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Hello tp-link forum. First time poster so please tell me what I am doing wrong gently… please.


So I have just opened and installed my brand new TL-WR841N. It is up working fine and doing what I want. I bought it to be an Access Point. No WAN interface expected to be used in the foreseeable future. The reason for that is simply that searching for a pure access point seemed to hard and this router was so cheap and got such good reviews, I went for it.



So to my problem: My problem is to do with ‘static routes’ and specifically the ‘default route’. I found that the ‘Get GMT’ function on the router failed quickly and without explanation and I soon worked out it was because there was no route to the time servers, or anything else outside my local /24 network.


I wanted to add a standard default route like 0.0.0.0/0.0.0.0 192.168.0.1, but the web dialog says:


The IP address is invalid, please input another one!


Hmmm… How do I add a default route?


I can add a route like: 128.0.0.0/192.0.0.0 and 64.0.0.0/192.0.0.0 but I can’t add a route like 192.0.0.0/192.0.0.0 as I get another error message:



Error code: 4003

Subnet Mask doesn't match the Destination Network address, please enter again.



Well I think (a) the subnet mask most certainly does match the destination address and (b) a destination address only does not match the mask when destination address bits are 1 when the corresponding mask bit is 0.



This error 4003 for this input looks like a bug! Is someone from tp-link reading these forums?



So what I want is one route: 0.0.0.0/0.0.0.0 192.168.0.1



Q1: How can I achieve this route?

Q2: Am I simply not using the web interface correctly? Is there already a way to enter a single simple default route.

Q3: My software version is the one out of the box (Firmware Version: 3.16.9 Build 160325 Rel.62500n Hardware Version:WR841N v11 00000000)



To state the obvious, this route issue does not affect my use of the device as an access point/ethernet switch etc. The problem is only when the WR841N wants to get the time, or send a email or do a traceroute… etc. That is, when the WR841N wants to behave like any other IP host.



I currently have a mess of rules like 128.0.0.0/192.0.0.0, 64.0.0.0/192.0.0.0, 32.0.0.0/224.0.0.0 etc. A real mess! I want to avoid a long list of routes to achieve a simple function that all IP hosts (should) have.



Thanks



Rob Watson

Sydney Australia