I’m a retired hobbyist trying to connect two geographically separated LANs together so that I can control devices on each LAN from the opposite LAN. My ZT network servers are RPi 4Bs and I had it working very well using my old ISP, ATT, on one of the LANs. Now that I’ve switched to T-Mobile on that LAN, I’m getting sporadic connections. I’m making a mess of my IPtables and ZT Routes as I try to figure this out on my own, but I’m sinking in quicksand rather than making progress. I think this may be less than two hours of time for a knowledgeable consultant to fix my mess and I’m willing to pay for that help.
Does ZeroTier have a recommended internal or external partner for a small project like this?
We don’t do consultations for smaller stuff like this but I didn’t want to leave you hanging so we can certainly try to help you troubleshoot here.
In recent years we have seen increased reports of T-Mobile causing all sorts of issues. I’d strongly recommend not using them.
But assuming you are stuck with them, can you describe in more detail the issues you’ve seen? (how often they happen, how long they last, what triggers them, etc).
And can you post a partially redacted output of zerotier-cli peers after trying to connect between two nodes on each LAN? Also, is there any new T-mobile hardware introduced to that LAN?
I have a call into T-Mobile’s escalated technical department so that they can watch my cell tower connection for any issues. Unfortunately, T-Mobile, at one end of this VPN, is the only option for internet service available to me. ATT had a 100GB cap and T-Mobile’s unlimited. ATT’s program sunsetted and is no longer available. My T-Mobile connection is fantastic as far a up/down speed (450/70). That is 15 times faster than ATT.
I have to leave the house for about an hour but here is a partial answer to your questions for now:
zerotier-cli peers
200 peers
024e80e87e 1.12.2 LEAF 1 DIRECT 548 539 192.168.2.160/9993
04495d0350 1.12.2 LEAF 72 DIRECT 548 480 XX.32.30.134/60203
1c33c1ced0 1.12.2 LEAF 81 DIRECT 3552 3462 YY.208.135.59/60400
50e4076de0 1.12.2 LEAF 68 DIRECT 549 476 XX.32.30.134/40437
62f865ae71 - PLANET 282 DIRECT 11514 86301 ZZ.7.252.138/9993
6ab565387a 1.12.2 LEAF -1 DIRECT 1508 1413 YY.208.171.195/21008
778cde7190 - PLANET 76 DIRECT 1508 3462 AAA.195.103.66/9993
987f085afb 1.12.2 LEAF 84 DIRECT 549 11444 XX.32.30.134/32130
9a8c71350e 1.10.0 LEAF -1 DIRECT 150 150 BBB.170.90.64/32789
cafe04eba9 - PLANET 182 DIRECT 11514 86400 CC.17.53.155/9993
cafe9efeb9 - PLANET 84 DIRECT 11514 86496 DDD.194.8.134/9993
I wasn’t sure what to redact as private so I replaced parts of the IP addresses with letters.
The only T-Mobile hardware is the G4AR modem feeding the WAN port of my router. I have a quad MIMO antenna 60’ up my tower pointing at the T-Mobile tower as the external antenna. I discovered that my old routers were slowing down the G4AR so I installed new ReYee E4 routers to give me 1GB down at my house and 450MB down at the remote site. As I said, speed is not the issue but connectivity has no steady pattern. I’d say it stays in for a few minutes and then out for a few minutes with no apparent trigger that I’ve been able to find.
I may have stumbled on a working solution. After experimenting with different managed routing choices in ZeroTier Central, I now have the connectivity restored. I’m not claiming victory yet because I need to see how stable this is but it is looking good for now. I’m sure this is not the best or recommended solution but it is working. I also found a command to reset my ZT server RPi’s IPtables back to an original starting point (I have no idea what that is) and that might have helped as well.
I’m afraid I am purely a hack and slash kind of experimenter and like to “change stuff” first to see what it does rather than reading the manual. Reading posts or documentation has me checking definitions every 5 words and I get frustrated.
If you ever run across anybody that might moonlight for ZT consulting on RPi, I’d sure like to contact them for future pickles I can get into. Hopefully, $100/hr is a reasonable amount as an expectation.
Hi Bob,
If you are still on the lookout to hire someone, I would be glad to help you out as what you are wanting done is within my skillset
You can reach out to me on my email here
Colin
