Multiple Dummy Wifi APs sync Hostnames

Installing and Using OpenWrt Network and Wireless Configuration
1

Hi All

I run multiple LEDE Access points - my main router runs the DHCP and I have gone to the trouble of entering all the names of the Hosts on the Network > Hostnames page

I found this configuration is in /etc/config/dhcp

and under config domain

Does anyone know a way to sync these hostnames to the other APs? - it would be nice to know the clients connected to those APs

Thanks
Rob

2

Yes; but it likely requires reconfiguration of your network. If you in fact run DHCP only on the main router, this should already be working....Unless you are connecting the APs through their WAN ports.

In that case, they're on different LANs, and the appropriate place to add those hostnames would be on each device, respectively.

3

The APs are wired backbone to lan port one, not wan.

Same lan and IP range but I have given a static IP to the APs rather than a reserved DHCP.

Is that where Iā€™m going wrong?

4

Please describe the exact hostname resolution issue you're experiencing...?

5

Basically in my router the DHCP clients show the host names I have set.

When a client roams to another wireless AP they keep their IP, but if I log into that wireless AP it shows a connected client as a ā€˜?ā€™ And not the host name I set on the main router.

I assumed Iā€™d have to set the host names their.

1 Like
6

Have in addition to LAN IP and Subnet Mask...did you add DNS (IP of the main router) and Gateway information to the LAN Interface of the APs?

This is needed for the APs to resolve the hostnames.

7

maybe because hostname in luci is from dhcp.leases file, which is empty on the AP?

8

Exactly, hence my question if there was a way to sync it?

Obviously I want to keep dhcp disabled on the APs

I have the APs using the main router as DNS

9

from top of my head, you could either:

  1. setup a cronjob to fetch/pull the file from the main router. thou there will be a delay up to the interval of the cronojob (1minute minimum) for new devices hostnames to show in the AP.

  2. use some network filesystem (nfs,samba,sshfs..) to share the file from the main dhcp and mount it on the AP.

  3. change luci to resolve the hostname via dns rather than look it up in the file

update:
instead of cronjob, dnsmasq's dhcp-script hook can be used to push the file to the AP on change. might not scale well, but will kill the delay.

2 Likes