TP-Link TL-WPA4230P on Linux

Submitted by Falken on

Quick note on these PowerLine devices.

They don't need any tools to manage them, as they have a sufficient web interface.

To access this just connect a network cable directly to them (no switch or cross over needed) and set your interface to assign 'link-local' addresses. That's what Kubuntu calls it anyway.
You can do the same with their wireless access point when you join it.

Then connect to http://169.254.30.245/ and you should be good to login.

BUT - these devices are terrible network citizens. They will not DHCP, instead picking a random IP every few hours. Which means sometimes they pick the same as your router or laptop. Que breakage.
So you MUST login to the device and give it a hardcoded IP (then reboot). Also reserve this IP in your router (though the TP-Link will ignore this as it doesn't believe in DHCP).

AND every few days the device will hang, and/or disconnect from the rest of the PowerLine (sometimes in odd ways, like you can talk to devices directly connected to the other end of the PowerLine, but not to ones the other side of a router on the PowerLine). So you'll want to put something in cron to reboot it at night:

45 3 * * * wget -q --http-user=some --http-password=value http://192.168.11.200/userRpm/SysRebootRpm.htm?Reboot=Reboot 2>&1 > /dev/null