ER7206 controlled by OC200 with 2 WAN enabled - port forward for Plex or Home Assistant not working

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ER7206 controlled by OC200 with 2 WAN enabled - port forward for Plex or Home Assistant not working

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ER7206 controlled by OC200 with 2 WAN enabled - port forward for Plex or Home Assistant not working
ER7206 controlled by OC200 with 2 WAN enabled - port forward for Plex or Home Assistant not working
2023-08-01 12:25:19 - last edited 2023-08-01 12:33:39
Model: ER7206 (TL-ER7206)   OC200  
Hardware Version: V1
Firmware Version: 1.3.0 Build 20230322 Rel.70951

Hi all,

 

I hope I can get some help on this because it's driving me crazy!

 

I have a ER7206 v1 running the latest firmware linked to a OC200 Omada Controller, also running the latest firmware.

Model: OC200 1.0
Firmware Version: 1.25.2 Build 20230704 Rel.64541

 

The ER7206 is using 2 WAN ports, each one connected to a different ISP router in bridge mode to provide Internet access, both WANs are enabled and should (not confirmed) provide access, I'm not using WAN2 has a backup link, I'm trying to have both enabled at the same thing (because I have one client that needs to go through ISP2 and the rest should always go through ISP1 but somehow this configuration is not working, issue for another ticket later on).

 

Have 1 site providing 192.168.1.xxx IP's for every client connected and I have a VM running Home Assistant within a Synology NAS with also several other services like Plex.

If I disable bridge mode in any ISP router and connect my NAS to it, have its internal DHCP to provide IP's to every announced MAC and then run a normal port forward within that router for my Plex or Home Assistant everything works just fine, if I reconnect everything back to my ER7206 I lose external access to anything.

To make sure things wouldn't jump IP's, the most important services/servers I created a DHCP Reservation and then in Transmission -> NAT -> Port Forwarding, I created the following rules:

So as before, any call done externally to my DNS/IP on port 8123 or 8126 would forward to IP 192.168.1.212:8123, unless I'm missing something which I'm not seeing, this should work but.. it doesn't.

like I explain above, if I do a simple port fw configuration on the ISP router (without bridge mode active), the exact same config works, but behind my ER7206 it doesn't.

Already tried WAN1 active, WAN2 disabled, or WAN1 disabled, WAN2 active but the results are always the same, cannot connect.

 

Hope someone can share some light on this.

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Re:ER7206 controlled by OC200 with 2 WAN enabled - port forward for Plex or Home Assistant not working
2023-08-01 17:28:12 - last edited 2023-08-01 17:30:16

  @Tretabyte 

 

Probably a few things that could be going on here, so let's try to narrow things down.

 

Also, Plex is not the simplest of apps, I suggest you debug your port forwarding issue using SSH on the Synology (that's a single TCP port).  You can enable this in your Synology and then port forward TCP 22 from your WAN.

 

1. Now, how have you set up your dual WANs, are they in failover or load balance?

2. If you change your port forward rule to use just the primary WAN (so single WAN) does that change your behaviour?

3. Are you testing from inside or outside your network?

4. Does your ISP router have uPNP enable by default?

 

So let's start with those and see if we can get SSH working across the 7206, then we can expand to PLEX.

 

Also, here's how I forced an IP camera to always use one of the WAN ports, using Policy Routing:

 

 

 

<< Paying it forward, one juicy problem at a time... >>
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Re:ER7206 controlled by OC200 with 2 WAN enabled - port forward for Plex or Home Assistant not working
2023-08-01 17:43:19

  @d0ugmac1 

 

Thank you for replying, let's see if I can answer all your questions.

btw Plex is one of the examples, for me the most important service is actually Home Assistant but one or the other run from within my NAS so..

 

now for your questions:

1- both WAN's are in load balancer mode with 1:1 Weight

 

2- I've tried all combinations, both WAN active and enabled, WAN1 enable with both WAN active, WAN1 enable with WAN1 active or WAN2 active (but never both), change the config to only use WAN2 and disable WAN1 access, none worked (which is what bothers me the most).

 

3- I use my phone connected to 4G/5G and try to connect to my HA or anything behind the routers.

 

4- both ISP routers have uPnP active but I can turn it off if needed.

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Re:ER7206 controlled by OC200 with 2 WAN enabled - port forward for Plex or Home Assistant not working
2023-08-01 18:21:54

  @Tretabyte 

 

If the ISP routers have uPNP enabled, make sure it's enabled on your Synology (this may explain additional port forwards that are needed)

 

If that still doesn't work, then make the Synology IP your DMZ IP for each WAN (as above if different ports are needed, this should address that)

 

Otherwise, what you've provisioned should work because it certainly does for me (though I locally have ER605 and a DS1522+ on latest firmwares).

 

<< Paying it forward, one juicy problem at a time... >>
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Re:ER7206 controlled by OC200 with 2 WAN enabled - port forward for Plex or Home Assistant not working
2023-08-01 21:21:52

  @d0ugmac1 

I think that part of the problem I'm having comes from having the OC200 controlling the router...

im saying this because I went to my synology, inside network/router and running the set up it detected my ER7206, I then opened several ports in there and it asked if I would like for it to configure the router, I said yes and after 30min trying it returned an error saying it was not possible.

it seems the OC200 doesn't allow uPnP to work properly.

I enabled FTP service running on a custom port to run tests from outside but not getting much luck so far...

going to run more tests and will report later my finding.

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Re:ER7206 controlled by OC200 with 2 WAN enabled - port forward for Plex or Home Assistant not working
2023-08-02 05:37:10

  @Tretabyte 

simple. you test this with port forward any number and test it with the online port checker. will it work or not? 

work, that means the router's fine. working great. that's your problem on the VM. 

not work, https://community.tp-link.com/en/business/forum/topic/614606

ScReW yOu gUyS. I aM GOinG hoMe. —————————————————————— For heaven's sake, can you write and describe your issue based on plain fact, common logic and a methodologic approach? Appreciate it.
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Re:ER7206 controlled by OC200 with 2 WAN enabled - port forward for Plex or Home Assistant not working
2023-08-02 18:32:25

  @Tretabyte 

 

I would start over with the router...ie Forget it via the controller, then re-adopt with your controller.  That should create a fresh set of valid provisioning.

 

Next up, test forwarding with a known good port...ie 5001 for the DSM UI that is native to the DSM OS and NOT in a VM or Container.

<< Paying it forward, one juicy problem at a time... >>
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Re:ER7206 controlled by OC200 with 2 WAN enabled - port forward for Plex or Home Assistant not working
2023-08-02 20:39:17
isn't the only way to remove the controller to fully reset the router and lose everything already configured?
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Re:ER7206 controlled by OC200 with 2 WAN enabled - port forward for Plex or Home Assistant not working
2023-08-03 13:09:37
The whole point of the Controller is that the devices specific config is derived from the Controller master config. You should never have to config the router, other than maybe setting the initial subnet to make adoption easier.
<< Paying it forward, one juicy problem at a time... >>
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Re:ER7206 controlled by OC200 with 2 WAN enabled - port forward for Plex or Home Assistant not working
2023-08-08 15:49:12

Hi all,

 

Update on this.

I removed the controller and did a full reset on the router and then started slowly adding services and port forwarding.

enables uPnP everywhere, went to my synology and was able to enable services and add them directly using uPnP, tested it and ... strangely I was getting things blocked, while troubleshooting I noticed one thing, my IP on WAN1, the one sent via bridge from ISP1 router was different from the IP announced which I though it was odd so anything I would target WAN1 would not work.
checking WAN2, the IP provided via bridge was the same IP announced so anything going to WAN2 would reach my internal network so I switched my focused to this weird IP difference.

It seems my ISP1 uses corporateNAT or CGNAT for the customer IP's which doesn't work well with NAT rules, there are ways to bypass that but it's a HUGE headache and should never be fixed at the customer level so my plan now is to go to my ISP and try to figure out what's this all about and ask for ways to fix the "issue".

I now also need to figure out a way to force a specific IP or MAC to be sent to a specific WAN since this is a TVBOX that only works on a specificl ISP.

Anyone has ideas on how this could be?

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Re:ER7206 controlled by OC200 with 2 WAN enabled - port forward for Plex or Home Assistant not working
2023-08-08 16:07:07

  @Tretabyte 

 

See the last section of my Post#2 above on how to force a device to a specific WAN.  You create an IP object pointing to the device in question (TV box, ie use a reserved IP for it), then you create a Policy Route for that IP via specific WAN port (and untick the option to use other WAN if presented).

<< Paying it forward, one juicy problem at a time... >>
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