Monitoring Motorola Surfboard Modem

[Squintz]

For those of you who are using a motorola surfboard i will soon be attempting to write a script which will allow you to monitor certain features such as signal strength and also the log.

For now if you were wondering how to read the time from your log which apears to be a bunch of numbers and nothing more i have the answer for you. I will be using this time to monitor if a new entry has been made into the log by comparing the last value with the newest value. If you have a certain feature that you would like to see in the script post it here.

I provided the example time 050326135749
---------------------------------------------------------------
Response (Terry) - 03/28/2005 03:34 PM
Thank you for choosing Motorola technical support. I do apologize for any wait you have endured pertaining to this response, and also apologize for the inconvenience you are having with the use and/or set up of your device.

Break it down in this order. 05(year) 03(month) 26(day) 13(hour) 57(min) 49(seconds) is the breakdown for the number you sent me.

If you have any further questions, or this does not help to resolve the issue for you, feel free to contact us by replying here, or by calling our technical support line 24/7 at 1-877-466-8646. Once again, thank you for choosing Motorola, and you have a great day.

Terry

 

[patsikes]

So how do you talk to the modem? I have a Motorola SurfBoard modem and can't think of how you would do it? Talk to your external IP address on a certain port?

I think as script to do this would be great...especially if I can use it to help trouble shoot networking issues. Sometimes I have to reset my router, others the modem and to tell what needs to be reset, I can automate it better.

Thanks!

Patrick

 

[electron]

You should be able to talk to the modem by going to http://192.168.100.1

 

[ClearToLand]

So how do you talk to the modem? I have a Motorola SurfBoard modem and can't think of how you would do it? Talk to your external IP address on a certain port?

Most cable modems and routers that I've seen default to a LOCAL (192.168.xxx.yyy) IP address that brings up either a LOGIN page or a STATUS page. Depending on the information available, you can then "parse" it (such as the scripts that parse the WEATHER pages) and utilize the information in your program(s).

My RCA cable modem (235 IIRC) has a default IP of 192.168.100.1, with two pages available:

1. Cable Modem Diagnostics: h t t p://192.168.100.1/diagnostics.htm
2. Technical Details Status: h t t p://192.168.100.1/moreinfo.html

You can get this information either from:

• The manufacturer
• GOOGLE
• Searching all the "popular/known" LOCAL IP addresses yourself until you "hit it"
• Asking others (try DSLReports.Com)

 

[ClearToLand]

...For now if you were wondering how to read the time from your log which apears to be a bunch of numbers and nothing more i have the answer for you... ...I provided the example time 050326135749
---------------------------------------------------------------
Response (Terry) - 03/28/2005 03:34 PM
...Break it down in this order. 05(year) 03(month) 26(day) 13(hour) 57(min) 49(seconds) is the breakdown for the number you sent me.

Geez - that *DID* seem kind of obvious and straightforward!?!

 

[Squintz]

I was planning on using a parsing method by call the site via hs and grabing only the data that was wanted. I figured if there is some information on there that you want let me know so i can plan ahead of time.

The way i would handle the log area is to monitor the latest entry which apears to always be the first entry in the list. I would monitor the time and if the time changes i will provide the option to put the data into a virtual device and also log it.

What do you guys think should happen with the data i capture?

 

[electron]

I personally just test my bandwidth using the bandwith monitor script I wrote for HS, I don't really care to have the cable modem details such as signal strength available through the home automation interface. There is such thing as information overflow

It's a great exercise tho, so do it anyways!

 

[Guy Lavoie]

But what happens if you have a cable router? Normally, it is the device that responds to the internal IP address...

 

[electron]

What do you mean, I don't think I am understanding the question. If the IP you are trying to access isn't part of your subnet, the router will send it to the WAN port, which is how it talks to the cable modem. If you have a mix of a cable modem/router, then you just access that interface to pull up the stats you want.

 

[WayneW]

That is what confused me too. I need to refresh my memory when I get home, but I don't think I can get to my DSL modem from any of my computers due to the router being in the way. The DSL modem is connected to the public side of my router. If I connect a computer directly to the DSL modem, then I can get to it via the IP address of the DSL modem. But that IP is not accessible across the router. Or do I have something wrong?

I have HS ping my router and external web sites, but I never figured out a way to ping the DSL modem itself. Therefore if I can ping the router, but NONE of the external sites, then I can assume I have a modem issue.

 

[WayneW]

If the IP you are trying to access isn't part of your subnet, the router will send it to the WAN port,

Does this work for non-routable IP addresses? I thought the router would be smart enough not to try and send 192.168 stuff to the outside world? Or is that the job of the modem to keep the 192.168 stuff local? I use 10.0.x.x for my internal stuff if that matters.

 

[electron]

Your ISP is responsible for blocking these non-routable IP addresses (and you would be surprised how many internet routers are still accepting packets with a non-routable IP address as the destination). I know this works with my custom built Linux firewall (simply because I didn't add a rule which stops these packets, as they really can't get anywhere), so I assume that most consumer level devices don't block these packets either and just send them to the WAN port.

You should be able to ping your DSL modem without any issues, even using the non-routable IP address.

 

[ClearToLand]

But what happens if you have a cable router? Normally, it is the device that responds to the internal IP address...

...I don't think I can get to my DSL modem from any of my computers due to the router being in the way. The DSL modem is connected to the public side of my router. If I connect a computer directly to the DSL modem, then I can get to it via the IP address of the DSL modem. But that IP is not accessible across the router. Or do I have something wrong?

There appear to be many "elementary level" misconceptions circulating here...

DSLReports.Com has *many* FAQs that explain these concepts much better than any "give-and-take" thread could.

Although a Router has 1 WAN Port and *many* LAN Ports, the ultimate "Point of Demarcation" is the MODEM (DSL or Cable). Thus, both the Router *AND* the Modem have PRIVATE (192.168.xxx.yyy) addresses, accessible from *ONLY* locally (unless you turn on the Router's public via password access *OR* access the Modem THRU the PC via Remote Console software, yada, yada, yada... ).

 

[Guy Lavoie]

As I understand it, when you have no router, the cable modem acquires a WAN IP address for the PC connected to it (which is configured for DHCP). It is the PC's LAN card that gets the WAN address.

When you have a router, it is the router that now gets the WAN IP address on its WAN side and has a fixed IP address on its LAN side that is set by default to a 192.168.x.x address (can be changed by the user), and either assigns a private address to the PC(s) on the LAN if DHCP is set up, or the PCs have fixed LAN addresses. I have never heard of the modem itself having an IP address, since it is only a hardware interface (layer 1 device) to translate from cable channel data to 10 base T. The cable modem does have the smarts to acquire a transmit and receive channel on the cable network but is not dealing with layer 3 and 4 stuff itself.

Anyway that's the way I've always pictured it and any corrections from those with the in depth knowledge as more then welcome.

 

[electron]

There is no need to go to DSLreports.com to have any networking questions answered, considering the number of certified network engineers we have on this site, and to most people, the only "elementary level" parts of Networking 101 is knowing how to plug in a network cable. Knowing how IP routing works is a different (and much more complicated) issue which even many CCNA's have problems with, so I kind of see this as an insult, but hopefully that was not the case.

Guy, a cable/dsl router usually has 2 modes of operation: Bridged and Router mode, which do exactly what you just described. Bridged mode turns the modem into a 'dumb' modem, where it just passes the traffic on (so the modem should be transparent to your network), while Router mode means the modem will take care of everything.

However, these device still require an IP address, so you can configure these settings through the LAN interface. These modems are also accessed by the Internet Provider, so they can update the configuration/firmware remotely (usually done using the TFTP protocol), but that's usually done using another IP address, using the WAN interface. Even most digital cable set top boxes nowadays have non-routable IP addresses.