[mesh-dev] Web UI, ISPs and user friendliness

[Marc Juul]

We've now had problems with the internet at our first mesh-only-internet
house twice. Both times it seems like it was actually the ISP and the
problem went away on its own.

It would be really cool if we can have the web UI tell the node operator
when a problem is caused by their own ISP or by us and to help them
troubleshoot.

Maybe we can come up with some ideas for a helpful troubleshooting page for
the UI tonight?

I also had the through that it'd be a really great idea if people could go
to their node admin UI URL even when on peoplesopen.net but that it would
then only show information that can be safely made public and tell the user
to log on to their private SSID to make changes and get more information.
Most of the troubleshooting info could actually be available via
peoplesopen.net with no danger. The biggest potential problem is if someone
is accidentally getting connected to a neighbor's node and then get the
admin UI for the wrong router. We can help mitigate that by putting a big
"you are connected to the peoplesopen.net node with private wifi name:
<your name>" at the top of the page.

------ more unnecessary thoughts below.


I wrote an email about this earlier but it was about the more fanciful
scenario where I imagined having a router that talks.

Here are some scenarios that would be pretty cool to handle:

"Uh oh, I had internet within the past 48 hours but the ethernet cable to
your modem or Internet router has been physically disconnected. Is the
cable connected and is your modem or internet router powered on? [get help
troubleshooting]"

"I see that you plugged my WAN port into another device, but it isn't
giving me an IP address. Are you sure you plugged me into your modem /
Internet router?"

"I can connect to the Internet but it looks like none of the People's Open
Network tunnel endpoints are online right now. Somewhere nearby a bunch of
technicians are running around with their hair on fire. Hopefully the issue
will be fixed shortly! You should still be able to use your private wifi
network called <name>. Sorry for the outage :("

"It seems that I am connected to your modem / Internet router but I cannot
connect to the Internet. You should call your Internet Service Provider and
ask them to fix the issue. Please remember that People's Open Network is
not associated with your Internet Service Provider and that some Internet
Service Providers do not allow you to share your connection. To see a list
of Internet Service Providers in the Bay Area that explicitly allow sharing
[click here]. If you don't see your ISP in the list then there is a chance
that you may be breaking your terms of service by sharing Internet so it's
probably best not to mention the People's Open Network or Sudo Mesh when
you call your ISP :)"

"I'm connected to the Internet but I'm getting terrible latency. This means
that there is a very long delay whenever data is sent and received from the
Internet. It looks like the problem is coming from your Internet Service
Provider. ... <insert ISP disclaimer>"
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