How to reach my router's configuration page?

Question

I've set up a router in my room (It's a TP-LINK W8980). I'm inside a college room, so I connected the WAN to the ethernet ports of my room, and the router is creating a wifi network. It's using PPPoE without DHCP.

When setting it up I connected it to my laptop using an ethernet cable, I opened http://192.168.1.1/ on a browser and I've reached the configuration page and I was able to login with the default user and password and set up the wifi networks I was looking for (and they are working fine).

I'd like to change some settings (especially the password...). However, right now, I cannot reach http://192.168.1.1/. It never lands on the login page (ping 192.168.1.1 gives an unknown host error). I've already tried:

• disconnecting from the wifi network and only connect directly to the router via ethernet on a LAN port.
• disconnecting the router from the WAN.
• connecting the laptop to the WAN port of the router (in this case I get an error message about missing IP configuration, which is probably due to not having DHCP enabled in the router?).

So, my question: how the heck am I supposed to change the settings of the router now? It seems way too strange that the only way to setup a router after the initial configuration is to factory reset it and restart from zero...

Note: I've used all default settings for the networks and the router except that I had to select PPPoE and Dynamic IP and disable DHCP to make internet work on the wifi networks.

Note: In order to access Internet I have to go through a captive login portal.

Note: This is my first time ever setting up a router, or doing any kind of network configuration. So things like "Set a fixed IP for your laptop..." or basically any kind of language regarding network configuration to me sounds like "take your magic wand and touch laptop/router".

So: explain! If I have to change a setting in some system file tell me which file, and how to modify it. If I have to change some setting using some command line tool tell me which command line tool. If I have to change some system setting, try to give me some hints on how I can recognize it.

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Some more information about my laptop configuration.

When I have the laptop connected via ethernet to a LAN port of the router (no wifi):

$ip route
default via 158.110.96.1 dev eth0  proto static 
158.110.96.0/24 dev eth0  proto kernel  scope link  src 158.110.96.145  metric 1 
172.17.0.0/16 dev docker0  proto kernel  scope link  src 172.17.42.1 
$ip addr
1: lo: <LOOPBACK,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 65536 qdisc noqueue state UNKNOWN group default 
    link/loopback 00:00:00:00:00:00 brd 00:00:00:00:00:00
    inet 127.0.0.1/8 scope host lo
       valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever
    inet6 ::1/128 scope host 
       valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever
2: eth0: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 1500 qdisc mq state UP group default qlen 1000
    link/ether 1c:75:08:48:59:95 brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
    inet 158.110.96.145/24 brd 158.110.96.255 scope global eth0
       valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever
    inet6 fe80::1e75:8ff:fe48:5995/64 scope link 
       valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever
3: wlan0: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST> mtu 1500 qdisc mq state DOWN group default qlen 1000
    link/ether 5c:ac:4c:3c:5d:b2 brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
4: docker0: <NO-CARRIER,BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP> mtu 1500 qdisc noqueue state DOWN group default 
    link/ether 56:84:7a:fe:97:99 brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
    inet 172.17.42.1/16 scope global docker0
       valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever

Trying to access 192.168.1.1 triggers the captive portal login, but I cannot access the config page.

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Here's the output when the ethernet cable is connected to the WAN of my router and my laptop is connected to the wifi network of the router (ideally I'd like to be able to access router settings from this configuration, without having to add cables to my router etc.):

$ip route
default via 158.110.96.1 dev wlan0  proto static 
158.110.96.0/24 dev wlan0  proto kernel  scope link  src 158.110.96.119  metric 9 
172.17.0.0/16 dev docker0  proto kernel  scope link  src 172.17.42.1
$ip addr
1: lo: <LOOPBACK,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 65536 qdisc noqueue state UNKNOWN group default 
    link/loopback 00:00:00:00:00:00 brd 00:00:00:00:00:00
    inet 127.0.0.1/8 scope host lo
       valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever
    inet6 ::1/128 scope host 
       valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever
2: eth0: <NO-CARRIER,BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP> mtu 1500 qdisc mq state DOWN group default qlen 1000
    link/ether 1c:75:08:48:59:95 brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
    inet6 fe80::1e75:8ff:fe48:5995/64 scope link 
       valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever
3: wlan0: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 1500 qdisc mq state UP group default qlen 1000
    link/ether 5c:ac:4c:3c:5d:b2 brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
    inet 158.110.96.119/24 brd 158.110.96.255 scope global wlan0
       valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever
    inet6 fe80::5eac:4cff:fe3c:5db2/64 scope link 
       valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever
4: docker0: <NO-CARRIER,BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP> mtu 1500 qdisc noqueue state DOWN group default 
    link/ether 56:84:7a:fe:97:99 brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
    inet 172.17.42.1/16 scope global docker0
       valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever

Trying to access 192.168.1.1 triggers the captive portal login, but I cannot access the config page.

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With my current configuration trying to connect the laptop via ethernet to the WAN of the router fails saying that IP configuration is missing.

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Note that I only care about being able to access the internet and to access the router configuration page. I don't care about other things in the network configuration.

Answer 1

To connect to the TP-LINK W8980, set your computer's (laptop's) IP manually to 192.168.1.2, mask to 255.255.255.0, and gateway to 192.168.1.1 for the computer's eth0 interface. Then try to access the router via 192.168.1.1.

Setting IP, mask, and gateway varies from one system to another. In general though in the upper right or lower right of ones screen there will be a network icon. Left or right click to get menu under which you select network settings or something similar. Select options for your wired interface and then IPv4. Set method to manual and input settings as above. You can get here too from the control/system panel by selecting the network icon there.

Alternatively from the linux command line something like this as root or use sudo:

ip address add 192.168.1.2/24 dev eth0
route add default gw 192.168.1.1

Check your OS, release, and distribution for specifics on manual configuration. Setting the gateway may not be necessary.

You should have a wired connection from your computer (laptop) to the LAN side of the TP-LINK W8980. Try another OS or OS distribution on another computer as well if you're still not able to connect.

If that doesn't work, I would reset the TP-LINK W8980 and access as you did originally and try enabling the unit's DHCP server (or keeping it enabled) on the LAN side. The unit should be a DHCP client on the WAN side. And make sure you don't have the TP-LINK W8980 in bridge mode. Unless your intent is bridged mode. But it sounds like you may want your own private LAN.

Answer 2

From your stated output, 192.168.0.1 seems to be your router's IP address. Try to access that address.

Also, the outputs mentioned in the comment above should help with more information.

Answer 3

Try to reset it to default configuration and assign a fixed IP (IP must be from your range network) by accessing it through a wired connection.Make sure to enable DHCP for your router clients. In case you reset it and you are not able to access it , this means that the router firmware is probably damaged.

Answer 4

Please note that when you disable the DHCP server in your router, it will request an IP address from whatever other DHCP server that it can find on the connected network. If it doesn't find such a server, it will choose some default. Its address in both cases will therefore no longer be 192.168.1.1.

A network scan of the entire college network to locate the router is not practical, because first it's quite unclear how to identify it, and second it could raise some red flags with the network administrator and get you banned as a hacker.

From the posted info, it is possible that your router's new IP is http:\\158.110.96.1 (or possibly this the college's main router). If this address doesn't work, you will need to reset the router in order to make it accessible again. A factory reset of the router will undo all your changes and will enable you to reach your router configuration page just as before, using the default user-name and password.

From the TD-W8980 manual :

With the modem router powered on, use a pin to press and hold the Reset button for at least 5 seconds. And the Router will reboot to its factory default settings.

The Reset pinhole is marked as such at the back of your router. A paper-clip is the simplest tool for pressing on it.

One solution might be to assign the router a fixed IP, for example 192.168.1.2, before disabling DHCP. However, the puzzling fact is that as far as I can see, your college's network is 158.110.96.x/24, which seems too small, with a maximum of only 252 connected computers possible. You might ask the network administrator of the college for a static IP address to which you can set your router so as to be able to reach it while it is on the college network. Using for the router a static IP address which is not on the same network segment as your computer will make it again unreachable.

However, in all cases where the router becomes unreachable, Factory Reset will will return you to a known working state.

See also: How to Configure WDS Bridging on TP-LINK Dual Band Routers