Smart Hub 2 router firmware update problems

bored · ‎25-11-2022

Hi,

My router was upgraded to a new version of firmware this morning, but since then, I'm having a problem accessing one of the pages.

Prior to the upgrade, if I connected to http://192.168.1.254/nonAuth/wan_conn.xml I could retrieve the Public IP address of the router. I use this to update my public DNS provider's IP Address so external applications can access services at home.

Now when I attempt to retrieve my public IP address from the router, I get:

403 Forbidden

Illegal filename.

How do I retrieve this information now?

I've also noticed that if I go to http://192.168.1.254/basic_-_status.htm and then click Export, I get the same error.

I get it trying to export the Technical Log info located at http://192.168.1.254/helpdesk.htm too.

Is it possible to revert this version of the firmware to what it was previously, while waiting for the fix to be pushed out in a future firmware release, as this version seems broken? Unless anyone knows of another URL wich will provide me the public IP address of the router in plain text?

This is a critical requirement of mine so I need a solution ASAP.

Thanks.

bobpullen · ‎04-04-2007

Are you talking about a BT-provided hub here, or a Plusnet one?

If the former, then we don't have much control over firmware deployments.

What version of firmware is your hub currently running?

Edit: also, what DNS provider are you using? It sounds to me like there is probably a much more graceful way to be doing things.

Bob Pullen
Plusnet Product Team
If I've been helpful then please give thanks ⤵

bored · ‎25-11-2022

Hi, Bob!

Thanks for getting back so quickly... It's a PlusNet Smart Hub 2, firmware version v0.08.00.08297-PN

My domains are hosted by GoDaddy and I'm updating the DNS records via their API.

bobpullen · ‎04-04-2007

Thanks. I can replicate the first issue (public IP address) but not the others. Export works perfectly fine for me from both pages

Where did you get the first URL from? It's not a feature I'm familiar with.

Regarding the DNS situation, my recommendation would be to sign up to a free DDNS service like NoIP and configure DDNS directly on the hub. You could then set up a CNAME record with GoDaddy to alias your domain name to the DDNS address.

Bob Pullen
Plusnet Product Team
If I've been helpful then please give thanks ⤵

bored · ‎25-11-2022

Hi,

I've used DynDNS, NoIP and FreeDNS in the past, but had to migrate to GoDaddy because they couldn't provide the service I needed.

I got the URL from the router. If you go to the http://192.168.1.254/basic_-_status.htm page, then right-click the page and select "View page source" it's on line 23:

var xmlURL = "./nonAuth/wan_conn.xml";

Dan_the_Van · ‎25-06-2007

Have you considered getting a static public IP Address for a one off payment of £5 ?

Dan.

bored · ‎25-11-2022

@Dan_the_Van wrote:

Have you considered getting a static public IP Address for a one off payment of £5 ?

Dan.

I prefer dynamic. When I'm the target of a distributed DoS or brute-force login, I can just reboot my router, get a new IP and the problem is solved. I don't have that option with a static IP.

My current solution ticks all the boxes. I just want that fixing really. A router firmware patch to restore the previous behaviour of the router would be the ideal solution... A firmware patch which implements an API to retrieve the info from the router would be even better. I'd even take a firmware downgrade to get it going again, but that's not great if the recent patch fixed security issues.

bobpullen · ‎04-04-2007

@bored - at a domain level, what exactly are you pointing at your dynamic IP? The root domain itself, or a subdomain?

As suggested previously, you can easily CNAME a sub-domain to a free dynamic DNS hostname and use the inbuilt DDNS client on the router.

I don't know why the URL you were using is not accessible any more. I will try and find out but there's a chance it's gone for a good reason, and even if the change can be reverted, you''ll be waiting months for the next maintenance release.

I can't explain the export issue as I'm not able to replicate that behaviour (can anyone else?) - Assuming you are alone, then perhaps try a browser cache reset or a full factory reset.

Bob Pullen
Plusnet Product Team
If I've been helpful then please give thanks ⤵

Dan_the_Van · ‎25-06-2007

I not sure a dynamic IP address is refreshed on a reboot that often, so a reboot would probable result in the same IP, a prolonged disconnect would probably be needed.

The reality of the situation is what you are doing would not be supported by plusnet so I am not sure if you are able to direct plusnet to resolve your issue.

Maybe you should considered a 3rd party xDSL device rather than using a ISP device which are locked down.

I've had a static IP Address for years and occasionally see distributed DoS/brute-force login messages, but isn't that the firewall reporting the attempt has been blocked, if the log level setting did not report them you'd never know!

bored · ‎25-11-2022

@Dan_the_Van wrote:

I not sure a dynamic IP address is refreshed on a reboot that often, so a reboot would probable result in the same IP, a prolonged disconnect would probably be needed.

My IP is changed every time I reboot. It doesn't even need to be for a prolonged period, literally off, wait 5-10s, back on... It's the reason I have the scripts running to monitor the IP. If my IP stayed the same after a temporary disconnection, I wouldn't need the script in the first as the router has never been switched off.

Maybe you should considered a 3rd party xDSL device rather than using a ISP device which are locked down.

It's just a bit of an annoyance that something which previously worked has been changed and I'm expected to throw money at it, just to be back to where I was.

I've had a static IP Address for years and occasionally see distributed DoS/brute-force login messages, but isn't that the firewall reporting the attempt has been blocked, if the log level setting did not report them you'd never know!

I'm very security focused and have Geo-IP blocking of overseas countries, brute force detection and alert notifications for failed authorisations, so I'm aware of every attempted break-in. All failed logins are IP blocked for 30mins... The problem is that the brute force attacks are coming from hundreds or even thousands of different IPs, so adding them to a block list is pretty limited in its effectiveness.

bored · ‎25-11-2022

@bobpullen wrote:

@bored - at a domain level, what exactly are you pointing at your dynamic IP? The root domain itself, or a subdomain?

Both, I publish lots of different services some are at the root of the domain, but I also have subdomains for stuff like Nextcloud, HomeAssistant etc.

I don't know why the URL you were using is not accessible any more. I will try and find out but there's a chance it's gone for a good reason, and even if the change can be reverted, you''ll be waiting months for the next maintenance release.

I can't explain the export issue as I'm not able to replicate that behaviour (can anyone else?) - Assuming you are alone, then perhaps try a browser cache reset or a full factory reset.

It's started working again for the CSV exports this afternoon. I have logged into the Advanced Settings page, so maybe it's an authenticated vs unauthenticated issue. I dunno, I've not really looked into it.

bored · ‎25-11-2022

Well... I've actually fixed it!

When I F12'd in my browser's developer tools, I could see that I was getting a 200 status (OK) on the wan_conn.xml file... The browser was actually grabbing this file from the router every three seconds.

Previously I was grabbing the page into my script with:

curl --silent http://192.168.1.254/nonAuth/wan_conn.xml -H "Accept: application/xml"

but that no longer works.

I have now found that if I include a referrer (I don't know why it needs that header, but it does), I can grab the XML file OK. So I've amended my script this, and now it's working again:

curl --silent http://192.168.1.254/nonAuth/wan_conn.xml -H "Referer: http://192.168.1.254/basic_-_status.htm" -H "Accept: application/xml"

Thanks for all the input guys.

phone_them · ‎20-12-2022

Thanks for posting this. It has enabled me to get this working in a Python script.

import xml.etree.ElementTree as ET
import requests

host_ip = "http://192.168.1.254" 

def get_stats_xml() -> ET.Element:
    s = requests.Session()
    s.headers.update(
        {
             "Referer": f"{host_ip}/basic_-_status.htm",
             "Accept": "application/xml",
        }
    )
    r = s.get(f"{host_ip}/nonAuth/wan_conn.xml")
    return ET.fromstring(r.text)