Device List

The Device List menu displays an overall view of the devices connected to your LAN. This information is gathered from a number of different sources including DHCP leases, ARP tables, and WiFi clients.

Interface: shows the interface on which the router sees the device. Since release 2021.3, this includes physical/logical interface name, and WiFi SSID.

• brX is a bridge representing the LAN.
• ethX is an Ethernet physical interface.
  • This name might be used directly.
  • This name might be used indirectly if a bridge, PPP, or VPN connection is associated with the interface.
• vlanX is a virtual interface that will always be related to a physical interface.
  • For example, in the example above, vlan2 represents the WAN interface.
• wlX is a wireless radio interface.
  • If you have Virtual Wireless set up, you'll probably have several of these.
  • This will depend on the number of radios in your hardware.
  • Virtual wireless interfaces will also appear here.
  • Main wireless chipset interfaces are named as wlX.
  • Virtual wireless interfaces are named as wlX.X .

WiFi-connected devices will appear under the interface name of the SSID to which they are connected .

Device names start at “0”. The first WiFi adapter might be named “wl0”. The second Ethernet adapter might be “eth1”.

Additional instances are created when virtual interfaces are created (secondary SSIDs).

Media: An icon in this column represents the interface on which the device is connected, and its connection status.

Interface types include:

• Ethernet
• WiFi (2.4GHz)
• WiFi (5GHz)
• Cellular 3G/4G/5G connection to ISP
• PPPoE connection to ISP
• Wireless client (to other router/AP)
• Wireless bridge (to other router/AP)
• PPTP client

WAN interfaces are shown with black and white inverted. A greyed-out power icon represents a device that is disconnected or off.

MAC Address: This is the hardware address associated with the interface.

• Clicking the MAC address opens a search to identify the hardware vendor, based on the device's OUI (Organizationally Unique Identifier).
  • The OUI is derived from the first 6 digits of its MAC address.
  • This function is useful only for factory-programmed MAC addresses.
  • It will not work with manually-configured MAC addresses, since they can be arbitrarily assigned.

• [DR] stands for DHCP Reservation.
  • This forwards you to the DHCP Reservation menu, where you can assign a DHCP Reservation to the MAC address.
  • From there, checking the Bound to option will enable static ARP mapping to the MAC address.
  • This helps to protect against ARP spoofing.

• [BWL] forwards you to the Bandwidth Limiter menu for that device.
  • There, you can limit the bandwidth of the device associated with this MAC address.

• [AR] forwards you to the Access Restriction menu, where the device can have its WAN communications restricted.

• [WLF] forwards you to the Wireless Filter menu, where the device's MAC address is prefilled and can be blocked from or allowed to connect via WiFi.

IP Address: This displays the address linked to the client MAC address.

If no address is shown, one is not known. This can happen briefly while authenticating WiFi devices, even if the WiFi password is correct.

Name: This shows the DHCP Hostname of the client device. If no name is shown, it's usually because the device got its lease on the network from a different router, or this router was rebooted after the lease was given. You can work around this by adding your own dhcp-host reference in the dnsmasq Custom configuration.

For example, dhcp-host=70:EE:50:37:E8:46,myhostname

This field is also affected by the “Generate a name for DHCP clients which do not otherwise have one” parameter in the DHCP/DNS/TFTP menu.

RSSI: This shows Relative Signal Strength. It applies only to WiFi clients connected to this router.

RSSI is measured in negative numbers, where 0 is the best possible value. Thus, -53 is a stronger signal than -74.

Quality: This is similar to RSSI, but considers other parameters, like noise floor, and interference. Quality is a more accurate assessment of the signal.

TX/RX Rate: This is the current transmit/receive link speeds between router and WiFi client device. It is normal for these numbers to fluctuate based on activity level of the client device and the quality/distance of the signal.

Lease: This displays the time remaining before a DHCP lease expires. The lease time is also a hyperlink. Clicking on it lets you delete the current DHCP lease from the database, and deauthorize the device (if WiFi-connected). This is useful when creating static IP reservations, to make connected devices refresh their previously automatically-assigned IP to the new, manually-reserved one:

Noise floor: This indicates the amount of interference affecting each physical radio interface.

Noise, like RSSI, is measured in negative numbers. The best possible value is -100dBm. Any interference will increase the noise value and decrease the Quality.

If you experience a strong RSSI and a strong Noise floor, the WiFi is likely to be unusable. In these situations, the main cause is usually other routers/APs transmitting on the same channel. Use the Wireless Survey tool to get more information.

On the 2.4GHz band, common sources of interference include:

• Bluetooth devices
• Cordless phones
• Wireless headphones
• Low-quality power supplies
• Microwave ovens

Typically, there is les interference on the 5GHz band. One source of interference is DFS (Dynamic Frequency Selection) only for certain channels only. DFS is a WiFi function that enables 5GHz WiFi to use frequencies generally reserved for radar. Ironically, DFS was designed to reduce interference. DFS interference varies, depending on the country/physical location of the equipment. If you suspect interference is due to DFS, see Wikipedia's List of WLAN Channels for details.

Measure: On certain (mostly MIPS-based) devices, there is an extra button to trigger the measurement of Noise Floor (interference). For more information on the noise floor, see the Wireless Survey menu.

Network Discovery: This function is available since release 2021.4 . Network Discovery scans all IP addresses in a range to accurately populate the Device List table. (Default: disabled). If enabled, it remains running for the length of the web interface session. However, it will stop if you leave the Device List menu.

Network Discovery can be set to use the Linux arping command or the traceroute command. Arping is the preferred setting, as it's faster and uses less resources. However, sometimes, traceroute may perform network discovery more precisely. This is true with Apple devices.

To the right of the Network Discovery mode is a non-adjustable countdown timer which represents how often the script is run. Essentially, it reflects the ARP cache aging time. Remember that modern WiFi devices may stay connected to the router while in sleep mode. Network Discovery will likely detect those devices, but the Hostname information may not appear until they awaken.