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Background:

I started a new job a couple months ago. The office has a "Dirty" internet connection for employees to connect their personal laptops or other wireless devices to without being on the company network. The wireless router is in a locked enclosure with only a power cable, a Cat5, and the wireless antenna coming out. I am told that the Dirty connection is a phone company supplied home internet connection going straight to a LinkSys Wireless G router (WRT54GL). Traceroute does not show me anything but the router IP, and my final destination, all other hops time out.

Problem:

The Internet connection drops multiple times throughout the day, however the router [192.168.1.1] is still pingable while the internet is down. The standard procedure is for someone to unplug the Router and plug it back in to get things working again. The Wireless internet access drops for multiple people across multiple devices (Windows, IOS, CentOS...etc). There has been a day or two where the connection didn't drop, usually on a Friday when less peopel are around.

While the internet connection:

  • Company related "Connection-specific DNS Suffix" listed in ipconfig /all
  • I can connect to Router:443, get authentication prompt. Default credentials do not grant access.

While the internet connection is not working:

  • Connection-specific DNS Suffix of "mshome.net"
  • I can not connect to standard Web ports: 80, 443, 8080, 8443, 9443

Question(s):

  • Without physical access to the router, what options are there to troubleshoot?
  • What causes the DNS search suffix to change to mshome.net?
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  • Linksys "WRT54G" routers infamously need to be rebooted regularly. Replace it with a newer/better router.
    – Ƭᴇcʜιᴇ007
    Jul 14, 2014 at 17:47
  • Logging is enabled on router due to requirement from internal security. Logging fills up memory buffer in router, when that happens routing stops. Power cycling clears the buffer (and defeats the purpose of logging being enabled). To have the Router in the building, security requires logging be enabled to satisfy a check-mark on a spreadsheet somewhere I suppose. So the more people/devices using the network, the faster it'll crash. The solution would be to turn off logging, or possibly update the firmware? Both are options we don't have at this time. oh well...
    – Lars
    Jul 14, 2014 at 18:04
  • Get one of those programmable light timers to physically unplug it once a day when no one's around.
    – baochan
    Jul 14, 2014 at 18:52

1 Answer 1

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Logging is enabled on router due to requirement from internal security. Logging fills up memory buffer in router, when that happens routing stops. Power cycling clears the buffer (and defeats the purpose of logging being enabled).

To have the Router in the building, security requires logging be enabled to satisfy a check-mark on a spreadsheet somewhere I suppose. So the more people/devices using the network, the faster it'll crash.

The solution would be to turn off logging, update firmware, or get a new wireless router. All options are out of my hands.

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