ESP8266?
I guess it would be cheaper than the much improved ESP32 though. For anyone still using Arduinos for things like this, highly recommended making the jump to ESP32’s (or the ESP8266 if you want to save $2). Onboard wifi, bluetooth, lots of storage, tiny and cheap. The ultimate maker’s gizmo.
Some of the higher end routers/firewalls will implement what is called a Watchdog Timer on the device. This is handy in that a well placed interrupt can capture useful data leading up to the event for future discovery and forensics leading to a fix of the root cause.
Not a problem. My router is on a UPS. I solved periodic need to reboot by, well, periodically rebooting. It automatically reboots every day at 4:00 AM.
The modem is on a GFCI outlet in the basement. The modem never needs to be rebooted. But a robotic finger that, failing a ping on Google, pushes the reset button would be appreciated.
For those of us who have separate modems and routers, the conflation of those devices into one causes confusion.
My router has no problem picking up where it left off after the modem reboots, so I don’t want a router rebooter. I want a modem rebooter.
Will it work with an F5 i11800? Asking for a friend.
I agree, but have you ever found a router that never needs rebooting? I haven’t, even when scheduling reboots. From Tomato-powered to Airport Extremes to prosumer Asus routers, everything I’ve used seems to need a reboot every now and again. Maddeningly.
I think the only time my AirPort Extreme has been rebooted in the last few year is the occasional power cut. The only failure was the power supply dying a couple of years ago.
Much the same experience with a Draytek ADSL router & now I have a fibre connection a Zyxel small office unit. Avoiding the consumer stuff or the fanciest tech seems to be a good recipe for stability
Just a ping? I’d like some other checks, like maybe traceroutes to make sure some upstream source isn’t losing connectivity to google.
If you’re rebooting a router more than once every 6-18 months, there is either something really wrong with your router, or (more likely) your ISP.
The uptime on my router would be a couple years if the electric provider hadn’t shut down the grid to my area for “maintenance” a couple months ago.
Obligatory
Considering the existence of router vulnerabilities, my rebooting corresponds with a firmware upgrade, which happens every 2-4 months, roughly.
I agree - apparently there is no such thing.
My home network is lots more stable since I stopped allowing the NetGear Orbi to act as the router and handed those chores over to the Ubiquiti EdgeRouter X.
Nice. I heart Ubiquiti products.
This is a neat idea, but could be devastating (to the router) if there is a connection failure that is not inside the house. The router will go into a reboot cycle which will lead to a shorter life for the router. Sure…that problem doesn’t happen much any more, but it still does happen on occasion and it’s a great way to loose your router.
Yeah I would want to see more logic behind the “just reboot” thing. Maybe it can reboot once a day, and only after ten pings to google have failed over a ten minute period. And after three reboots in a row it just gives up.
I’ve had good luck with pfsense on a couple of repurposed Talari T730s that work was getting rid of. No so much luck with any embedded plastic box routers; though some have been more egregiously inadequate than others.
So the point of failure has just migrated to my lousy little cable modem and the…barely TV grade…coax runs in my house instead. Unfortunately proper redundant WAN without garbage little plastic boxes in the mix is where things go all $$$/month, rather than being arguably excessive but really pretty cheap used; so there isn’t much I’ve been able to do about the problem.
Doesn’t everyone? I’ve found that home routers are basically abandonware and never get any updates. So auto-update is just another exposed attack surface.
My travel router, which I’ve been using 24/7 since the first week of January, is a Mikrotik running RouterOS. The only times I’ve rebooted it are when I’ve made a programming change. (I use the router to establish a VPN tunnel to a server back home, but only for some clients and only for some times, so the setup is a bit complicated.) For a thing its size and price it is a wonder.
Amusingly, when I had Comcast (instead of using my phone as a tethered modem), I NEVER had to reboot their router/modem brick, even with high P2P traffic (which fills up the routing table easily). Literally not even once; the only issues were when the modem side lost signal during routine maintenance, every so often.
A filled-up routing table, by the by, is the absolute most common reason for needing to reboot your router =).
I second pfSense, and have heard good things about both Ubiquiti and Mikrotik.
In my case, I’m running pfSense on relatively inexpensive hardware as a dedicated router connected to Google Fiber, and use a Ubiquiti AP for Wifi. My current uptime is ~277 days, and that’s only because I upgraded to a new version of the distro.
My experience with pfSense has not been without its downsides, but you can read about that Elsewhere.
