Re: The OTHER problem with Netgear WGT624 (and probably others)

On 31 Jul 2006 21:49:03 GMT, phil-news-nospam@xxxxxxxx wrote:

However, if the virtual host "routerlogin.net" is used, it gets a
different response from the server:

What's a virtual host?

I'm starting to get the picture. If I try:
http://64.202.189.170/
I get the "This site is temporarily...." message.

However, if I try:
http://www.routerlogin.com
I get the Netgear web site as you point out using lynx.

Yet, www.routerlogin.com, routerlogin.com, and routerlogin.net all
point to 64.202.189.170. Weird.

|>So, did some Netgear engineer ASS-U-ME that everyone would always be
|>putting it in a network where all internet traffic would go through the
|>router?
|
| Yep. That's exactly what they're doing. Products must be user
| friendly and beginning users should have a favorable out of box
| experience. Never mind the hackers.

Excuse me, but an assumption that is NOT true does NOT make user
friendly. Tell me how you think that the CORRECT way that *I*
suggested would be in any way LESS user friendly. The way I had
suggested would work in at least more cases than the way they
have it now, and not break in any cases that work their way.

Your suggestion as to how it should operate is certainly better than
what has been implimented by Netgear. Neither method has much to do
with "user friendly". All I think they were trying to do is point the
web browser to the setup wizard if the router was NOT configured.
Where they goofed is to point also point it to the general setup page
after it was configured. That doesn't do anything useful.

Tell me how making an HTTP request for http://192.168.1.1/ to
the router itself and getting a redirect to http://routerlogin.net/
is enhancing friendliness when in some cases that will fail to go
back to the router (because they didn't configured the DNS zone for
routerlogin.net with 192.168.1.1 for an IP address).

If it works the way you suggest (internet nameserver redirects
routerlogin.net to 192.168.1.1), then it will certainly fail if the
user changes the router IP address. However, I haven't seen any
evidence that this is done by an internet based DNS server. The
redirection seems to be done by the DNS cache inside the router. If
this is true, then a change to the router IP address would not cause
the redirection to fail.

I agree that the wireless part should be off until proper configuration.

You're the first to agree with that.

I don't see how what Netgear did is the same thing.

They didn't. I think they tried to do it the "right way(tm)" but got
muddled in the redirection to the setup wizard.

What it appears to
me that they tried to do was make something that is easier to remember
and less prone to error that the user can type into their browser. For
you and me, typing "192.168.1.1" isn't a problem. For the Average Joe
it can be, at least if they have to remember it a few minutes later and
would otherwise keep having to check the manual.

They could easily have set it up so that any URL or IP address would
be redirected to the setup wizard. Once successfully setup and saved,
things could return to normal. If they were serious about an easy way
to get to the setup, then it should have been something like:
http://setup
The caching DNS server doesn't need a FQDN to do a lookup and can
easily default to a local domain. However, if this is unpalateable,
it could have been something like:
http://setup.netgear.com
which I think the GUM (great unwashed masses) could handle.

For MOST people, what they tried to do probably works.

The greatest good for the greatest number. Geeks, hackers, you and I
don't qualify.

If that faked DNS reply was done, it would work in a lot of scenarios.

Yep. Good idea, bad implimentation.

But it would NOT work in some others where another means of internet
access is active.

Only if you insist that the lookup go to the internet. It could
easily be trapped in the local DNS cache in the router.

Get me the phone number of the person who is in
the position of authority to fix it, and I'll be glad to call him/her and
explain in detail why they should change DNS. Then it will be up to them
to choose to do things better or not.

I don't have any way to get to the vendors directly. You might try
writing a suitable bug report and posting it on the Netgear forums at:
http://forum1.netgear.com/support/
or on DSLReports at:
http://www.dslreports.com/forum/equip,9?r=946

Oh swell, the Netgear forums are now apparently dead.

"Thanks to all the NETGEAR customers who made the forum such a
success! As a result of the popularity, NETGEAR has decided to
reintroduce the forum in a new and improved format. While the
changes are underway, we?ll be using our forum resources to make
the conversion, and the existing forum will be unavailable.

In the meantime, questions that would have been directed to the
forum can be sent to NETGEAR?s email support , where they will
receive the personal attention of our agents. We hope to see you
again when the forum reopens!"

What this PR announcement forgot to mention was that the user forums
were being largely ignored by Netgear and that Netgear was only
archiving the most recent 50 or so messages, which was about 1-2 days
worth of postings. The only answers I ever received were erased
before I could read them. Nice job Netgear.

--
# Jeff Liebermann 150 Felker St #D Santa Cruz CA 95060
# 831-336-2558 jeffl@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
# http://802.11junk.com jeffl@xxxxxxxxxx
# http://www.LearnByDestroying.com AE6KS
.

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