Reply #6 on: October 09, 2020, 12:23:59 PM »

Hi Hopkins35 and welcome to the forum!

Sounds like you have the same setup as mine: a Firebrick with several VMG1312-B10As connected to it. But as I have more than three modems, I don’t have sufficient free ports on the Brick and so I have to use VLANs assigned to the modems and a VLAN mux/demux switch as recommended by AA. But I’m assuming you don’t need to use VLAN MUXing ? That would be the one difference?

Could you give me a specific example (suitably obscured) ?

Sanity check: Why would the Brick be losing connectivity? Is it because it thinks it has a MAC address for an IP address associated with the modem already and therefore doesn’t ARP it when it in fact needs to?

The same is true for the modem: it could be a problem in the modem’s ARP table, as opposed to that of the Firebrick, but then it’s not visible to us.

Does the system then regain a state of goodness when the bad ARP entry ages out and the Brick or modem needs to look up the MAC address for an IP address instead.

Do you think it is the modem getting screwed up or a bug in the Firebrick?

Could you post something in the Firebrick users’ mailing list perhaps ?
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hopkins35

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Re: ZyXEL VMG 1312-B10A unresponsive to http port 80, 8000 and telnet
« Reply #7 on: October 11, 2020, 10:13:09 AM »

Hi Weaver

I'm also using vlans with my two modems and my Brick so pretty much the same setup as you. You can check the ARP table on the modem by using the command 'arp show' but this is likely to just show you the entry for your Brick. I've also experimented with disabling ARP on the modem using the command 'ifconfig X -arp' where X is the ethernet interface. My intermediate switch also has MAC filtering and when I added the rogue MAC address to a blocking filter my PPPoE connection dropped which confirmed my suspicion that this MAC address is for some remote broadband hardware. I have added a static MAC address for the modems on their corresponding switch ports but I'm not convinced that this had much benefit because I have seen the problem again since doing this - the switch then showed both my static (Zyxel) MAC address and the rogue device MAC address for the port.

Connectivity to the modem is lost because the Brick tries to route packets to the device with the rogue MAC address instead of the modem's ethernet interface.

Sadly I don't have any screenies to show you and, touch wood, it's been a long time since it last occurred. I've found that it doesn't correct itself, I've had to disable and re-enable the port on the switch between the modem and Brick which seems to trigger a new, correcting ARP message and routing returns to normal.

My suspicion is that this is a problem with the Zyxel modem, I too run Johnson's firmware but I seem to remember being affected even on the stock firmware. Having said all that, I haven't seen the problem for so long and I rarely touch the interface or stats pages these days so I haven't troubleshooted any further
« Last Edit: October 11, 2020, 10:17:09 AM by hopkins35 »
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