Wifi network with repeater
Hi,
Currently my Firewalla is attached to the main router which I have another router setup as a repeater (link to the main router via wifi) to cover blind spots in my apartment.
Problems: I can see the main router in the app but i am unable to see the repeater and devices connected via wifi that is connected to the repeater. Currently I do not have wired device connected to repeater.
If there a way around this or the solution is to get another Firewalla to connect to the repeater?
I vaguely remember comments in KS that we do not need to purchase 2 X Firewalla but it has been a while and there is too many messages in KS to scroll back.
Hoping for a simple solution and many thanks in advance.
Will
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So is there a way/setting I need to do to get around this?
I have since have the main router assigned IP for the repeater but that did not resolve the issue. I am also not seeing the repeater from the app.
Sorry.. I am not verse with networking setting and always rely on default/basics setting using the router software.
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Sorry for not getting back, lost your reply previously. I've created a ticket to better support you. Anything private you can use the ticket. From your description, the repeater is a MAC layer repeater, so should be detected by Firewalla. Need to know a bit details,
1. what router you have, and what repeater?
2. I assume you connected firewalla in the main router. please confirm
3. you have not seen any device behind the repeater?
If you have a desktop that's connected to the main router network
1. type ping x.x.x.x where x.x.x.x is a device behind the repeater
2. type arp x.x.x.x, see if you see an arp entry
Feel free to reply here or use the ticket. Ticket is private
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John, describe a bit on the issue you have? are you not seen the devices behind the repeater?
1. If the devices behind the repeater are in the same network as the ones that are not, then you should be okay.
2. if the device behind has a different network address, then you are using a router. You will see all traffic from the repeater aggregating everything behind the repeater.
3. If you see devices behind the repeater has MAC addresses like this
x2:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx x6:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx xA:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx xE:xx:xx:xx:xx:xxThen your repeater is randomizing the MAC addresses. Which will cause a big issue with Firewalla, since it will now impossible to track who is who
But .. if the address is not random, then you may have two copies of the same device. One behind the repeater, and one in front.
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I actually have two extenders and one bridge. One of the extenders is to push the wifi (netgear EX6100) upstairs to cover a weak signal area in the second story of the house. The second extender (Amped something or other) is used to push the wifi signal to my elderly neighbor next door so she can use a iPad for texting. The bridge (DLink DAP-1522) is used to provide connectivity to a desktop computer and two network attached drives.
I played with the connecting to the netgear EX6100 a little more and found that when I move my phone to that area and switch to the extender SSID, it does connect with a new ip address and a different MAC address (one of the x2:xx:... addresses you described in your reply) and Firewalla notifies me of the "new" device, when I switch the phone back to the previously used SSID of the router (which is where the Firewalla device is plugged into) it looks like it goes back to using the "previous" device ip and MAC address. My intent in for the extender was that if I needed to be in that area of the house and needed wireless, I would switch to the extender SSID. Seems like Firewalla sees this as a new device, will it now just gather statistics under the new device. Is that a problem for fFirewalla?
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As long as the extenders don't randomize the MAC address of your device, then it will be an annoying factor for you (the user only). There is no way to get around this since Firewalla uses MAC to distinguish between devices.
Personally, we prefer the new age mesh routers. They are getting cheaper and can be a lot more transparent than having these extenders around.
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Each extender, bridge and router on my network have their own entry in the device area of the Firewalla UI, but I am not seeing any network data in the Insight or Network Flow area for any of them, should there be data there?
i am also not seeing a device entry for the desktop computer and one of the Network attached drives connected to the bridge. All of the devices connected to the bridge have a static IP address assigned. One of the Network attached drives with a static up address connected to the bridge did show up, but the only network traffic shown was a small up/ down load to the Synology site that I assume was so that the drive could be acessed by me from outside my network, shouldn’t I see more traffic?
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John, probably best to send help@firewalla.com an email. Your problem is very specific to the extender used. The issue with extenders in general is, they often will hide the real mac of the device. Which then causes devices to be hidden under another name and that will bounce back and forth. So you will likely see couple "devices" with the same name.
If you have embedded routers in your network, they will look like one big device to Firewalla. The reason is, firewalla is a layer 3 or IP layer device. It can only see its own network. And routers tend to create their own IP layer networks.
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