Firewalla Gold and Amplifi Alien
Hi, I'm interested in picking up a Firewalla Gold for my new home network, which is to be built with Amplifi Alien routers in a mesh configuration.
I don't want to run the Alien network in Bridge Mode and I need to avoid double NAT, but I note that the compatibility article says the Firewalla is not compatible with Amplifi gear, specifically it says Amplifi HD but I expect the same issues with Alien. I would guess it's centred on DHCP issues but can't be sure.
Does anyone have experience in running Firewalla Gold with Amplifi Alien and does it work ok? Is there anything specific I need to be mindful or aware of? Thanks in advance!
-
Thanks Jim. This will disable all the advanced WiFi functionality provided by Amplifi, right? Do you know if there is a way to get the Firewalla Gold to work in Simple mode wherein it runs pretty much transparently?
I also read the team are working on implementing a layer 2 mode as well with the new software release. Does anyone have any view on when that might be available and if that would potentially overcome the Amplifi limitations?
-
The transparent bridge will be in a future release for sure, hopefully, it is very soon.
In order for the bridge to work, it needs to be in the middle of something ... if you just have one router +wifi combination, it does not work. The bridge works this way
Router <--->[Gold in bridge mode]<---> Wifi
Here the wifi will get IP from the router and Firewalla really doesn't exist from wifi perspective.
-
Thanks Firewalla team, that's great news!
I'm expecting the connectivity to be: Fibre ONT <---> [Gold in bridge mode] <---> Amplifi Alien (PPPoE, router and Wifi). I'm not sure how the Gold will get its IP address in this configuration though so I have my doubts as to whether it would work. From reading your post it sounds as if it won't...
-
If you do it this way
Fibre ONT <---> [Gold in bridge mode] <---> Amplifi Alien
Is the ONT assigning multiple IP? if not, the configuration will not work. Firewalla will need one IP, and your Amplifi Alien will need multiple IP's, otherwise, you will be NAT behind.
Integrated router + wifi doesn't work well with transparent bridge mode. A bridge requires to be between two things. For example, if your configuration is this
[Router]<--->[AP]
And you can place Firewalla in the middle
[Router]<--->[FWG in bridge mode]<--->[AP]
This way, the AP will talk to the router like usual, and FWG will do the filtering and won't touch the routing part.
--
In your case, I think the best is to make the Alien into AP mode, and use Firewalla as your main router. The Firewalla's CPU+Memory is a lot more than the Alien, and when the Alien is in AP mode without doing routing, it will likely to operate better.
-
I have been using Amplifi Alien in bridge mode and it is working fine. Modem -> FW Gold -> Alien. I couldn't get it to work without using bridge mode. Everything that was hard-wired worked fine, but everything connected through WIFI couldn't access the internet. I don't see any loss of functionality and the FW Gold is easier to set up and more flexible than the Amplifi Alien. I found the Alien interface difficult to work with and lacking documentation.
-
I am currently using a FWG with two Aliens in this config:
Modem > FWG (Router mode) > Alien Router 1 (Bridge mode) > Alien Router 2 (Meshed)
In the past I had a FWB in this configuration:
Modem > Alien Router 1 (Router mode) > FWB (Experimental simple mode) > Alien Router 2 (Meshed)
I found I needed to use experimental simple mode on the FWB otherwise it wouldn't work where as simple mode worked fine on my Edge Router and Asus router, you might be able to run the FWG like this if you like.
What Alien functionally do you think you will miss out on?
You will definitely loose on the Alien the device priority setting in the APP and QoS settings on the web page along with the Ad blocking, it looks like to me all the other main settings are there and the FWG priority and QoS settings are far superior over the Alien.
-
Thanks Todd and Thernus , this is really helpful information!
My main worry was that I wouldn't be able to set up a Guest network in Bridge Mode as this was a limitation, but it seems that is no longer an issue.
I was also concerned about device prioritisation, but I've discovered that QoS isn't great on Amplifi anyway and your experience matches mine there, so it looks as if running my Alien mesh network as per your current configuration, and as per Todd and Firewalla's recommendations is the way to go.
I'm really grateful to you all for responding and providing your insights and experiences, I think I'll pull the trigger and get a Gold on order. Cheers!
-
I am liking the FWG as well, its definitely a better router than the Alien but its still missing out on things my Asus Router had, stuff like real-time traffic monitoring and multiple active VPN clients connections/per device and would also like to see Cake QoS down the line as well as a more 'set and forget' QoS over fq_codel.
On another note about QoS on the FWG vs Alien, I just upgraded to a 1Gbps plan and the FWG has the ability to only set fq_codel on the upload (which the Alien doesn't have and a saturated outbound can really make all the traffic crawl) this is using an Intel AX200 WiFi-AX/6 card and the Alien Router as an access point.
https://www.speedtest.net/my-result/d/ff03c7e6-b5ef-4a77-b7ac-62bf5a57f640
-
Here is more information on the transparent bridge. Voice your support, or give us some requirement https://help.firewalla.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/1500000822462-Firewalla-Transparent-Bridge-Mode-1-973-candidate-
-
Bridge mode is already here. Instructions to use https://help.firewalla.com/hc/en-us/articles/1500012331082
-
All —. I have been using fog in following config
cable Modem wan 1 and wan 2 > > FWG (Router mode) > Alien Router 1 (Bridge mode) > Alien Router 2
Till 2 months or so ago no issue, suddenly ( probably free iOS update) I started having issues with iPhones - we have iPhones 12s ONLY iPhones has problems out of 83 devices in network
problem - iOS devices will not get IP
I tried Firewalla gold in dhcp mode, no resolution
I tried restoring fwg to factory And total new setup… but no use
i removed one wan and used, nope.
, I removed firewall now now have this config
Modem > Alien Router 1 (DHCP) > Alien Mesh
No issues at all.
I have case open with Firewalla support but they have not been of help yet, or haven’t identified issue.
‘’I was such. Big fan of Firewalla and responsible for at least 6 sales recommendations, and Love the product but sadly am disappointed
‘’can any one help
-
I just switched back to my Netgear SXK80 kit to test some things and had over 30 days uptime without issues on my pair of AR's on v3.6.2, I only have one work iPhone though.
What happens when you set the apple devices to 'emergency access' and are the apple devices set to use random macs
Please sign in to leave a comment.
Comments
16 comments