I have a DIY NUC Roon ROCK server (NUC13ANBi5), a Volumio Rivo used as a bridge, connected via USB to a Marantz SA-12 SACD-player which I use as a DAC. The server is connected to my home network (Fritzbox router and repeater in the same mesh) via a Wifi dongle. The Volumio Rivo is via its Wifi connected to the network. Furthermore, I have connected the server to the Rivo directly via an Ethernet cable; they can connect with static IPs I have given in both devices for the Ethernet connection (5.1.1.1 for the server, 5.1.1.2 for the Rivo). I want both devices to connect solely via the direct Ethernet connection. But they switch to the home network from time to time. From what I can see in the Roon ROCK logs it seems that the Ethernet connection is not absolutely stable and has interruptions, they try to reconnect, that fails as well, and then they connect via the home network. I can check the connection via the IP address of the Rivo that I can see in Roon. Restarting the network of the Rivo (once I notice that the connection is via wifi) via "sudo systemctl restart networking" of the Rivo brings in most of the cases the ethernet connection back.
I don't like to switch off Rivo's wifi connection completely, because I would very much like to keep the control via wifi over the Rivo (for example to set the Volume Option Mixer Type to "None" in the Rivo once I've switched on the DAC), but force the Roon RAAT connection only to use the direct ethernet connection. Does anyone have any ideas?
Could it be that Roon remote doesn’t always show the correct IP however (see screenshot)? Today it showed several times a switch between 192.168.178.106 and 5.1.1.2 but the Roon logs for the whole day does not show any connection to 192…, only to 5.1… Rivo ss -tupn via ssh did also show “volumioraatd” connection only via 5.1…
This would make the issue much less severe, though there are definitely cases, also in the logs, where the connection swaps.
Thanks for reaching out. Since the ROCK is using multiple subnets, this can cause issues, Roon works properly when devices are on one subnet. Are you able to edit your router/repeater settings to have both WiFi and Ethernet on the same subnet?
Hi noris,
Thanks a lot for responding so quickly. I’ve tested it in a way that the IP nets of the Ethernet accesses are 192.168.178.something (same as my home network), but that does not work. And that is against my idea anyway: I want to have a cable connection between the Roon ROCK server and the Volumio Rivo bridge completely separated from the (here wifi) connection to the home network.
I think Danny said to do it with different subnets (though he does not endorse the setup):
In the meantime I’ve monitored my network traffic. Even if the Roon Remote shows “192.168.178.106” as IP address, there is not much traffic going to the 106. It’s different if I pull out the Ethernet cable so Roon → Rivo have to connect via home network: then there is a lot “application data” and many other stuff going to the .106, so the Rivo.
Nevertheless I’m sure there are cases where the connection is indeed via home network, as I was able to see in the logs.
So the issue is probably two-fold:
Does Roon Remote always give the correct IP address of the bridge if more than one is available?
Can the connection be forced to use Ethernet? It seems to use Ethernet in 99% of the cases, but can somehow the connection via the home network be forbidden (even if that means that the connection breaks should the ethernet connection be interrupted or pulled out)?
Anyway I’m happy that this setup works at all and it does in 99% (maybe 99.9%) of the cases (even if Roon Remote is not reflecting that)!
Unfortunately, we’re not able to confirm that either of the above is possible at this time. That said, I’m glad to hear that for the most part you’re able to get things working properly!
