Chat Transcript for posterity:
Jermine P: Hello Jimmy Andrews. My name is Jermine.
Jermine P: Welcome to Linksys Global Chat. Is this the first time you've contacted chat support?
You: I think so, at least with my current product anyway :-)
Jermine P: Hello, Jimmy! Before we get started, please confirm the following information.
Name: Jimmy Andrews
Phone:
Email:
Location: United States
You: Looks good!
Jermine P: Thank you for confirming. For me to validate the entitlement status of your device, may I have its model and serial number?
You: EA6500, 12NxxxC30xxx2
You: EA6500v2, sorry
Jermine P: May I know when and where did you purchase it?
You: WalMart on 9/30/2014
Jermine P: Thank you. How may I help you today?
You: Well, I started a Forum thread about some DNS problems that the latest firmware seems to have. http://community.linksys.com/t5/Wireless-Routers/EA6500-intermittent-issues-with-OpenDNS/td-p/891047
You: the firmware is not using DHCP properly
You: the overrided DNS entries are not being propagated to the clients
You: only the gateway is being propagated
You: and the gateway itself (the EA6500) is not behaving the way it should
Jermine P: Let me verify that, Jimmy.
Jermine P: You are experiencing an intermittent wireless connection, right?
You: Nor do I have the ability to override the ISP DNS entries as I can in almost every other device I've used in the past
You: no
Jermine P: You cannot change the IP Address and DNS from the modem. However, you can ask from them to have Static IP and DNS. I believe you need to purchase for your own Static IP and DNS.
You: That is actually not the case...
You: You can change the DNS and in most iterations of routers, you can do this at the ISP level and the Local LAN level
You: 2 spots, but this firmware only has one
You: and the one it offers isn't behaving to the international DHCP standards
You: basically, when I set up the DHCP for my local LAN, I have the ability to enter up to 3 DNS entries
You: but those 3 DNS entries are not propagating to the clients, at all. The only thing that propagates is the IP of the router for DNS.
You: This is NOT how DHCP is supposed to work. Something is broken, which has been verified both by OpenDNS and the Linksys community members.
You: And this creates a gigantic security hole
Jermine P: By the way, where did you input the two DNS entries and OpenDNS?
You: Connectivity->Local Network->DHCP Server
You: The only place I can
Jermine P: When you go to troubleshooting then click on Report under Status, what do you have under Internet Connection (IPv4) for DNS1, DNS2 and DNS3?
You: 8.8.8.8, 24.178.162.3, 24.247.15.53 These are being pulled from the Modem. Years ago when I got the modem, I was able to enter in the DNS entries and override the DHCP entries that are issued from Charter. So I put in a Google DNS server. However now, my DNS settings are locked on the modem due to Charter updating the firmware (I could always hard-reset the modem to get that option back I am assuming)
You: In every router I've had for the past 15 years, I have had control to enter in DNS addresses at the ISP level AND the LAN level.
You: And when I set the LAN DHCP DNS entries, in every instance those DNS entries propagate to the clients
Jermine P: Is your router grabbing these DNS from the modem or these are the DNS that you set on the router?
You: But not in this firmware
You: From the modem
You: I can't set the ISP DNS entries in this firmware
You: In this firmware, it is ignoring my DHCP DNS entries and not propagating them to the clients. The DHCP system is only providing the router itself (the gateway) as the DNS server
You: to my clients that is
You: and this is causing problems with OpenDNS and just DNS in general. It is creating a situation where I am very susceptible to man in the middle attacks.
Jermine P: What are the DNS that you set but weren't showing up?
You: Connectivity->Local Network->DHCP Server
Jermine P: I mean what are the numbers that you set up?
You: 208.67.222.222 and 208.67.220.220 (and I duplicated one of them for the third as troubleshooting step to try and resolve this issue)
Jermine P: That is right, Jimmy.
Jermine P: Let me check if there is a known issue about this model number that is similar to your concern.
You: OK
Jermine P: Please give me 3 to 5 minutes to check on it, Jimmy.
You: ok
Jermine P: Please give me another 3 to 5 minutes, Jimmy. Thank you.
You: OK
Jermine P: Thank you.
Jermine P: Thank you for waiting and I am sorry for the long hold, Jimmy.
You: It is OK
Jermine P: Thank you. You mentioned in the forum that you updated the Firmware automatically, right? Did you try updating or reloading the same version manually?
You: No. I had to do the auto-update process twice since the first auto-update didn't bring me to the latest version, but the one before. After the second update, I then did a reset of the router to defaults and then manually configured everything back to match the settings I wanted.
Jermine P: I see.
Jermine P: This is a feature of the router. All DNS queries are handled by the router. The router will use static DNS servers that are entered into the router UI but will only pass the IP address of the router to the DHCP client.
You: This is not a feature!!!!
You: this is a bug
You: Linksys can't go around changing standards that have been around for over 30 years and call them a feature!!!!!
You: I am requesting that a break-fix ticket be created
You: And not to mention the router is NOT using the static DNS entries entered in any kind of consistent way.
You: If this is truly a feature, the feature itself is also broke
You: Because even with the OpenDNS configured IPs, the router does not always use those IPs for DNS requests
You: This is a gaping, giant, huge, critical security flaw that has to be addressed better than 'It's a feature'
Jermine P: I understand, Jimmy.
Jermine P: What we can do, Jimmy is reload the Firmware version manually then we need to reset and reconfigure the device.
You: OK, and when that fails to resolve the issue (since we'll be disconnected) what else can I try, because as far as troubleshooting goes, that would be the last thing to try I can think of. As an aside, the forum members are telling me that I should rollback my firmware to the one before and that Linksys may know that this is a problem with the current firmware...is that true?
Jermine P: Just in case the same issue persists after reloading the Firmware version, hard reset and reconfigure the device, please contact us back.
Jermine P: We don't advise Customers to roll back the device to the old Firmware.
You: Soooo, gaping security flaw is better than secure, got it. I'll try your solution and if that doesn't work, I won't contact you back because I'm just going to be told that it is a feature (when it clearly isn't). Thank you for your time Jermine, I hope you have a great rest of the week!
Jermine P: I am sorry for the inconvenience this has caused you, Jimmy. Thank you for giving us an opportunity to serve you through Linksys Live Chat. You may also visit our support site at support.linksys.com. We are open 24/7. Please feel free to contact us anytime. For your reference, your case number is 0348xxxx. Once again, my name is Jermine with Badge ID xxxxx. Thank you for choosing Linksys and have a great day!
