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Nighthawk R6400 - Redirect outgoing IP address
I have a data logger on a local area network that sends data to a remote server for long-term storage. The company that provides the server and storage service is terminating support and will no long...
> Some might. [...]
Note that some non-Netgear routers (or non-Netgear firmware for
Netgear routers) might allow the user to specify name-address data in
potentially useful ways for your situation. I seem to recall (dimly)
questions in these forums from users who sought how-to guidance for a
Netgear router to do what they had been doing on some other vendor's
models. More market research might reveal a router which has a more
helpful feature set.
Thank you for the reply.
I'm sorry, I think I was not specific enough and included too much extra information.
I have attached a file that contains a snapshot of a typcial HTTP message from the local device to the remote server. It shows a the IP of the destination server as 174.143.16.154 and the URL of the server as "gw1.eri-gw.com" as specified in the HTTP message.
I am wondering if there is a way to configure a router so that the router substitutes another URL or IP address for the URL "gw1.eri-gw.com"?
I understand that redirecting this HTTP message is unlikely; I just want to fill in the blanks of my original post.
Thank you for your help.
> I'm sorry, I think I was not specific enough and included too much
> extra information.
The best of all possible worlds.
> I am wondering if there is a way to configure a router so that the
> router substitutes another URL or IP address for the URL
> "gw1.eri-gw.com"?
I know of none. Fiddling with HTTP messages as they pass through
isn't really its job.
> I have attached a file [...]
Ok. Depending on what your mystery gizmo really is, some relatively
simple things might be possible.
If it uses (or can use) a "hosts" file for its name resolution, then
you might be able to fool it into using the address of your choice for
that DNS name, "gw1.eri-gw.com" (by editing that "hosts" file).
Otherwise, pointing the thing at a local DNS server could accomplish the
same thing. But I know nothing about how it does name resolution.
But, even if you could point your mystery gizmo at a server address
of your choice, then you'd still need to provide the actual server. A
generic web server should not be a big problem, but this one needs to
have a "/rectrack/get_lua.php" (PHP script, I assume) to accept the data
(with those parameters, "serno=xxxxxxxxxxxx&command=get_instruction").
With my weak psychic powers, I know nothing about what that script
does with the data. If it were _my_ magic PHP script, then I might be
reluctant to give you a copy of it, but you could always ask the vendor
for assistance.
> I understand that redirecting this HTTP message is unlikely; I just
> want to fill in the blanks of my original post.
Understood. A quick Web search for things like "get_lua.php" found
approximately nothing, so I'd guess that we're not dealing with a
mass-market product here. Without some serious cooperation from the
vendor, you might be looking at some real reverse-engineering work to
replace the vanishing service. (Find a talented student who's not
getting enough screen time these days?)
antinode,
Thank you again for your informative posts.
I have the skills to write the php script for a server to handle the handshake with the logger. In other packets that I captured I was able to see all of the details. It is a fairly simple handshake that is not quite trivial, but not that difficult to implement.
My issue is that the logger (my mystery device) points only at the fixed URL "gw1.eri-gw.com". This value is hard-coded. That is, there is no file that I can modify to have it point to a different URL. I found a backdoor GUI for the logger and was hoping that this would allow me to redefine the server URL, but it does not.
Not knowing much about routers, I was hoping that a typical router would keep a small domain name table within its local memory. If this were the case, it would seem that there might be a way to override the IP address that the router gets from its standard DNS. However, as I write this, I realize that this would probably present a security risk and so is probably not a control that a router manufacturer would make available.
Thanks
> [...] I was hoping that a typical router would keep a small domain
> name table within its local memory. [...]Some might. Even some Netgear models might. I've never seen a
Netgear model which allows the user to fiddle with anything of that
sort. Hence the suggestion of a local DNS server (or "hosts" file),
with which you _can_ fiddle. (A Raspberry Pi, for example.)This kind of redirection stuff is not impossible, but getting a
consumer-grade Netgear router to do it might be tough.The DNS processing in a typical Netgear router does intercept names
like "routerlogin.net", and deals with them internally, so it's not as
if the whole concept is foreign, but it's not intended to be
user-configurable. (And I know approximately nothing about the
details.)If your R6400[vX?] allows you to enable Telnet access into it, then
you might be able to find a way poke something into it to get the
desired effect, but something like a firmware update, or even a restart,
might clean out any such modification. (And Netgear has crippled that
(undocumented) feature in recent R7000 firmware, too, so relying on it
carries its own dangers.) Everything's complicated.> Some might. [...]
Note that some non-Netgear routers (or non-Netgear firmware for
Netgear routers) might allow the user to specify name-address data in
potentially useful ways for your situation. I seem to recall (dimly)
questions in these forums from users who sought how-to guidance for a
Netgear router to do what they had been doing on some other vendor's
models. More market research might reveal a router which has a more
helpful feature set.