Does the Z-net device name really matter?

[smrbrts]

The web interface of my newly revived Z-Net (replaced microSD card) shows:

Device Name	Z-NETv2
_	Note: Be sure to update your HS3 Z-Wave plug-in settings if Device Name is changed.

The interface as displayed in the Homeseer Controller management shows with a name of Z-NET and the interface says Z-Netv3. It seems like everything is working so I'm wondering about the Note from the Z-Net web interface. Does the name really matter? I assume it is working because of the reserved IP address.

I do have a secondary controller (USB Z-stick), but since things weren't working until I put the Z-Net back in place I assume it is functional.

Should I make the name match? I'm guessing I might need to disable the interface in HS3 in order to rename it as it seems greyed out.

[zwolfpack]

I wouldn't mess with it. If you were to disable the interface (by clicking on the green check, won't hurt anything if you do), I'd bet that the dropdown selection would update. The dropdown is populated from data from find.homeseer.com. Not sure if it updates while the interface is enabled.

[smrbrts]

I disabled/reenabled and it looks the same. Just irks me a bit they put a warning on a page in red that doesn't seem to matter in any way I can figure out.


The other thing I find interesting is that find.homeseer.com lists Z-NETv3-wifi and I've never enabled wifi. The Web interface of the Z-net shows an IP address that isn't even in the range I use. It is enabled for DHCP with no SSID and password so it isn't working, but odd that it would even have an IP address. I kind of wish they'd add a disable button that would put a dtoverlay=disable-wifi in the /boot/config.txt if that would just shut if off.


Woo hoo, ssh works to the pi. It shows the interface as active and even some about of TX and RX which I assume must be beacons or some other network management traffic since there is no ssid defined.

wlan0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr b8:27:eb:ba:de:38

inet addr:192.168.255.251 Bcast:192.168.255.255 Mask:255.255.255.248

inet6 addr: fe80::91f:a528:fc9c:8a64/64 Scope:Link

UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1

RX packets:5 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0

TX packets:48 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0

collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000

RX bytes:1343 (1.3 KiB) TX bytes:10213 (9.9 KiB)


I'm tempted to switch the Network to Manual long enough to clear out the IP address and mask since they won't be helpful on my network.

[zwolfpack]

Sounds like the hostname (/etc/hostname), Z-NETv3, and the named saved in the UI (/var/www/Main/WiFi.txt) are out of sync.

Agreed, HST's aggravating inattention to detail is on full display in the Z-Net image, as in their other Linux products. Once I started poking around, back in 2016, I quickly threw in the towel and built my own. Is the OS version still 'jessie' (/etc/os-release) or have they at least updated that?

[drhtmal]

...HST's aggravating inattention to detail is on full display in the Z-Net image, as in their other Linux products...

PRETTY_NAME="Raspbian GNU/Linux 8 (jessie)"

Sad, but true.

[smrbrts]

Oh yeah, still jesse. And the /etc/apt/sources.list still points to mirrordirector.raspbian.org/raspbian/ which means updates won't work unless I point to a new source and then I'm afraid I'll break stuff and I really didn't want to become an expert at Z-Net pi fu. I was thinking I could use apt to update and install git and then pull down the latest rpi-clone. But now I'm afraid if I poke this too hard that like a house of cards it will all come down. At least if I do I have the original SD card to go back to.

The hostname and WiFi.txt names match as Z-NETv2.

I seems like they could clean up the image they are using for the SD cards. There is something funky happening during boot where sometimes the console shows a link local address (169.254.188.108) and sometimes the one assigned by DHCP. In the end it always ends up with the address I'm assigning and I can control my Z-Wave devices and ssh to the pi but in those times where it shows the link local address on the console, then the web interface for the Z-Net isn't accessible and remains inaccessible until I reboot and see the real IP confirmed on the console during boot. Unfortunately it shows the link local more times than not. It makes me think something in the config is holding on to that link local or else the bad address setup for the wifi interface or something.

I guess I could grab a network trace and try to figure out what is going on, but I fear it is some internal timing thing with startup scripts.