SAR715 Support Pages: FAQsFAQs written by Neil Milne, Hippo IT Consultants LtdAcknowledgementsMany people have already contributed to the 'sum of all knowledge' of the SAR-715 on the Solwise fora. There are probably too many to list here! A lot of the info here came from the 7x5 forum originally so thanks are due to everyone who has posted information there!GlossarySolwise: The main distributer of the SAR-715 router. Their main website is at http://www.solwise.co.uk/ and the invaluable Solwise forum is at http://www.solwiseforum.co.uk/CLI: The command-line interface to the router. This can be accessed by telnet to the router internal ip address or via the serial connection and a suitable terminal emulator application. LAN: The local network served by the router. WAN: The internet (wide area network). NAT: Network address translation. Allows an internal network to masquerade as one or more internet ip addresses. VPN: Virtual private network. Used to tunnel a 'virtual' network over the internet between two machines. Often used to work remotely. Console: The SAR-715 has two CLI modes - the top level mode and a more basic 'underlying' mode referred to as the Console. The Console can be accessed from the top level mode by the command 'console enable' Web interface: Many configuration options on the SAR 715 can be changed using the web interface. This is accessed by pointing your web browser at the 715 internal IP address. Adslguide: A great source of info for ADSL in the UK - many ISP problems get reported here long before the ISP admits anything so it's a good first port of call for connectivity issues. The url is http://www.adslguide.org.uk/ Firewall: The 715 has a built-in firewall which can restrict outgoing traffic. This is good if you don't trust the users on your lan or you wish to run proxy services for web/ftp/etc on your lan. If you're running in NAT mode the firewall will not offer any additional security over and above that provided by NAT, except for outgoing connections if you're concerned about trojans or spyware... Google: The ultimate source of all knowledge. Visit http://www.google.com/ The FAQNote: All information is correct using firmware version 3.D2.0.96b. Other versions may change the operation of the CLI or the layout and operation of the web interface.Q) What version of the firmware am I using? Aa) Using the web interface go to the home page. The software version is shown below the Welcome line (correct at f/w version .96b) Ab) Using the cli type 'system info'. This shows various details about the router including the software version on the last line. Q) How do I get the latest firmware? A) You can subscribe to a mailing list which notifies you when a new version comes out. Send a blank email to 715firmwarelist@solwise.co.uk. Solwise will send you email notifications when a new firmware version is available and you can then request these from them. They are no longer available for download from the Solwise site due to other distributers also providing 715s. Q) How do I access the Console A) Using the CLI type console enable Q) That command doesn't work! A) You must be logged in as a user who has superuser access level. Q) How do I get one of those then? A) If you've removed all the original users you may not have one. However, the security settings are not terribly good at present and you can promote yourself to superuser by using this command from the CLI: system set user <name> access superuser Q) How do I get back to the CLI from the Console A) Type exit Q) How do I see how long the router has been up? Aa) To see the router uptime use the Console command uptime Ab) To see the connection uptime use the Console command ppp 1 info all and look at the item labelled 'Connected time' Q) I am getting frequent disconnects and I think my line may not be very good - how can I check? A) The router maintains statistics on the line quality. Using the CLI type adsl show perf. You will get two sets of figures, one for the downstream data path (from the ISP to you) and one for the upstream data path (from you to the ISP). There are three different figures to look at. First, noise margin. This is a measure of how good your data signal is relative to the noise on the line. This should be a high number and in any case no lower than around 6 dB. If it's this low you could find the router gets link errors or even sync problems. The second is attenuation, and measures how much signal loss there is on the line - this should be a low figure and in any case should be no more than around 60-65 dB. This may change in the future as BT roll out more effective ADSL equipment at the exchanges. The third is output power which indicates how hard the router is working to maintain the link. High numbers (around 19 or above) can indicate possible problems. Any of these numbers near or at the limits described can cause the router to lose sync or have high error rates resulting in poor internet performance and are usually due to poor cabling, interference or a line which is at the distance limit of where BT can still provide ADSL from the local exchange. Q) I want all connections to my router to be passed on to one machine - how can I do this? A) From the web interface, go to Security(NAT, Firewall) and select Advanced NAT Configuration on your ppp interface. Click on Add reserved mapping and enter the internal IP address of the machine which is to handle all the traffic. Select 'all' from the transport type dropdown and leave port number as 0 and add the mapping. You can also do this from the CLI with the command: nat add resvmap <name> interfacename <ppp interface name> <internal IP address> all. Q) I'm using the firewall and can't use my online banking website/Hotmail/other secure https sites. A) The 715 firewall by default is configured to block access to secure http sites. You can add access to these either using the web pages or the CLI. For the web configuration, go to advanced configuration/security(nat/firewall). At the bottom of the page go to Policies, Triggers and Intrusion Detection/Firewall Policy Configuration, Then, in the external/internal interface list, click 'port filters' and add a TCP filter on port 443 to allow outbound connections. Q) My website/application doesn't work - how can I see what's going on? A) You may need to configure the firewall or port forwarding to get some sites/applications to work. Go to the console and type:event show. After that all inbound and outbound connections should be logged to the screen so you can see them. (examples...) When you're done, you can turn off logging like this:event unshow If you've just seen a problem you can view the recent logs like this:event recent Q) I can't get port forwarding to work when I set it up using the web interface - what's wrong? A) The web interface is not that intuitive but it does work. If you're getting frustrated try using the CLI - you can download the relevant CLI manuals from here. The basic forwarding command at the CLI is nat add resvmap <name> interfacename <ppp interface name> <internal IP address> <port type> <port number> so for example if you have a webserver on your internal network at address 10.0.0.5 you need nat add resvmap web1 interfacename ppp-0 10.0.0.5 tcp 80. The two most common port types are tcp and udp and usually the application you want to use will tell you in the manual or FAQ which port numbers you need to forward and what types they are when being used behind a router or NAT. Q) How can I test my port forwarding? A) If you are running a webserver you can use the Sam Spade safe web browser to check your site output. For other apps you will need access to a client machine hooked up to the internet which is not on your local network. For example, you could dial up using another PC and an analogue modem or use an ISP shell account if you have one. Q) I can't connect to my ISP - what's wrong? A) It could be a number of issues:
console enable ppp 1 info all You should see details of the current link state. You can also try: event show ppp event 4 1 disable 1 enable which will show the negotiation attempt. It switches on reasonably high levels of logging and then drops the PPP link and re-establishes it so you can see a complete attempt at ISP negotiation. If you can't understand what it's saying try posting the results to the forum - someone may be able to help out! If you set a higher level of logging (use event 5 rather than event 4) you can use a perl script available here to translate the logs. Q) How do I set up my 715 for multiple static IP addresses? A) See this FAQ here http://www.zen8463.zen.co.uk/StaticIP/ Q) Do I need the firewall? A) If you are running a NAT setup you may not need the firewall. I don't use it. If you want to lock down your network so you can control internet access completely you need the firewall. It may also help if you wish to prevent any trojan software from contacting external sites without your knowledge. Q) How do I set up the firewall? A) There is a good thread here on the forums. Q) How can I get UPnP to work. A) This is a bit of a black art and depends very much on the temperament of your Windows XP installation. You need at least the following:
Q) How can I get Microsoft Messenger working? A) This thread http://www.solwiseforum.co.uk/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1639 appears to have some good information. It appears to be very hit and miss though. For general videoconferencing I've been using iVisit without any problems. Q) I set the ADSL mode to g.dmt during the initial configuration but the web interface shows the mode to be multi. How can I set this up correctly? A) The web interface has a bug which means it always shows multi as the mode regardless of what it's really set to. Use the CLI command adsl mode to show the true setting, and if you want to modify the setting to g.dmt use the command adsl mode gdmt. Q) Can I use VPN client XYZ with the 715? A) This is a complicated issue and very much depends on the VPN client and server software. Some packages are known to work with the 715 (e.g. Norton Contivity). See here for more details. Q) OK, I have a working configuration. How can I save it? A) Use the CLI. Type system config save. This will then be the configuration you are returned to when or if you reset the router. Q) Can I keep a backup of a known good configuration. A) At the CLI type system config backup. Then, if you manage to mess up your config you can restore it with system config restore. Q) My router has stopped working and won't respond even after switching off and on. A) Try connecting the serial cable - if you see a DEBUG prompt the flash memory has become corrupted and you will need to reload the firmware. Follow theAlternate_Upgrade_Method to recover from this. Q) I'm having problems with the upgrade - not getting the correct prompt after the first upload. A) You may need to wipe the flash filesystem and start again - if there is corrupt data in there it could prevent the boot image from working. Typeflashfs wipe 1. See here for details. Q) Why does my router hang regularly? A) Don't know really. Mine doesn't and it's on firmware 3.D2.0.96b currently. A lot of people have had this problem with firmware releases between .87 and .96b. I will update this again when more details appear. There are some reports that heavy udp traffic which can occur with some online games, peer-to-peer applications such as WinMX, or even Windows media player streaming, can cause the router to stop responding. ContributionsConfiguration Scripttobyjuggler has put together a script which can help with the configuration of your router. See http://www.solwiseforum.co.uk/showthread.php?s=&threadid=2491 for more details.Alternate Upgrade Methodmachasm has put together a good description of how to upgrade the SAR-715 without using the DSL Tool.You can download the document here. Also see http://www.solwiseforum.co.uk/showthread.php?s=&threadid=933 for more details. ReferencesTerminal Emulator applicationsUnixminicom should do the trick. Windows Teraterm (free) http://hp.vector.co.jp/authors/VA002416/teraterm.html Hyperterm (comes with windows). DHCP ServerUnixdhcpd http://www.isc.org/products/DHCP/ Windows Weird Solutions DHCP Turbo (free for personal use) http://www.weird-solutions.com or their BOOTP desktop package which should also work TFTP ServersUnixtftpd is usually available as part of the standard install. Windows Solarwinds TFTP Server (free download - requires short registration). http://solarwinds.net/Tools/Free_tools/TFTP_Server/index.htm Weird Solutions (free for non-commercial use) http://www.weird-solutions.com/ Walusoft TFTP Suite Pro (30 day trial) http://www.walusoft.co.uk/ |
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