Orbi, SOAP, and Excel

[SLK-Purdue]

In previous post I have tried to improved the Connected Devices display in the WebUI (added sorting) and put together an Excel spreadsheet to extract that data.  I still wanted signal information.  The information is available on the App.   The App used SOAP requests to Orbi router.   Thanks to some great internet info on SOAP servers on other Netgear products, some Wireshark network forensics, lots of coffee, long hours, some good Scotch, and a bit of magic, I got through most of the Orbi SOAP options.   I put together another Excel spreadsheet to look at this XML data.   The spreadsheet can be found at:

www dropbox com/s/o0eaj5kjs3cpxcc/ORBI%20Soap%20Request.xlsm?dl=0

Dots removed to obey the posting rules.

Each SOAP requests creates a new worksheet with that request's XML data.   The top sheet is a compilation of data I wanted.   If I get inspired, I may port this to Javascript and create a new WebUI page but time will tell ...

No support expressed or implied but I would like to hear comments that I will consider.

Scott

[SLK-Purdue · Accepted solution]

I updated to 2.5.1.16 FW and things seem to be working fine.

I can also confirm my Excel stuff and the mods for sorting Attached Devices all port the same for 2.5.1.16 and work.

Scott

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@SLK-Purdue wrote:

Thanks.  Will give it a look.

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@FURRYe38 wrote:

v16 is available now:

https://community.netgear.com/t5/Orbi/RBR50-RBS50-Firmware-2-5-1-16-Update/m-p/1897955/highlight/tru...

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[FURRYe38]

Was curious if you have updated FW to v16?

I know that @CrimpOn and you were discussing this here:

https://community.netgear.com/t5/Orbi/Attached-Devices-Sorted-by-IP-Number/m-p/1877986

Also Voxels FW should have some improvements as well. 

[SLK-Purdue]

Running 2.5.1.8

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@FURRYe38 wrote:

Was curious if you have updated FW to v16?

I know that @CrimpOn and you were discussing this here:

https://community.netgear.com/t5/Orbi/Attached-Devices-Sorted-by-IP-Number/m-p/1877986

Also Voxels FW should have some improvements as well. 

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[FURRYe38]

v16 is available now:

https://community.netgear.com/t5/Orbi/RBR50-RBS50-Firmware-2-5-1-16-Update/m-p/1897955/highlight/tru...

[SLK-Purdue]

Thanks.  Will give it a look.

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@FURRYe38 wrote:

v16 is available now:

https://community.netgear.com/t5/Orbi/RBR50-RBS50-Firmware-2-5-1-16-Update/m-p/1897955/highlight/tru...

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[SLK-Purdue · Accepted solution]

I updated to 2.5.1.16 FW and things seem to be working fine.

I can also confirm my Excel stuff and the mods for sorting Attached Devices all port the same for 2.5.1.16 and work.

Scott

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@SLK-Purdue wrote:

Thanks.  Will give it a look.

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@FURRYe38 wrote:

v16 is available now:

https://community.netgear.com/t5/Orbi/RBR50-RBS50-Firmware-2-5-1-16-Update/m-p/1897955/highlight/tru...

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[FURRYe38]

Great to hear. Be sure to make a backup configuration to file for safe keeping. 

Can mark this as solved so others will know.

Enjoy. 

[SLK-Purdue]

Update my Orbi Excel Soap call spreadsheet to "version 2".  Fixed some minor bugs and added the ability to download and save the Orbi config file.   New version located at

   www dropbox com/s/fjqnfp0puahc604/ORBI%20Soap%20Request.xlsm?dl=0

Dots removed to obey forum rules.

Works with current Windows 10, Current MS Excel, and current Orbi FW 2.5.116

Scott

[CrimpOn]

This Excel sheet is amazing!  It now removes any incentive to open the Orbi "app" as the only thing the app does that the web interface does not is show the "Link Rate" and signal strength.

Was surprised to see the satellite signal strength on my satellite is (minus) 64, whereas all the other devices show signal strength as positive numbers. The spread sheet does not show transmit/receive speeds that I see in

satelliteinfo wifi

That data is probably not in the information SOAP returns?

GREAT WORK

[SLK-Purdue]

Thanks. I will check if that data is available somewhere. 

Scott

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@CrimpOn wrote:

This Excel sheet is amazing!  It now removes any incentive to open the Orbi "app" as the only thing the app does that the web interface does not is show the "Link Rate" and signal strength.

Was surprised to see the satellite signal strength on my satellite is (minus) 64, whereas all the other devices show signal strength as positive numbers. The spread sheet does not show transmit/receive speeds that I see in

satelliteinfo wifi

That data is probably not in the information SOAP returns?

GREAT WORK

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[SLK-Purdue]

Thanks for the question.   I run a wired backhaul so I hadn't thought about wireless backhaul link information.   It does appear that the backhaul BHPhyTxRate and BHPhyTxRate is available via SOAP in the request GetCurrentSatellitesWIFIinfo and I would love to include that in the Excel code.   I can made that SOAP request but I am not getting complete information in the return.  It seems likely I have a syntax error somehow in the request but I am flying blind without a spec.  If anyone can point me in the right directly or if anyone at Netgear would share to spec (even if via a backdoor and I promise I won't ask questions 🙂 ), this could be easily included in the spreadsheet infomation.  Thanks again for the input.   

Wish I could have reported better results. 

Current version of the spreadsheet with the GetCurrentSatelliteWIFIinfo response in the breakout spreadsheets can be found at

    www dropbox com/s/fjqnfp0puahc604/ORBI%20Soap%20Request.xlsm?dl=0

Scott

[tomschmidt]

Great work Scott!

I have been working on a monitoring system for the Orbi using Xymon.  So far it is parsing data from various web pages of the router and satellites to gather data.  But SOAP calls would be cleaner.

Do you know if there are SOAP calls to get CPU and memory information like is seen on the debug.htm page?  I like to gather trend data on the CPU and memory usage to watch for any spikes or issues.  Perhaps there is a call simular to the one used for system uptime that is also shown on the debug.htm page.

Sample data from my monitor:

Tue May 26 21:31:35 MDT 2020 Status: OK
RBR50 Router

Hostname : RBR50
IP Address : 192.168.1.1
CPU Load : 17.0316%
Memory Usage : 144MB/495MB
Flash Usage : 2945MB/4096MB
Network Session : 1196/65536
System Uptime : 56 days 6 hours 8 minutes

Firmware Version : V2.5.1.16
Region : us
Internet Connection Status : Up
Open DNS Enabled : No
Circle Enabled : No

[tomschmidt]

@SLK-Purdue Scott, wonderful work that you have done!  Can the SOAP calls also check CPU and memory load?  I see you found System Uptime, but I would also like to find CPU and memory usage as reported by the debug.htm page using SOAP calls.  I am working on a system monitor using Xymon and would like to track the CPU and memory load.

[SLK-Purdue]

Good idea!   I added the information I know about and there is a link to the new version below.   Hope this helps.  There is still some other information that is clearly available but I don't have the correct syntax yet.   I AM STILL HOPING SOMEONE AT NETGEAR WILL SHARE THE ORBI SOAP SPEC WITH ME so I can add other interesting information. 

NETGEAR -Hint, hint!! (I promise I will keep it private)

New version

       www dropbox com/s/fjqnfp0puahc604/ORBI%20Soap%20Request.xlsm?dl=0

Thanks for the input,

Scott

[CrimpOn]

Although I am enjoying this a lot, the reports for CPU, memory, & flash do not match my Orbi "debug page" report.  Not even close.

Maybe there is a scaling factor missing somewhere?

Could it be that the processor is multi-cpu and SOAP is reporting only one?

I just realized that up time is reported in hours, minutes, and seconds.  No "Days".  The figure is correct. The debug page calculates "Days".

[SLK-Purdue]

I will look at this and see if I can sort out the values vs command line and debug UI. 

Scott

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@CrimpOn wrote:

Although I am enjoying this a lot, the reports for CPU, memory, & flash do not match my Orbi "debug page" report.  Not even close.

Maybe there is a scaling factor missing somewhere?

Could it be that the processor is multi-cpu and SOAP is reporting only one?

I just realized that up time is reported in hours, minutes, and seconds.  No "Days".  The figure is correct. The debug page calculates "Days".

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[SLK-Purdue]

It looks like SOAP is reporting the some of the information you can see using the "top" command via telnet.   CPU utilization is a percentage as is Memory utilization.   In my case, I get 51% memory util based on top reporting 259268K used and 248036K free.  This also matches info in /proc/meminfo.

from top

Mem: 262256K used, 245048K free, 40648K shrd, 14788K buff, 68824K cached
CPU: 22.9% usr 8.3% sys 0.0% nic 62.5% idle 0.0% io 4.1% irq 2.0% sirq

cat /proc/meminfo

MemTotal: 507304 kB
MemFree: 244932 kB
MemAvailable: 259444 kB

I don't understand the Physical Memory info of 32 and Flash as 128.  That doesn't match what I think is physically installed in the unit

Still exploring the SOAP interface. 

 Wish I could get a copy of the spec from NETGEAR.......

Scott

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@CrimpOn wrote:

Although I am enjoying this a lot, the reports for CPU, memory, & flash do not match my Orbi "debug page" report.  Not even close.

Maybe there is a scaling factor missing somewhere?

Could it be that the processor is multi-cpu and SOAP is reporting only one?

I just realized that up time is reported in hours, minutes, and seconds.  No "Days".  The figure is correct. The debug page calculates "Days".

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