Results 1 to 3 of 3

Thread: Computer-to-computer communications on the local wifi network are blocked... why?

  1. #1
    Join Date
    Aug 2010
    Beans
    238
    Distro
    Ubuntu Studio 20.04 Focal Fossa

    Computer-to-computer communications on the local wifi network are blocked... why?

    Hi,

    I suspect this is not strictly an Ubuntu question, but I definitely see it on my Ubuntu machine and it's very likely that somebody here knows more about the problem than I do.

    I used to be able to communicate between machines that are connected to the same wifi router, e.g., I'm running a WebDAV service on my Linux machine and other computers and mobile devices could access it by IP in the past. Now, all such communication is blocked.


    • I've tested multiple ports (80 for WebDAV, 57120 for Open Sound Control messages to and from SuperCollider) -- no success
    • It affects both TCP and UDP
    • It affects multiple computers
    • Disabling the computers' firewalls doesn't make a difference -- and in any case, I had already opened 80/tcp and 57120/udp in ufw, and everything was fine before.


    The most likely culprit, it seems to me, is the wifi router itself. In fact, a few days ago, I was trying to troubleshoot an IMAP connectivity problem and I tried a power-off, power-on cycle on the router. I suppose this caused some router configuration switch to get flipped so that now, local-area communications are broken.

    I have no idea which option that could be, and unfortunately, search terms like "wifi router configuration problem" bring back whole slews of results having to do with setting up your computer to connect to wifi... seems not to be the problem here... in other words, the search engines are not making the haystack any smaller.

    If anyone has some guesses -- even just a more specific search term -- I'd be happy with that. I'm good with search engines but the only search terms I can think of are just too vague.

    The reason why I need this: I'm in a computer musician and I want to control my next piece using TouchOSC (running on an Android device). TouchOSC sends UDP packets with Open Sound Control messages over a local wifi network... but, obviously, if the local WiFi network is blocking all traffic, then I wouldn't be able to do that.

    TIA,
    hjh

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Oct 2013
    Beans
    6

    Re: Computer-to-computer communications on the local wifi network are blocked... why?

    Hi.

    Try to disable "AP isolation" in your Wireless Router.

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Aug 2010
    Beans
    238
    Distro
    Ubuntu Studio 20.04 Focal Fossa

    Re: Computer-to-computer communications on the local wifi network are blocked... why?

    Sorry for the late reply -- ubuntuforums was first down, then extremely slow, when I first tried to reply.

    Thanks, I'll look at that the next time the problem occurs.

    The situation actually resolved itself -- magically -- later in the day. That's a bit uncomfortable, since I don't know why it broke and I can't make a plan to fix it if it happens again (other than look at AP isolation).

    A musician friend suggested connecting the mobile directly to the computer's wifi card (Atheros AR9285). I looked into that, since it would save me the trouble of carrying a wifi router to gigs. I had some success at first with a hostapd-based solution, but then the dhcp side of it stopped working (mobile couldn't get an ip address) and I haven't had a spare second to look at it since then. Also the internet sharing failed, despite the script [1] running

    Code:
    echo 1 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_forward
    iptables -t nat -A POSTROUTING -s 10.10.0.0/16 -o \$ext_interface -j MASQUERADE
    Still playing with it... but at least, if I can get the dhcp side working again, then the mobile's UDP messages do get through to my lappy.

    hjh

    [1] https://gist.github.com/dashohoxha/5767262

Bookmarks

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •