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Obi 110 - Remote Host Management & Auto Reboot i.e No-ip or other free DNS

Started by sialkotgv3@gmail.com, May 04, 2011, 11:00:55 AM

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sialkotgv3@gmail.com

I would like to remotely manage my OBi110 which are located in different countries . If you can provide HOST through different DNS managed systems like NO-IP, FreeDNS etc. so i could diagnose and remotely reset reboot and other modification remotley to the device it would be very help full. Currently i have helpless as due to electricity problem ( In Pakistan specfically) , when electricity fails and comes back the Router and the OBi 110 reboot the same time. Some how the router is fuctioning properly but the OBi 110 gets stuck as the router was not ONline before the Obi 110 is UP. So i have to make a paid call to ask someone at the other end to manaully reboot (Plug On/Off) the Obi 110.

One thing else an added facility there should be a monitoring system in the Obi 110 , that if the internet connection times out or it not ONline ( i am using DSL connections at all the ends of my Obi 110 devices) the OBi 11o must try to reboot ( after some specific time ) until the Internet connection if restored.

If these two option (1) HOST Management through free DNS host management  (2) Auto reboot on Internet Problem , timeout.  be implemented it will solve many users problems as well as the time is saved

QBZappy

sialkotgv3@gmail.com
Hi,
Most routers have a built in DDNS client. You can already do what you want by port forwarding the router to the OBi ip. If you go this way consider changing OBi port number to some non-standard port in the

System Management>Device Admin>Web Server>Parameter Name>Port
Owner of the 1st OBi110/100 units in service in Canada & South America. 1st OBi202 on my street. 1st OBi1032 in Montreal.

sialkotgv3@gmail.com

Hi,

I suppose we can use some router DDNS and port forwarding , but my this post was for that if the OBi 110 is not automatically connect to internet after the electricity failure ( in pakistan electricity fails 3 to 4 times in an hour!!!) i have all the UPS and backup generators but it still fails.

So my point is that in third world countries there is electricity as well as DSL/ineternet problems, what i have observed even in USA , that OBI 110 gets stuck up if the router and Obi110 reboots at the same time , because the Obi 110 get UP before the router or DSL connects to the internet/ISP , So there should be a fail safe system that if some internet problem occurs the OBI110 MUST REBOOT ( after lets say every 5 Min ) until the connection is restored.

I want the opinion of the users who are also going through the same problem so we could stress OBI makers to implement atleast the AUTO Reboot feature on the device itself. thanks for your support

sialkotgv3@gmail.com

Hi,

Yes i got your point , Auto Reboot ( ofcourse its a quick and dirty and overkill job) but it sure will work , untill some other software modicifaction for monitoring Enternet port/Internet could be done and tested.

I would still recommend that a Full AUTO REBOOT fuction on failure should be implemented ASAP.

RonR

sialkotgv3,

The DHCP client in the OBi is not very robust and does not conform to specifications.  The OBi does reboot under certain network error conditions, but not always at appropriate times.

I would like to argue that rebooting the entire OBi is not necessary to recover from a network error.  Instead, the Ethernet hardware, driver, and DHCP client should simply be reinitialized so that any ongoing call on the PHONE and LINE Ports is not interrupted.  A total reboot is major overkill in my opinion (it's a quick and easy solution, but not very elegant).

sialkotgv3@gmail.com

Hi,

Well we could get two options in the OBi110 software (1) On Failure Reinitialize the Network Driver/Ethernet port (2) Complete AUTO REBOOT on Failure.

My concern is that most of the use is primaraly from on end point to other OBi 110 endpoint call , for a moment forget the GV/SIP & Telco . Basically what is needed is that OBI 110 ( OBI tel. number to Obi Tel number call ) should always gets through.

So we can have these two options and be able to select what to use just in case of extent of Failure.

RonR

That's always an option.  I'm particularly concerned about a reboot interrupting the PHONE and LINE Ports during an emergency 911 call simply because of an Internet issue.  Maybe it's an unlikely coincidence, but if it's not necessary, why take the chance.

sialkotgv3@gmail.com

Hi,

So what could be done right now for the current situation i am in, the OBi110 gets stuck after almost every electricity failure. Have to manually ON/OFF the plug. ( have to make a paid call or SMS many times a day)

What can be done right now , needed help

RonR

Hopefully, the Obihai folks will look into the DHCP client problems that have been being reported and will fix them quickly.  If there are underlying related Ethernet driver problems, hopefully they will be found and fixed at the same time.  And I hope they reconsider using a total reboot as their only recovery method.

LuvU43v3r

Quote from: sialkotgv3@gmail.com on May 04, 2011, 12:46:17 PM
Hi,

So what could be done right now for the current situation i am in, the OBi110 gets stuck after almost every electricity failure. Have to manually ON/OFF the plug. ( have to make a paid call or SMS many times a day)

What can be done right now , needed help

What about you modify a static IP on Obi device and do port forwarding , use DDNS service on the router like others said. Whenever your obi device cant connect to the internet , you can always remote manage to it and do manual reboot ?

VeryBigTiger

It sound like I'm ending up in the same situation of Obi110 hanging...not good.

The Obi110 I have in the distend location has hanged up and I'm not sure if it will come back on the next power failer in that countery.... I hope... as I remember I turned the power off/on when I was their and it came up automaticaly and not sure what has realy happend now.

today the second one which I have localy showing is hangging as well without any power failer and not sure what is going on.
getting a Static IP address is a nice good thing but its over expensive to do DDNS port forwarding as it was suggested here.

I hope that the developers can come up with a fast solution (such as rebooting on IP stuck or if their is not call within a period of time ... meaning its stocked)..."I can not make calls in the moment."

how can I reboot the Obi remotely and how to get the IP address to access it ...

Thanks,
Joseph



plugger2

Quote from: RonR on May 04, 2011, 12:39:09 PM
That's always an option.  I'm particularly concerned about a reboot interrupting the PHONE and LINE Ports during an emergency 911 call simply because of an Internet issue.  Maybe it's an unlikely coincidence, but if it's not necessary, why take the chance.


A reasonable workaround to this issue would be that a reboot request will wait until any ongoing call is terminated, and reboot as soon as possible after that.

I would hope this would be the default reboot request behaviour, anyway.

I agree that some sort of automatic timed reboot would be a welcome improvement. Just today I found that my Obi110 was in a state that wasn't allowing registration of SIP providers. I was alerted when a friend phoned to ask if there was some reason his calls weren't going through to the AA for the last few days(!)... the problem was the Obi110. A software reboot cleared the issue and it's up and running again.

In response I've just upgraded the firmware from 2384 to 2669, but what I'd ideally like is a daily scheduled automatic reboot, say at 4am. I'd like the reboot to wait until an ongoing call was terminated as described above, though.

Other reboot triggers such as registration failure watchdogs would be welcome configuration options too.




Judgeless

You can change the port and port forward through your router as listed above.  Or use a VPN.  With a VPN all the IP will be local.  Many routers have a VPN option.

Terry

I am probably wrong, but here are some ideas:

The obi device uses very little power, compared to a desktop computer. A medium-sized UPS should be able to keep it on for many hours before the battery runs down. (The same should be true for a router.) It should also filter out the "blips" and power spikes that might occur when the outside power goes down or comes back up. Finally, when it eventually runs out of battery, it should shut the obi device down cleanly, and bring it back up cleanly when the power is restored. So the UPS would be the first thing to check or upgrade if the obi device regularly stops functioning as a result of the public power going off and back on. Maybe the obi needs to be on its own UPS?

It sounds like power interruptions are enough to mess up the obi device, but not enough to reset it completely. That shouldn't happen if you have the obi plugged into a UPS (backup power supply), unless the power supply is shutting down (because of low battery) at almost exactly the same time as the external power is coming back up, so the obi ends up with a power "blip" instead of a nice steady power supply interrupted by a longish period of no power before power is restored.

If the UPS the obi is plugged in to is working properly, perhaps there is a phone or some other device connected to it that is transmitting a "spike" from the power failure to the obi, e.g. a powered phone connected to it that is not on the UPS? In other words, the spike might be coming from some other device and going directly to the obi, bypassing the filtering of the UPS? In that case, either disconnect the other device, or put it on a spike filter or UPS, or use one of those spike filters for the wire connecting it to the obi, e.g. the phone connection. Remember that most spike filters fail "on", meaning that after they protect you from one large enough spike, they become inoperative and cannot filter the next spike; but rather than staying "off", they remain "on with no protection", so you have no way of knowing if they are still protecting you. Your UPS should be less susceptible to this problem, or be able to give you a warning light if the spike protector died protecting you and isn't working any more.

Maybe you can configure the UPS to power down the "load" for some period of time (e.g. more than 10 seconds) before bringing it back up? Really, the UPS is supposed to prevent the problem you are describing. If the UPS is supplying power, it should be supplying even-enough power to prevent problems, especially during transitions and spikes on the public power supply. If it is shutting down too soon because of low battery, that may indicate the battery needs replacing or there are too many things plugged in to the UPS.

If the device the obi is plugged in to is really a router, it probably is getting its public IP address (WAN) from the internet provider (as a DHCP client), and giving the obi its "private" IP address (LAN) via DHCP (the router is the private DHCP server to the LAN). (The two DHCP functions are completely separate.) You can almost certainly set the IP it gives to the obi to the same value each time (perhaps by figuring out the obi's "MAC address" and tell the router to always give it the same private IP address as a "reservation"). That way you'll be confident of being able to connect to the obi if you can figure out the router's public IP address. Then if the router can use dynamic dns, you should be able to connect, if the devices are listening. (My obi's MAC address changed when I upgraded the firmware, so you'd need to watch for that. Otherwise the MAC address is always the same, so the router can match it to a private IP address.) The thing is, it sounds like the obi is off in never-never land, so even if you had all the IP addresses, it wouldn't let you in to the console, from which you could reset it.

Finally, as a last resort, you might need a remote power controller that you can connect to via the Internet. This would be another device inside the router (on its "private" or LAN side, the same side as the obi device). You could then use the router's "public" IP address (via dynamic DNS or some other method), and port forwarding, to connect through the router to the power controller and cycle the power off and back on for the obi device. Those devices aren't cheap, though one would pay for itself in savings on overseas calls, and aggravation. It sounds like that may be the only way to get the obi reset in the event of a power blip.

If you can connect a computer to the "private" (LAN) side of the router and leave it on all the time, you should be able to connect to it remotely. That might give you some additional options: you could tell the computer to play an obnoxious sound file repeatedly to notify someone to come reset the obi device; you might be able to connect a remote on/off device to the USB port, and cycle the power to the obi that way. You could turn on a camera and look around to see what's happening. It wouldn't need to be a terribly new computer to do those things. It would, however, be one more thing that might need to get cycled when a power failure occurs, and for which you'd need to have a UPS.

I don't know if there would be a device that would automatically leave the power on the obi off for several seconds, then turn it back on, as a result of a power failure. As I said, that might be a function available on the UPS device (mine does that sort of thing after it has shut down for low battery -- it always waits several long seconds after its power is restored before turning on the devices plugged in to it). Again, it's not a terribly complicated thing, just "wait a while before restoring power" -- but I don't recall seeing that available at the store in a separate device. So the remote shutoff device is probably your best bet.

I suppose another potential source of the problem could be that the UPS is supplying too "coarse" a replacement power, and that is causing the obi's power supply to fail. A UPS on battery supplies roughly the same kind of power as the utility, but it's not identical. (Think of the difference between a nice rounded sine wave, versus a squared-off wave.) That would suggest either replacing the obi's power supply (wall wart) or getting a different UPS that can generate power that the obi's power supply can handle. If the obi is on but not functioning because of bad power, the "reset itself on network failure" option you are suggesting would likely not work either.

Good luck! And let us know if you get something working.

Stewart

Quote from: sialkotgv3@gmail.com on May 04, 2011, 11:00:55 AMSome how the router is fuctioning properly but the OBi 110 gets stuck as the router was not ONline before the Obi 110 is UP. So i have to make a paid call to ask someone at the other end to manaully reboot (Plug On/Off) the Obi 110.
Setting up the OBi with a static local IP address will likely solve this problem.  If you mess this up and lose control, a person at the device can turn DHCP back on from the IVR (option 3).  A "paid call", if needed, should cost almost nothing -- rates to Pakistan with several providers is $0.02/min. or less.

Ostracus

A thought occurred to me. As everyone knows when the Obi100/110 loses network connectivity it resets. Couldn't that fact be exploited in this circumstance?