Installed but - no Internet network access or desktop on HDA

[paulnichols67]

OK - I installed Amahi 7.1 x86-64bit but after reboot I have the following problems: There is no Amahi desktop on the HDA. I believe this may be due the HDA having the wrong network gateway IP. I gave it 192.168.1.1 for a Gateway IP at the Express Disk creation time and my NVG510 AT&T router has 192.168.1.254 as the Default Gateway.

I used the networking trouble shooting guide to verify this gateway address on my Windows PC and also logged into the router.

I can go to the HDA from my windows client using 'http://hda/' and the router shows my HDA connected and the router shows the correct HDA ip and also shows it is a fixed ip. Note my router is handling DHCP as I cannot change this on the Motorola NVG510.

Then I followed the networking guide but it failed at the step where you SSH to the HDA and run nslookup on the HDA. I get the error 'bash: nslookup: command not found'

I did a 'help' at the SSH window and did not see any networking related commands in the list.

I have a bit of Linux knowledge (e.g. just enough to be dangerous) so I am assuming that networking may not have installed at all during the install process - but this is a guess on part.

So I am stuck at trying to change the network gateway and I wondering if my only resolution to this is to create a new Express Disk with the correct gateway address and re-install Amahi?

Also note: My Amahi Control Panel on the website shows that the install status is 'waiting install'. Which also tells me that the HDA did not 'report' tot the website.

Any help here?

Thanks
Paul

[paulnichols67]

OK - I want to post an update here on my 'situation'. And I am even more confused than before.

I rebooted the HDA and my router and started the network trouble shooter again.

For some reason, that I still don't understand, the HDA was able to find all of the networking commands required in the network trouble shooter; nslookup, ping, etc.. I was able to successfully go through the entire network trouble shooter successfully until the last step where it asked me to turn off DHCP on my router which I cannot.

When I logon to the HDA directly from a keyboard and monitor, I can login as my user or root and login sits at the fedora 'bash' prompt. So this looks like a normal fedora prompt.

I can telnet out and ping the amahi website etc. from a putty connection from my Windows PC and from the HDA itself.

So now I am confused as what to expect. Is the HDA behaving correctly.
What should I expect??? Are things actually working correctly???

[bigfoot65]

The command line access is normal. This is a headless server, so no GUI desktop on the actual HDA server.

Can you access the HDA dashboard via client machine web browser using http://hda?

[paulnichols67]

Thanks bigfoot65 for you reply - I appreciate your support.

Yes, I can access the HDA dashboard from my Windows client and everything seems to be working as I would expect.

Since my post, I have continued to explore a bit more and it seems that everything is working as expected. The HDA shows up in the 'networking' list of the Windows Desktop via 'Computer'.

I even did a backup to the HDA server and then a restore using Acronis on my Windows desktop to test it all out. Acronis had no trouble finding the HDA and simply asked me for my login/password to the HDA. I will post something on this to the General Forum later as others may benefit from this info.

At this point my only confusion still remaining are on two things:

1) I did not believe I used the correct gateway ip in the Express Disk generation and therefore the installation (I used 192.168.1.1 and it should have been 192.168.1.254 [default gateway] ). But things seems to work. Although my NVG510 router sometimes shows the HDA connected at 192.168.1.10 and as a 'static' ip [which is what I would expect] but then if I do a 'scan devices' on the router, I see that the HDA is connected as 192.168.1.238 and has a 'DHCP' ip. Very weird.

But the HDA finds the Internet and can ping ips/sites and my Amahi Dashboard now shows the install status as ''installed'. So I know that the HDA has communicated with the Amahi website.

So, I don't know if this gateway and router ip discrepancy issue is causing any type of problem or will in the future. Which leads me to confusion #2.

2) I still don't know if the HDA is doing DHCP or not. The NVG510 router certainly is and this 'feature' cannot be disabled on this particular router. It can only be fooled. And if I 'fool' the NVG510 the effect of this would be to loose my wireless capability on the router as well. Then to get around this I would have to put additional router in between the NVG510 and the HDA.. This extra router would simple become a pass-through to handle wireless and to allow me to turn its DHCP off and let the HDA handle this. This is too much complexity for me. I really need the HDA to have its DHCP capability disabled.

All this is still confusing to me but everything seems to be working. So I am moving on.

Next will be to set up other users, allow other PC's to connect to the HDA and install some apps on the HDA

Thanks for your help.

Paul

[bigfoot65]

Good to hear you are making progress.

Can you set your router to DHCP server only 1 IP address? If so, that could be for the HDA. Then the HDA would act as the DHCP server for the network. This would also handle wireless as that is the job of the router. The HDA only hands out IP addresses, hard-wired or wireless. The wireless duty will always reside with the router.

As for the gatway and static IP address for the HDA. It will be set to whatever you programed on amahi.org. So if you did not set it correctly, this could cause issues down the road.

Hope this helps clarify.

[paulnichols67]

Hi bigfoot65

Yes, I can set my router to a single ip and have it pass-through to the HDA to handle DHCP & DNS

I think I am going to do two things:

1) Follow the instructions on the web page below to regarding setting my router to a single ip and have it pass-through to the HDA. I have the Mac addr for the HDA server h/w, so setting this up should not be a problem.

Would you be willing to review the instructions on this web site below and let me know if you see any issues from an Amahi network configuration/management point of view and give me feedback?

Note: I will not be turning off the wireless but I will be turning the IPv6 capabilities off (per the websites instructions).

http://troywitthoeft.com/working-with-u ... he-rvg510/

2) I also still have concerns about the current gateway ip setup since I gave the Amahi Express Disk build the wrong addres. And also if I change the ip addressing scheme on the router I am assuming I will also need to change the HDA's ip from 192.168.1.10, which is what I used in Amahi Express Disk build, to something else like 192.168.1.63. The router currently uses 192.168.1.64 through 192.168.1.253 to assign ip's and after the re-config this single ip should be the HDA's I assume.

So I think I should do a new Amahi Express Disk build using the correct ip's and re-install on the server. Do you agree?

So the rebuild of the Amahi Express Disk build would be HDA ip of 192.168.1.64 with a gateway of 192.168.1.254 and the single ip I would give the router would be 192.168.1.64 plus would use the HDA's mac addr on the router for the pass-through.

I hope this all makes sense to you and that I am being clear. Again, thanks for your help.

Paul

[bigfoot65]

The guidance you found for your router should be fine with Amahi.

As for reinstalling, that's up to you. It would be best if the details for the HDA profile matched the intended gateway and IP address for your HDA.

[paulnichols67]

So to do an Amahi re-install with the correct gateway and ip, I generate a new install code with the correct ip's and use this code for the re-install correct?

[bigfoot65]

Yes that is correct.