I have configured my RBR750 as an access point with the following IP addresses set as static DHCP addresses in my OpenWRT router. router: "mesh" 192.168.49.4 satellite: "mesh1" 192.168.49.5 satellite: "mesh2" 192.168.49.6 I can access all these devices with no difficulty from Chrome and Firefox from my Ubuntu 22.04 system, so long as I enter their IP addresses in the browser URL field. I can also access the two satellites as http://mesh1 and http://mesh2. However when I attempt to acess the router (remember it is configured as an AP) as http://mesh I get: ERROR 500: Internal Server Error This is a new problem. It used to work perfectly. I cannot remember configuring anything new in many months. Of course I have power cycled everything, no joy. My current firmware is V4.6.14.3. When accessing the router with chrome and firefox, there are slightly different fields in the headers, depend on whether the hostname or IP address is entered in the URL. So it is difficult to find just one field different. So for this email, I used "wget" to access the router, and monitored it with Wireshark. I have attached the output of both queries. Here is the TCP trace from:% wget http://192.168.49.4 GET / HTTP/1.1 Host: 192.168.49.4 User-Agent: Wget/1.21.2 Accept: */* Accept-Encoding: identity Connection: Keep-Alive HTTP/1.1 200 OK Content-length: 2221 Content-type: text/html; charset="UTF-8" x-frame-options: SAMEORIGIN Cache-Control: no-store Pragma: no-cache Date: Wed, 30 Aug 2023 17:04:54 GMT <html><head> <META name="description" content="RBR750"> <META http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"> <META http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css"> <META http-equiv="Pragma" content="no-cache"> <META HTTP-equiv="Cache-Control" content="no-cache"> <META HTTP-EQUIV="Expires" CONTENT="0"> <meta http-equiv="x-ua-compatible" content="IE=EDGE">  <title>NETGEAR Router Orbi Index</title> <script language="javascript" type="text/javascript"> ########### The rest deleted for brevity Here is the TCP trace with:% wget http://meshGET / HTTP/1.1 Host: mesh User-Agent: Wget/1.21.2 Accept: */* Accept-Encoding: identity Connection: Keep-Alive HTTP/1.1 500 Internal Server Error Content-Type: text/html Content-Length: 365 Date: Wed, 30 Aug 2023 17:03:49 GMT <?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1"?> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"> <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> <head> <title>500 Internal Server Error</title> </head> <body> <h1>500 Internal Server Error</h1> </body> </html> As you can see above, the two HTTP queries are identical, except that the sucessful query has the field: Host: 192.168.49.4 While the failed query changes that field to: Host: mesh This looks like a newly introduced error in a recent firmware update. Can anyone think of another explanation?

It appears that the DNS server in Open WRT is not resolving "mesh" to the correct IP address. What happens if you do the command line command ping mesh

Thanks for providing the recording showing the DNS resolution. Version V4.6.14.3 appears to have been out since 12/1/2022 (almost nine months). Unless this system was just recently updated, the firmware seems unlikely to be the cause of the change in behavior. My Orbi requires authentication. (user, password) Do you have those parameters in a configuration file, rather than on the command line? It appears that more parameters are required to get the output in your post. All I get is this: C:\Users\Dick>wget.exe 192.168.1.1 --user=admin --password=xxxxxxxxx --2023-08-30 16:13:45-- http://192.168.1.1/ Connecting to 192.168.1.1:80... connected. HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 401 Unauthorized Authentication selected: Basic realm="NETGEAR Orbi" Connecting to 192.168.1.1:80... connected. HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK Length: 531 [text/html] Saving to: 'index.html' index.html 100%[=================================================>] 531 --.-KB/s in 0s 2023-08-30 16:13:46 (7.90 MB/s) - 'index.html' saved [531/531] One of the 'missing features' in Orbi is the ability to resolve local DNS entries, so I am unable to duplicate the entire situation. (Also testing on an RBR50 in router mode) It is interesting to note that on my Windows computer, wget connects to the IPv6 address of the web site when Orbi resolves http://orbilogin.net : C:\Users\Dick>wget.exe http://orbilogin.net --user=admin --password=xxxxxxxxxx --2023-08-30 16:25:52-- http://orbilogin.net/ Resolving orbilogin.net (orbilogin.net)... 2603:8000:403:bd7c:a204:60ff:fe1c:239, 192.168.1.1 Connecting to orbilogin.net (orbilogin.net)|2603:8000:403:bd7c:a204:60ff:fe1c:239|:80... connected. HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 401 Unauthorized Authentication selected: Basic realm="NETGEAR Orbi" Connecting to orbilogin.net (orbilogin.net)|2603:8000:403:bd7c:a204:60ff:fe1c:239|:80... connected. HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK Length: 531 [text/html] Saving to: 'index.html.1' index.html.1 100%[=================================================>] 531 --.-KB/s in 0s 2023-08-30 16:25:52 (5.56 MB/s) - 'index.html.1' saved [531/531]

This Hosts file thing is fun! Dug out my spare RBR50 and connected it to the LAN. Created Hosts entry for it (192.168.1.80 Test50). When in AP mode, the RBR50 web server responds correctly to both: http://192.168.1.80 and to http://Test50 This it appears that this phenomenon exists on the RBR750, but not on the old RBR50. (Have no other Orbi routers to try.) From the Wireshark capture, it appears that the only difference between an http connection by IP and and by host name is that the host name is included in the http packet as an entry: Host: xxxxx\r\n One of the goofy features included in Netgear routers is watching for those special URLs (routerlogin.com, routerlogin.net, orbilogin.com, orbilogin.net, etc.) and substituting the Orbi router IP for them. I wonder if Netgear decided to improve the AX product by having the router check the "Host:" parameter in the http get statement to see if it matches one of those special URLs??? Would it be convenient to temporarily add another entry in the OpenWRT hosts file, perhaps 192.168.49.4 orbilogin.net (it will take me a bit to change equipment around to test this myself.)

Good thought, but the IP address in the query is correct. Here's what "wget" outputs when typed from the command line: % wget mesh--2023-08-30 12:09:08-- http://mesh/Resolving mesh (mesh)... 192.168.49.4Connecting to mesh (mesh)|192.168.49.4|:80... connected.HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 500 Internal Server Error2023-08-30 12:09:08 ERROR 500: Internal Server Error. % ping meshPING mesh.lan (192.168.49.4) 56(84) bytes of data.64 bytes from mesh.lan (192.168.49.4): icmp_seq=1 ttl=64 time=0.322 ms64 bytes from mesh.lan (192.168.49.4): icmp_seq=2 ttl=64 time=0.353 ms

Here's some additional behavior. The satellites have no problem with wget queries. % wget http://mesh1--2023-08-30 14:02:14-- http://mesh1/Resolving mesh1 (mesh1)... 192.168.49.5Connecting to mesh1 (mesh1)|192.168.49.5|:80... connected.HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OKLength: 839 [text/html]Saving to: ‘index.html.4’ % wget http://mesh2--2023-08-30 14:02:17-- http://mesh2/Resolving mesh2 (mesh2)... 192.168.49.6Connecting to mesh2 (mesh2)|192.168.49.6|:80... connected.HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OKLength: 839 [text/html]Saving to: ‘index.html.5’

linutic

Aspirant

Aug 30, 2023

Internal Server Error when hostname used

I have configured my RBR750 as an access point with the following IP addresses set as static DHCP addresses in my OpenWRT router.

router: "mesh" 192.168.49.4

satellite: "mesh1" 192.168.49.5

satellite: "mesh2" 192.168.49.6

I can access all these devices with no difficulty from Chrome and Firefox from my Ubuntu 22.04 system, so long as I enter their IP addresses in the browser URL field. I can also access the two satellites as http://mesh1 and http://mesh2. However when I attempt to acess the router (remember it is configured as an AP) as http://mesh I get:

ERROR 500: Internal Server Error

This is a new problem. It used to work perfectly. I cannot remember configuring anything new in many months. Of course I have power cycled everything, no joy. My current firmware is V4.6.14.3.

When accessing the router with chrome and firefox, there are slightly different fields in the headers, depend on whether the hostname or IP address is entered in the URL. So it is difficult to find just one field different. So for this email, I used "wget" to access the router, and monitored it with Wireshark. I have attached the output of both queries.

Here is the TCP trace from:

% wget http://192.168.49.4

GET / HTTP/1.1
Host: 192.168.49.4
User-Agent: Wget/1.21.2
Accept: */*
Accept-Encoding: identity
Connection: Keep-Alive


HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Content-length: 2221
Content-type: text/html; charset="UTF-8"
x-frame-options: SAMEORIGIN
Cache-Control: no-store
Pragma: no-cache
Date: Wed, 30 Aug 2023 17:04:54 GMT
<html><head>
<META name="description" content="RBR750">
<META http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8">
<META http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css">
<META http-equiv="Pragma" content="no-cache">
<META HTTP-equiv="Cache-Control" content="no-cache">
<META HTTP-EQUIV="Expires" CONTENT="0">
<meta http-equiv="x-ua-compatible" content="IE=EDGE">
<!--<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, minimum-
scale=1.0, maximum-scale=1.0, user-scalable=no">-->
<title>NETGEAR Router Orbi Index</title>
<script language="javascript" type="text/javascript">

########### The rest deleted for brevity

Here is the TCP trace with:

% wget http://mesh

GET / HTTP/1.1
Host: mesh
User-Agent: Wget/1.21.2
Accept: */*
Accept-Encoding: identity
Connection: Keep-Alive


HTTP/1.1 500 Internal Server Error
Content-Type: text/html
Content-Length: 365
Date: Wed, 30 Aug 2023 17:03:49 GMT
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1"?>
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN"
"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en">
<head>
<title>500 Internal Server Error</title>
</head>
<body>
<h1>500 Internal Server Error</h1>
</body>
</html>

As you can see above, the two HTTP queries are identical, except that the sucessful query has the field:

Host: 192.168.49.4

While the failed query changes that field to:

Host: mesh

This looks like a newly introduced error in a recent firmware update. Can anyone think of another explanation?

17 Replies

CrimpOn
Guru
Aug 30, 2023
It appears that the DNS server in Open WRT is not resolving "mesh" to the correct IP address.

What happens if you do the command line command

ping mesh
- linutic
  Aspirant
  Aug 30, 2023
  Good thought, but the IP address in the query is correct. Here's what "wget" outputs when typed from the command line:
  
  % wget mesh
  --2023-08-30 12:09:08-- http://mesh/
  Resolving mesh (mesh)... 192.168.49.4
  Connecting to mesh (mesh)|192.168.49.4|:80... connected.
  HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 500 Internal Server Error
  2023-08-30 12:09:08 ERROR 500: Internal Server Error.
  
  % ping mesh
  PING mesh.lan (192.168.49.4) 56(84) bytes of data.
  64 bytes from mesh.lan (192.168.49.4): icmp_seq=1 ttl=64 time=0.322 ms
  64 bytes from mesh.lan (192.168.49.4): icmp_seq=2 ttl=64 time=0.353 ms
  - linutic
    Aspirant
    Aug 30, 2023
    Here's some additional behavior. The satellites have no problem with wget queries.
    
    % wget http://mesh1
    --2023-08-30 14:02:14-- http://mesh1/
    Resolving mesh1 (mesh1)... 192.168.49.5
    Connecting to mesh1 (mesh1)|192.168.49.5|:80... connected.
    HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
    Length: 839 [text/html]
    Saving to: ‘index.html.4’
    
    % wget http://mesh2
    --2023-08-30 14:02:17-- http://mesh2/
    Resolving mesh2 (mesh2)... 192.168.49.6
    Connecting to mesh2 (mesh2)|192.168.49.6|:80... connected.
    HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
    Length: 839 [text/html]
    Saving to: ‘index.html.5’

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Internal Server Error when hostname used