Practical experiences from every day IT

Tag: connect

  • USB hub on MikroTik hAP ax S and other MikroTik devices to connect multiple storage or broadband devices?

    Short: Yes, works. I tested a Dell D3100 docking station with a built-in active USB hub in conjuction with the USB port of the hAP ax S. The following things worked find out of the box:

    • connecting 1-2 broadband LTE dongles and access them at the same time
    • connecting 1-2 storage devices and access the files on them
    • connecting all 4 named above at the same time

    All cases worked flawlessly in both 7.20.x and the latest stable 7.22.x of MikroTik RouterOS.

    Important to note is, that the docking station of course is actively powered. Given the small max power output of the USB port, this is the only way to run multiple LTE dongles AND storage devices in parallel.

    Something that did not work yet is the docking stations internal Ethernet chip, even though it advertises itself as CDC_NCM but specifies no further chip it is based on. Given the non-existing amount of documentation about running additional ethernet ports via USB on MikroTik-devices, I assume the chances to be very small that this would work, anyway.

  • Short: Automatically generate a one time password to connect to Sophos or OpenVPN Access servers

    If business partners or companies use Sophos or OpenVPN Access, it is likely that they use some sort of OTP “one time password” mechanism. Either as a standalone password or as a combination of a persistent password + one time password. Usually entered one after another without any whitespace as a response to the VPN client querying upon connection buildup.

    If one wanted to automate that, for example on a VPN Gateway, oathtool comes in handy. It allows to generate the right one time password using the initial setup string like that:

    oathtool --totp -b "JBSWY3DPEHPK3PXP"

    The resulting OTP can then be used further to authenticate with the OpenVPN commandline client.

    Using WSL or MSYS2 you can also use (or compile and then use) oathtool on Windows.