Comedic title aside, I had three well functioning nodes running as a small tribe and was cleaning up some options one node at a time remotely. I had tested services, hamchat, remote cameras, wan access, meshing and unmeshing and everything worked just fine. I thought I had turned off the DHCP switch on two of the nodes, leaving the third one on but in my zeal I turned all three off and rebooted them all. Now I have three nodes that seem quite content to talk to each other but not me.

I can turn them on and off via power and from past behavior of the led's the nodes seem to find each other and chat away happily ( probably laughing at me I suspect ) but I can no longer connect to any of them. Only one had WAN enabled and it was static... though I can't get it to respond any more. I can even connect two wifi computers to each other via the Mesh wifi network itself but that's it but I can't access the mesh itself via a non-mesh computer. I'm assuming that's a good thing and if so it works well here.

All three nodes ignore my pleas via an IP spider that runs for hours scanning the LAN and WAN ports but so far has not found the current address of these three runaways. And since the addresses span multiple subnets and are derived from the Mac addresses, which I also cannot see, the time it takes to scan possibilities across multiple subnets is like watching paint dry. And as productive.

So, while I wait for yet another node to arrive from eBay to use to get back into the Mesh network... does anyone have any other ideas?  They are all WRT54G V2 models, running 3.1.0 and Hamchat 0.1 in 5 host mode.

Thanks in advance and I don't mind if anyone sniggers.

First let me thank you for testing the security of a BBHN mesh network,

Just curious, Have you tried to set your PC to a static 10.x.x.x IP (take a wild stab) and the Subnet mask to 255.0.0.0? I doubt it would work, but worth a try, while waiting for the UPS guy to arrive. without DNS, it would be hard to try and hit any of the nodes, if you dont know their IP's.

Maybe by doing that, the IP-scanner might have better luck finding one (255x255x255). If it DOES find an active 10.x.x.x IP, remember to increment your PC by one in the static setup for a good chance.

Also, try rebooting the one that had the WAN static, plug your PC into it, and set your PC static one IP addy off from it, with an appropriate subnet (255.0.0.0 works for all). You might only be able to SSH into it via the WAN, but then you could see the 10 IP (ifconfig) and set your PC accordingly.

Let us know here how it turns out! I know I am quite curious.

73 & Happy Meshing

JIm