Which Vonets?
Steve Drain (222) 1620 posts |
That seems unnecessary. Once you have reset it to Bridge/Repeater mode from its default Router mode it is just a matter of choosing the access point and proceeding as you would with any other WiFi connection, and DHCP just works for me. I have had one running with my mini.m for more than a year continuously and the only thing that I have to be careful of is the time it takes to make a connection, which is longer than the normal boot time. Therefore I power it separately and not from a USB port.
It is two of each, at least on mine. They are from left to right:
It is the second and fourth that are most informative. |
Rick Murray (539) 13424 posts |
Yes, they are described in the device specification. Quite why that diagram isn’t in the setup guide too, I don’t know… http://www.vonets.com/download/VAR11N-300/VAR11N-300%20Specification.pdf |
David R. Lane (77) 733 posts |
@Clive Ah, I have got it: Vonets, being a Chinese firm, have put spyimg software and hardware into the gadget and are sending all my communications back to Beijing. I now see the light: The third blue light, which I didn’t understand, comes on when my data is being transmitted to Chinese security people. |
Steve Pampling (1551) 7956 posts |
Or, in the case of Clive’s remark: |
Clive Semmens (2335) 3136 posts |
And Re: ROT – 1. My pseudonym/username in many places is coshipi, or cosh(iPi) – anyone care to work out my value? ROT indeed. |
Stuart Painting (5389) 683 posts |
Let’s see: cosh(x) = cos(ix). Hence cosh(iPi) = cos(-Pi) = -1. How did I do? |
Clive Semmens (2335) 3136 posts |
Correct! 8~) Of course you can get the same answer by other routes, such as cosh(x) = 0.5(e^x + e^-x) etc. |
nemo (145) 2437 posts |
TRUE |
Clive Semmens (2335) 3136 posts |
I’ve been sussed. It’s not for nothing that coshipi is an old BBC BASIC programmer… |
David R. Lane (77) 733 posts |
I have had the opportunity to attempt connections to 2 more hotspots today. An LNER train WiFi hotspot where I got as far as the second blue light (hotspot connection status) flashing rapidly meaning that the Vonets had connected to the hotspot, but no further. I couldn’t access the internet. The WiFi hotspot on a home router (not the home router used in my previous post of 24/11/19) where I succeeded in accessing the internet as in that post of 24/11/19. So what’s the difference? Well, in the 2 cases where I succeeded I knew the IP address of the gateway of the router and so knew how to configure the computer with a static IP address, but don’t have that information for the LNER hotspot. For clarity, this is after the Vonets has connected to the hotspot indicated by the rapidly flashing second light. Has anyone got the Vonets to work with a WiFi hotspot outside the home where they don’t know the hotspot’s gateway IP address? Is anyone using the PineTools USB ethernet adaptor application to get connected? |
andym (447) 464 posts |
According to the LNER website
169.254.×.x addresses usually indicate that RISC OS has NOT connected or received an IP address from the DHCP server. This hasn’t been sent by the LNER wifi – it is a RISC OS default when it hasn’t been allocated an IP address.
Yes. I don’t know the IP address that my phone uses, but can connect using DHCP from a Vonets. But it has to be DHCP as I don’t know the IP, Gateway or anything else. The phone just “does it’s thing” and away I go!
Yes. IMHO, this makes connecting to the Vonets such an easy process, and much more like Windows/Linux, in that you can connect at any time, not just at Boot. At this point, I’m wondering if you haven’t made too many alterations to various settings on the AMRbook and on the Vonets, that it doesn’t make more sense to reset the Boot sequence back to the defaults, and possibly even the Vonets. OTOH, if it works for you now, don’t “fix” it. The LNER wifi issue is a bit of a red herring, I think, because of RISC OS’s inability to “pop up” the login page automatically. |
Steve Pampling (1551) 7956 posts |
169.254.×.x (APIPA) addresses in any OS/stack/DHCP client implementation always indicate a failure of the DHCP process.
Yup.
It is however symptomatic of the lack of full wireless support in RO. I applaud the testing work going on. |
David R. Lane (77) 733 posts |
@Steve P. I have done another test with the ARMBook on the WiFi in Ilkley library, but failed yet again. :-( Pinetools, as on previous occasions, fails to do anything. It says “USB net live” greyed out not “Activate USB net” in the Laptop Software and Settings window, and after opening the “USB Ethernet” window it says “USB net status: connected” and “Activate now” greyed out. However, I still couldn’t get the internet. If I click on “Load USB Network Auto-detect now”, then a very small window opens on top of the iconbar on right-hand side, purportedly showing progress in connecting with “Acquiring network address: Init Reboot” followed after a little while by “Acquiring network address: Selecting”. Next the little window vanishes, but still no internet. Next I tried the Vonets web interface (it has been configured as a bridge) and did a scan of hotspots; but, although around 8 hotspots appeared in the list, the SSID for the library did not – I did a refresh as well, but still no luck. Checking on a tablet running Android, the SSID for the library did appear and so the hotspot was live. On the Vonets, the second blue light was flashing slower than when it connects to a hotspot: 4 (or was it 5?) flashes followed by a brief pause and this pattern repeated. |
Martin Avison (27) 1429 posts |
Are two different things being confused here? My understanding is that the first might refer to the WiFi connection to the access point, and the second refers to the connection over the network right through to the Internet. Even with a ‘normal’ laptop I can be WiFi connected to my router (and can use its admin interface), but my PPP connection to the internet is not connected (and so resolves etc fail). |
Andrew Rawnsley (492) 1419 posts |
For Pinetools auto-DHCP to work as intended, internet in !Boot should be set to DHCP, with no gateway set, and no DNS settings beyond computer name (ideally ARMbook but it doesn’t matter). Save these settings. Then (and this is critical), turn off TCP/IP altogether, and save again, then reboot. The idea is that you boot with no network, then run PineTools (or, perhaps better, tell it to run auto-networking at startup) and Activate networking as needed. This happens to be ideal for Vonets which can take a few seconds to “come live”. If you do it at startup, you run the risk of !Internet configuring unusable network details. PineTools should cope with 169. failed configs, but if the TCP/IP stack is left in a half-configured state, I don’t know what would happen. Basically !PineTools checks for a set of system variables that should only be set in a “working TCP/IP” session, and uses those to determine whether the connection is active. The Auto-DHCP tools actually goes further and checks cable connection and link status. I suspect at least one customer may have manually configured networking and caused things to “break”, so I am investigating making a “default” network configuration available via the download site, although there may be more to it than meets the eye. |
Doug Webb (190) 1137 posts |
Hi Andrew, I have tried setting things up as you have outlined and I still do not get auto enabling of the network as it shows `disconnected` in the !PineTools USBNetworking section. Once I manually enable everything then the networking with a cable or Vonets device works. It would be good to try a default network configuration when it is available. David , I had issues with the Vonets and my mobile phone hotspot which were resolved by having the Vonets set to give out IP addresses via it`s DHCP server and the ARMBook set to DHCP requests. |
David R. Lane (77) 733 posts |
@Doug Latest test was with an ASUS pad in place of the ARMBook. I could get into the Vonets webpages with the ASUS on DHCP, but not on a static IP within the Vonets IP range and using vonets.cfg rather than the numeric IP address – the latter failed. |
David R. Lane (77) 733 posts |
Does anyone know of other ethernet-WiFi gadgets that will store many hotspots connection details? I have a Netgear WNCE2001 ethernet WiFi gadget which has worked reliably, but stores only the last hotspot connection details. For some contributors to this thread that is all they appear to need: You set it up once and for all, probably on your home network, and then forget about it. I can do that, but need more. |
Steve Drain (222) 1620 posts |
The Vonets VAP11N does. It is smaller, only does bridge/repeater and is a bit more expensive than the VAR11N, but I have had up to 4 access points recognised. However, I do not do any real roaming with unexpected networks, so that might not solve your problem. |
Steve Drain (222) 1620 posts |
I have just added a new hotspot to my Pip WiFi, a Pi0 with the board from a VAP11N. I used QuipZilla and it was a bit leaden with response times, but perfectly usable. I checked in the ‘Operative Status’ menu and there are now 3 hotspots registered. And I have just done the same with my mini.m connected to a VAR11N. This was really quite quick and now has 4 hotspots registered. So, I think the basic connections should be fine, but many public services require further actions and it might be those that are proving a problem. |
Rick Murray (539) 13424 posts |
Ditto for the “smart” version of the VAP11G (the later version that has web pages and stuff). I have it set up with both of my Liveboxen so it will automatically connect to whichever one is in use. The thing with public APs is that usually you’re taken to a specific web page to perform an action to indicate that you abide by the terms and conditions that nobody ever bothers to read. I’m not sure what the mechanism is, here, for making that work. Some APs simply redirect all requests to their agreement page. Others drop the connection if you try to go to any other web page before you have “agreed”. It’s dangerous using public APs anyway. A growing, and worrying, number of them not only block VPN (so you can’t choose to be safe), they also try to push fake certificates at you when you go to any SSL site, basically so they can snoop at what you’re doing on-the-fly. Which is a steaming heap of bull. In order that you might not pirate stuff or call the POTUS a racist twat, they expect you to be okay with knowing all of your “secure” passwords and the like. This site, Amazon, your bank… So, just be warned. Public APs are somebody else’s service. And usually for free. So expect them to take extreme liberties with what they will do with your data and activity. I now have 30GiB per month with my mobile phone contract, and a reasonable level of 4G coverage. My phone can act as a hotspot for other devices, so public APs were useful, once upon a time… |
Andrew Rawnsley (492) 1419 posts |
I’ll just second Rick’s suggestion of using your Phone for hotspot. It’s how I demo stuff at shows (usually via PiFi to phone), and even with a crumby data allowance (about 1GB per month on my cheapskate don’t-really-use-a-mobile package) it works fine for normal browsing use. You’d probably want more for videos etc, but you’ll sound find out how much your need, and adjust accordingly. |
Steve Drain (222) 1620 posts |
It was a phone hotspot I used for my tests above. When using our campervan we find that the wifi offered by campsites is often not only unreliable and expensive, but is contracted out to who knows what organisation. For a while now we have been using a neat little hotspot that plugs into the cigarette lighter socket. The data-only PAYG contract means that we can have wifi wherever we are all over Europe, and watch TV through a VPN, for quite reasonable cost. It also works on the move, of course. |
Andrew Conroy (370) 725 posts |
Yes, this is how I provide an internet connection for the Southampton RISC OS Users Group, my phone provides a hotspot and then I use an Edimax ‘wifi to 5port switch’ box to offer people wired connections. I too only have a 1GB/month allowance and apart from when someone’s PC laptop decided then was a really good time to download a Windows Update, we’ve never made more than a small dent in the allowance. |
David R. Lane (77) 733 posts |
Well, you are all wrong! I am sitting in Ilkley public library accessing the internet with my ARMBook on RISC OS and haven`t used a mobile phone or other non-RISC OS device, only my Vonets! Must stop as the battery is low. |