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Forum Discussion
Enabling Guest Network
Has anyone tried the guest network yet? Couple of things I see.
1) When activating, I assume the router/satillite do some sort of reset, as my devices got disconnected during the process.
2) There is no seperate Access Control. There is no way to segregate the allow / block access per network. I tried blocking my phone from my network, thinking it could log into the guest network, Nope. What ever you have setup for access controls also appears to apply to Guest Network. I did not play around with new devices can or cannot be added, as I don't have any other devices to play with.
3) There is no way to determine that I can see, if a device is on the main network or the guest network.
20 Replies
dsc_dewain wrote:Has anyone tried the guest network yet? Couple of things I see.
1) When activating, I assume the router/satillite do some sort of reset, as my devices got disconnected during the process.
thats normal
dsc_dewain wrote:2) There is no seperate Access Control. There is no way to segregate the allow / block access per network. I tried blocking my phone from my network, thinking it could log into the guest network, Nope. What ever you have setup for access controls also appears to apply to Guest Network. I did not play around with new devices can or cannot be added, as I don't have any other devices to play with.
i think this is also normal as access control is done at mac / ip level not by wifi connection
dsc_dewain wrote:3) There is no way to determine that I can see, if a device is on the main network or the guest network.
you cant normally distinguish this on other routers anyway
- The router I replaced had a guest network. Totally separate. I was able to block new accesses on the main network, and still allow access to the guest network. Also, I was able to activate and deactivate guest network without kicking off current devices from main network.
It seems to me that Guest network only blocks DNS lookups from attached devices to find other local devices. But if you poke around by IP address, you have full access to all local devices and services. Is this true? Please tell me this isn't true...if it is true Netgear is fooling people into thinking they are secure. And it makes me wonder what "security" is actually applied to internet traffic.
I have used the guest access though the the Christmas holiday with friends over and none of the deivces could see or use my media server, printers,etc. So yes guest means guest.
Hey Ron,
That is likely, because by default windows (and Macs?) will try to find devices by DNS lookups. What I am pointing out is that if you access devices by number instead, then there is no isolation. For instance, as I write, I am on a guest network. I can see in Device Manager that I ought to know about several NAS's on my network, but they are grayed out since Windows. wants to talk with them by name, not address. If I try to access them I get denied. BUT, and it is a big one, if I go to explorer and mount the NAS by address (e.g. \\192.168.1.47\share instead of \\myserver\share) they pop right up as usual. Also, my printer is still accessible since I assigned it by IP address and not by WSD port.
Hence my concern: people who aren't aware believe they are secure. People who want to pwn them can do it easily with a port scanner and no tools (given that most people leave guest unsecured and have low to no security on their NASs for internal use).
