My ISP reports that on my TRB140, about 5.75 MB is used daily, despite that I have used the “mobileoff” SMS command, and the “status” command reports “WAN_IP - NO_WAN_LINK” and “Data Connection state - Disconnected”. The TRB140 is running what was the most recent firmware on Oct 7.
How can I turn off mobile data use in a better, more complete way, while still being able to turn it on (and off again) remotely? I had expected “mobileoff” to turn off data usage completely.
Hello,
If you have remote access to the WebUI, could you please try disabling the Mobile interface on the Network → WAN page and let me know if the issue persists?
Best regards,
I might be able to do that, but then I would have no way to enable it again? The device is remote, and I want it to be mainly offline over the cold season, but I also want to be able to turn it on occasionally to check sensors etc.
Hello,
Should’t that be quite easy to find out what’s that traffic when you login ssh root user and use tcpdump command from shell?
I haven’t got same model you have, but observing first interface name using following and picking the one you need
# ifconfig | more
then once you have interface name and if’s still enabled system level (having UP listed below inet and inet6 address lines), you can see what’s going on by
# tcpdump -i $interface -s 1500 -n
where $interface is the interface you like to see. That command will stay following live, you can interrupt it by ^C (Ctrl-C) and if that is something you would like to save in file and then come back later time to get that file you can
# tcpdump -i $interface -s 1500 -n -w save.pcap &
you should see it’s running background with command.
# jobs
If you wish to terminate while still logged in same session user
# fg
and then you are back to interactive session to that job and can terminate it with ^C . But if you log out and leave it running, then session connection is lost to that process and need to use
# ps | grep tcpdump
and you see it’s still running, you can terminate it with
# kill -HUP $(pidof tcpdump)
and check results with that ps command above, it’s gone. Anyway once you are done. you can fetch that capture save.pcap file to you computer and get Wireshark software from https://wireshark.org and open that save.pcap file and study what kind of traffic is using that interface.
OK, some further advise. Remove that save.pcap from the afterwards, use
# rm save.pcap
and see it’s gone listing the directory
# ls -l
The amount of traffic leaking you mentioned is so small that file shouldn’t be large and this is quote safe to do. But remember that capture files can get large if you capture from interface where you have a lot of traffic and filling small flash disk in the device could cause problems. Therefore consider using external flash memory disk or like in that kind of situations.
Also if you are about to study and save traffic from the interface you have logged in to the device you need to prevent causing loop capturing your own traffic. Then you first need to check what is your own IP address where you logged to the device and exclude that address from the capture.
# netstat -tn
You can see your connecting address in Foreign address column, if as I assume you are only one logged that time, otherwise it lists all connected. Teltonika RutOS does’t unforutunately include Linux/*nix programs which you usually would look that kind of using “who am i” or “w” commands.
Then once having you connection IP you can exclude your won’t connection traffic adding filter string end of tcpdump command line “not host IP”
# tcpdump -i $interface -n … not host $your-own-ip-here
Tcpdump command line syntax can be hard to get right and require few attempts. Man page is quite long, but is worth checking out when more complicated use cases are needed. Following is link to tcpdump version I’ve got my Teltonika current stable OS version.
And once you get that save.pca file, you could perhaps send it to Teltonika support and they will able to see from there quite directly what’s going on there.
cheers,
riku
e: s/caution/causing/
–
I’m not all that interested in finding out what traffic it is, I’m more interested in finding out how to turn off mobile data completely - and be able to turn it on again. But if @Marija says it would be worth while for them to debug/find out, I could get those logs.
@Marija - if I do what you ask, can I then turn on Mobile interfaces again remotely, and how?
Sure, You do what you like of course.
My intention was to show how to find the culprit, ie. knowing what traffic is leaking makes it easier to fix it were it you or if’s bug Teltonika. Right, I’m out of this conversation now.
Cheers,
riku
Hello,
Do you currently have remote access to the device’s WebUI, or are you using RMS to manage device?
Or are you only able to access the device remotely via SMS commands?
Best regards,
I have a VPN connection to the equipment behind the TRB (when it is connected) and can/have set up a forwarder so yes, I can access the WebUI of the TRB.
Please let me know what to do with it!
(Also I forgot to say that after “mobileoff” the equipment behind the TRB can not access the internet, so it does have effects, but not the complete effect I am hoping for.)
@Marija , could you please let me know what I could do to help debug this? Disabling the mobile interface seems very likely to lock me out of doing anything else after that. Perhaps there are other things you’d like me to try?
Hello,
Please disable the Mobile interface in Network → WAN page and press Save & Apply:
Afterwards, when you need to enable it again, please send the following SMS commands to your gateway:
<password> uci delete network.mob1s1a1.disabled=1
<password> mobileon
Please let me know how it goes!
Best regards,
Thanks! I did some tests to make sure I can enable it again, and have now disabled it in the web UI + sent “mobileoff” to it. I’ll leave it over the weekend and see what the ISP usage says.
It seems “disable it in the web UI” results in network.mob1s1a1.disabled=1 - is it even equivalent, so it can be done by “uci set”?
It seems “mobileoff” results in network.mob1s1a1.bringup=0 - are they equivalent in the same sense?
Hello,
These options are not quite identical or equivalent as they affect the interface in a bit different ways.
In a quick summary,
disabled=1: disables the interface completely and it’s completely ignored by netifd, i.e., it will not be initialized, and will not participate in any network operations. In short, the interface is treated as if it does not exist.bringup=0: it does not automatically bring up the interface during boot or reload. The interface configuration is still valid and you can still bring it up manually with ifup mob1s1a1Therefore, they can’t be considered to be equivalent.
Best regards,
Ah, yes, disabled=1 is very different from bringup=0. Thanks for clarifying the effects! Do I understand correctly that disabled=1 sort of supersedes bringup=0, i.e., if it is disabled it doesn’t matter if bringup=0 or not?
But is it equivalent to send “uci set network.mob1s1a1.disabled=1” and disabling it in the UI? Remotely, it would be more convenient with the SMS version.
If the mobile interface is set to disabled=1, there is no need to use bringup=0.
Using uci set network.mob1s1a1.disabled=1 has the same effect as disabling the mobile interface via the WebUI. Therefore, you can manage the mobile interface remotely using SMS UCI commands.
Please note that after enabling the interface with the uci delete network.mob1s1a1.disabled=1 command, you must also send the mobileon SMS command to bring the interface up.
Best regards,
Thanks again for the clarifications!
Unfortunately it seems my ISP is still counting bytes - 2.88 MB so far today, although I disabled it yesterday. Is there any possibility of traffic with the interface disabled? Or is my ISP counting bytes that don’t reach the TRB?
Hello,
When you check Status → Realtime Data → Mobile Usage in the WebUI, do you see any data usage recorded on the days when the mobile interface was turned off?
Best regards,
No, nothing, 0. And there is no way the TRB would use mobile data (LTE) without it showing up there, is there?
Hello,
It should not use any data when the mobile interface is turned off.
Best regards,
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