What is www.routerlogin.net

I have a Netgear R6300 WiFi Router.

To access it you go to http://www.routerlogin.net
or, alternatively, http://www.routerlogin.com

This differs from what I use for Verizon
and Optimum boxes and for Linksys routers, which
is an IP address (192.168.1.1, 192.168.100.1, 10.whatever,
depending on the brand, model, and how the device was configured.)

What does http://www.routerlogin.net actually mean?

What would I get connected to if I have 2 hardwired
Ethernet connections each with a Netgear R6300 connected
to it?

 

Or, alternatively, you can use the device's IP address. The default
for that model appears to be 192.168.1.1, although I found one source
that claims it's 192.168.0.1.

It's just an entry in your hosts file on your computer. If you're
running Windows, the hosts file is most likely located in
C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc. It's just a text file, normally
hidden, that you can edit with any text editor, such as Notepad. If
there are other devices on your local network that you frequently
access by IP address, you can add entries for them, as well.

You'd have two devices with the same IP address, so you'd have a
conflict until you change the IP on one of them.

 

My guess is that the router intercepts that hostname. When you use a
hostname, it must be converted into a numerical address. Humans like
names but computers always use numbers. That means a DNS lookup is
required to convert a hostname to an IP address. The DNS server in your
router is just a pass-through server: when it receives a DNS request, it
has no lookup tables, it doesn't peer its routing tables, and it isn't
part of the DNS mesh network. Instead you router merely and immediately
fails on the DNS lookup and passes the request upstream to the next DNS
server (your ISP or a public DNS server that you specified in the config
of your router) - but the router could intercept the DNS request on a
particular hostname specified in that request. So it sees a DNS request
on www.routerlogin.net but instead of passing the hostname to an
upstream DNS server it returns its own IP address.

The router intercepts the DNS request on the hostname and returns the IP
address for the LAN-side interface of the router (back to your host).
In a way, this is similar to how the 'hosts' file works on your host: if
a hostname is specified in the 'hosts' file, the IP address specified
for that hostname in the 'hosts' file gets returned to your app that
issued the DNS request. The 'hosts' file and router are short-
circuiting the DNS lookup process by returning an immediate IP address
response. The routerlogin.net domain is registered to Netgear but that
doesn't mean they operate a web site using that domain. They just want
to keep that domain for their own use by their own routers.

Normally:
Upstream:
- App wants a hostname connect on a target host.
- Host issues DNS request.
- DNS request goes to router.
- Router's DNS always fails on DNS requests, passes DNS request to
upstream DNS server.
- Upstream DNS server converts hostname to IP address.
Downstream:
- Upstream DNS server sends back IP address to router.
- Router gets IP address and passes it down to host.
- Host gives IP address to app
- App makes connection using IP address to target host.

Short-circuited lookup:
Upstream:
- App wants to connect to target host of www.routerlogin.net.
- Host issues DNS lookup on www.routerlogin.net.
- DNS request goes to router's DNS server.
- Router's DNS server has special condition on www.routerlogin.net
and immediately returns LAN-side IP address of router.
Downstream:
- Router sends back its LAN-side IP address.
- Host gives IP address to app.
- App makes connection to LAN-side IP address of the router.


Say the current LAN-side IP address of your router is 192.168.100.1.
You have 2 methods of connecting to your router's internal web server
(to get at its configuration settings):

IP address method (no DNS lookup):
You tell your app to connect to the IP address (192.168.100.1). When
you specify an IP address, DNS is not involved. Your app connects
directly to the router on its LAN-side interface.

DNS lookup method:
You tell your app to connect to www.routerlogin.net. This requires a
DNS lookup (port 53). The DNS lookup request goes to your router.
Your router sees that as a special hostname and immediately returns
its IP address (192.168.100.1). Your app gets the IP address and
connects to the router's LAN-side interface.

The DNS server in your router is monitoring for the special hostname of
www.routerlogin.net. When it sees a request for a DNS lookup on that
particular hostname, it immediately returns the router's IP address.

Personally I would define a URL shortcut to connect to the router to use
its configured LAN-side IP address rather than rely on a special-case
lookup in the router's DNS service.

 

<snip>

With the Netgear routers that I've installed, running the Setup CD
adds an entry to the hosts file. IME, it's as simple as that. The
router never sees a DNS request for routerlogin.net (or .com).

 

Indeed. 192.168.1.1 is the default when I set one up almost a month ago
for a client. You can change it to 192.168.0.1. I did because of
old/existing networked devices have static IP addresses and didn't want
to have reconfigure each one for the new router's 192.168.1.xxx. I found
http://www.routerlogin.(net/com) a weird one. Both domains are owned by
Netgear.

Weird. When I saw this, I was on an old MacBook Pro with Mac OS X 10.5.8
with its own /etc/hosts file.
--
"Yeah, what's left of it. I was in the militia -- national guard...
That's good! Wasn't any war any more than there's war between men and
ants." --stranger; "And we're eat-able ants. I found that out... What
will they do with us?" --Pierson from H.G. Wells' The War of the Worlds
/\___/\ Ant(Dude) @ http://antfarm.ma.cx (Personal Web Site)
/ /\ /\ \ Ant's Quality Foraged Links: http://aqfl.net
| |o o| |
\ _ / If crediting, then use Ant nickname and AQFL URL/link.
( ) If e-mailing, then axe ANT from its address if needed.
Ant is currently not listening to any songs on this computer.

 

For me, I never touched the CD on an old MacBook Pro's Mac OS X 10.5.8.
It is definitely the router intercepting it. On my Linksys WRT54GL, I
don't connect to the router's login like Netgear R6300 router.
--
"When you have seen one ant, one bird, one tree, you have not seen them
all." --Edward O. Wilson, 1992
/\___/\ Ant(Dude) @ http://antfarm.ma.cx (Personal Web Site)
/ /\ /\ \ Ant's Quality Foraged Links: http://aqfl.net
| |o o| |
\ _ / If crediting, then use Ant nickname and AQFL URL/link.
( ) If e-mailing, then axe ANT from its address if needed.
Ant is currently not listening to any songs on this computer.

 

I don't have Netgear gear and guessed they had a special-case lookup by
their internal pass-through DNS server. I had also mentioned this same
short-circuited DNS lookup can be accomplished using the 'hosts' file
and, per your reply, that's how Netgear does it. Thanks for the update.

Of course, anyone running security software that locks the 'hosts' file
will result in this technique not working; however, the IP address will
still work since it doesn't involve DNS, 'hosts' file, or any hostname
lookup.

 

Hmm, according to:

http://compnetworking.about.com/b/2009/10/21/what-is_www-routerlogin-com.htm

my original suspicion that the router's own DNS service has a
special-case lookup on www.routerlogin.net appears correct.

Try commenting out the www.routerlogin.net entry in your 'hosts' file.
Flush your DNS cache ("ipconfig /flushdns"), and then check if using
www.routerlogin.net still gets you to the config screens for the Netgear
router.

If the entry exists in the 'hosts' file, yes, there will be no DNS
request broadcast from your host (to go through your router as your
gateway). The lookup is performed locally in your own host by first
interrogating your 'hosts' file. However, see what happens when you
visit www.routerlogin.net WITHOUT that entry in your 'hosts' file.

I don't see why Netgear would rely on an entry in the 'hosts' file.
Security products can prevent it from getting modified. Users reinstall
their operating systems or restore from backup images. Every router
I've seen allows you to change its LAN-side IP address which means the
entry in the 'hosts' file would be incorrect.

My bet is the Netgear router intercepts the special-case hostname of
www.routerlogin.net to return WHATEVER is its current IP address.

 

Could well be. That goes along with what Ant reported yesterday, as
well.

I know I've seen multiple systems that had an entry in the hosts file
for www.routerlogin.com|net but I don't have such a system handy to
see what the current state is. It wouldn't surprise me to learn that
Netgear stopped doing that for all of the reasons you mention above.

So back to the OP's question about what happens when two identical
Netgear routers are on the same LAN? I guess I would expect an address
conflict type of situation, or a race condition where one router
answers before the other but you don't know which one responded.

 

That's why I always use IP addresses instead of hostnames. Each router
would get its own unique IP address. If two had the same LAN-side IP
address, my guess is the host would connect to the router which was
listed as its gateway (run "ipconfig /all" to see what is the IP address
of the gateway listed for whatever connection(s) your host is using).

 

I prefer IP addresses over hostnames, as well, but even with IP's you
still have a problem if two routers have identical LAN IP's and that's
your default gateway. You ARP for that IP and presumably both routers
reply. That wouldn't work very well, I think.

 

I try to use IP addresses, but the instructions didn't say what the
address and fall back were. (I have several brands and the use
different default addresses; I assumed that Netgear would use a third
number. When I used the Negtear way of www.routerlogin.net it the
connection was made and there was a comment on the web page saying
that it automatically switched to 10.0.{whatever} due to the conflict
{which turned out to be with 192.168.1.1, another router in the
work.)

I don't know what would happen if I tried 2 R6300s on the same network
with the 192.168.1.1. I don't know what would happen with
www.routerlogin.{net,com} if two R6300s were on the net.