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CrimpOn's avatar
CrimpOn
Guru
Jan 08, 2019

List Orbi Network Sessions?

Does anyone know of a telnet command that will list out all of the current "open sessions"?  Currently, my Orbi shows 488 out of 65,536 possible sessions.  (Not very many considering that web pages open dozens of sessions which remain "open" until they time out.)  I tried netstat -a, but that seems to report only the sessions created by the Orbi itself.

 

I know it's a little OCD, but I am trying to discover how my "Internet of Things" devices function and it appears that they open sessions to vendor server farms so that smartphone apps can reach through the router to the devices.  I do not have port forwarding turned on, so all these apps cannot "see" any devices inside my network.

 

Thanks

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  • CrimpOn's avatar
    CrimpOn
    Guru
    Jan 09, 2019

    Well, I gave up on Google too soon.  This is the command to display all open sessions on OpenWRT (Orbi):

     

             cat  /proc/net/ip_conntrack

     

    Putty captured my telnet session, and with a little editing, I was able to verify that ALL of my "Internet of Things" devices maintain open Internet sessions.  Five Reolink security cameras, Nest thermostat, Simplisafe security system, Tivo DVR and Mini, and three smart electric plugs (TP-Link, Belkin Wemo, Aukey)  The majority of them have connections to Amazon Web Services.  (Is there anything that Amazon does not dominate?)

     

    My Wireshark skills are not sophisticated enough to capture the packets from Amazon which tell devices what to do. Since it is really clear that each manufacturer developed slightly different methods of configuring and connecting devices, this may be more trouble to investigate than it is worth.

     

    This reinforces my belief that all this furor over "must be 2.4G" and IP addresses is pointless.  Once a device is connected to Orbi and gets an IP, it connects to the relevant cloud services and says, "Here I am.  Tell me what to do."  If its IP changes, it connects again and says, "Oops. I moved.  Tell me what to do."

     

    I am no closer to understanding why some users experience problems connecting their IoT devices and other (such as myself) have no problems at all.