Using dnsmasq on Asuswrt-merlin to ignore MAC addresses

Here’s another ‘for posterity’ type post.

I forgot I had configured my WiFi router to ignore certain MAC addresses and when I tried to put that machine on the Network today I had a rude awakening. Using the asuswrt-merlin firmware on my RT-AC66U router, I had configured things to allow 2 machines to be served DHCP from another PC so that I could run Cobbler on that machine and boot/kickstart these two hosts just by hitting the power button. But when I disconnected this Cobbler server at the beginning of my renovation, I forgot the MAC addresses were being ignored by the router.

In order to enable these MAC addresses on the WiFi router I first tried to comment the lines out, but then instead moved the config file to root’s home dir. Also I had to reboot the router:

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admin@RT-AC66U:/tmp/home/root# mv /jffs/configs/dnsmasq.conf.add .
admin@RT-AC66U:/tmp/home/root# ls
dnsmasq.conf.add
admin@RT-AC66U:/tmp/home/root# more dnsmasq.conf.add
# 12/13/2017 comment these out while other dhcp server isn't available
#dhcp-host=ec:a8:6b:f4:ce:01,ignore
#dhcp-host=ec:a8:6b:f5:a4:ed,ignore
admin@RT-AC66U:/tmp/home/root# ls -ltr /jffs/configs/
admin@RT-AC66U:/tmp/home/root# reboot