I am - confused!

I have a straightforward LAN setup - a single 192.168.1.0/255.255.255.0 subnet as LAN1, with the Vigor providing DHCP. Nearly all devices are connected to the Vigor via a switch attached to the physical port P1, but there's one device attached directly to P5. I have ps -ef a Raspberry Pi which I want to attach directly to one of the other physical ports (let's say P4). If I do that, it has its local IP address (it's possible this is actually hardwired in the RPi, rather than DHCP-provided - I'm not certain) and it is able to talk to other devices on LAN1, which are themselves attached via P1. So communication across the Vigor is working OK. However, the RPi cannot access the internet via the Vigor. The Vigor itself does not respond to pings from the RPi and I can't ping the RPi from the Vigor. The ARP table on the Rpi lists the Vigor as "Incomplete" rather than giving a MAC address. The Vigor ARP table lists the RPi's IP address without a MAC address or physical port.

However, if I simply plug the RPi into the switch on P1 rather than direct into the Vigor, everything is fine.

The device on P5 is a 3G picocell, which I installed a long time ago and haven't fiddled with since. It works, and it shows up in the Vigor ARP table. But as far as I can tell, I haven't set anything within the Vigor which is specific to that device or to its physical port. So I have no idea why that works but the RPi doesn't. I have no idea why the RPi works when attached via the switch on P1, but not when directly attached on P4. I'm assuming that it's either an ARP issue, or there's something in the Vigor that I need to set to tell it that LAN1 extends over multiple physical ports (but then why does it work for the picocell??!).

It seems like I must be missing something obvious and/or simple. Can anybody suggest a solution please??

Thanks,

Pete

Have you tried the RPi in the Vigor's other LAN ports? (Assuming the VIgor is in its default state, you should be able to move the 'Picocell', Switch and RPi around willy-nilly).
If it turns out to be Port-specific, it would be a clue...

I thought I’d done this, but I might have got confused during the experimentation so I had another go.

Move RPi to another free port - no change, same issue.
Move Picocell from P5 to a free port - stops working.
Move RPi to P5, works immediately!
Move Picocell back to P5, works eventually (although it always did take a long time to make its external connection).

So looks like it’s something special to do with P5 (and P1).

I dug through all the settings looking for possible candidates, and found that I *do* have a setting under WAN->MultiPVC for WAN5 with port-based bridge which *excludes* P1 and P5. I don’t remember why I have this setting, but it may have been to do with the BT TV service (TV over broadband). I tried excluding P4 (RPi), but no difference. I then tried a number of other things - which made sense at the time, but I have now tangled myself up so I can’t undo them all with certainty (although to be fair I don’t seem to have broken anything!).

I have concluded that I just have to bite the bullet, factory reset, and redo it all from scratch (including DHCP MAC bindings, IP objects and groups, firewall rules and schedules, and VPN config - sigh). Maybe I’ll fix the original problem in passing!

Thanks for contributing. After I’ve done the rebuild I may be back!

Pete

Don't forget that a lot of things - eg Mac Bindings-can be saved separately, rather than just as part of the full config backup.

Oooo, good point!! Thanks - that could really save some effort!

Pete

For what it's worth, the reset and rebuild appears to have fixed the original problem with ports - and as far as I can tell at the moment, I haven't lost any of the functionality that I actually want! Specifically what caused the problem though, I still don't know.

As an aside, I did manage to backup and re-import many of the config settings (user objects, etc.) which was *great*. One exception was my collection of schedules, which doesn't appear to have a backup option. Fortunately (or I suppose deliberately?! ) I had taken screenshots of most config settings for rebuild purposes, so I didn't lose them - but it was a bit annoying.

Pete