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Forum Discussion
Orbi excessive pinging
Does anyone else see their Orbi satellites doing excessing pings to the default gateway? In my firewall log I am getting thousand of them and I don't know why. Or where to disable it.
Joe
29 Replies
What Firmware is currently loaded?
What is the Mfr and model# of the ISP modem the NG router is connected too?You might try updating FW to v2.5.1.8...See if this still happens.
IS Orbi running in router or AP mode?
j0ebeer wrote:Does anyone else see their Orbi satellites doing excessing pings to the default gateway? In my firewall log I am getting thousand of them and I don't know why. Or where to disable it.
Am interested in which "firewall log" this is. When Orbi is configured as a "router", it IS the gateway, and satellites never communicate past the Orbi. So, this Orbi must be configured as an Access Point, in which case every device on the network, including the satellites, gets an IP address from whatever device is using DHCP to assign IPs (the gateway?) One would expect that satellites would then do things like ARP requests, pings, etc. against the gateway. "Thousands" sounds like a lot, but I have been surprised at how "chatty" an ethernet network is.
CrimpOn wrote:
j0ebeer wrote:Does anyone else see their Orbi satellites doing excessing pings to the default gateway? In my firewall log I am getting thousand of them and I don't know why. Or where to disable it.
Am interested in which "firewall log" this is. When Orbi is configured as a "router", it IS the gateway, and satellites never communicate past the Orbi. So, this Orbi must be configured as an Access Point, in which case every device on the network, including the satellites, gets an IP address from whatever device is using DHCP to assign IPs (the gateway?) One would expect that satellites would then do things like ARP requests, pings, etc. against the gateway. "Thousands" sounds like a lot, but I have been surprised at how "chatty" an ethernet network is.
The firewall log is my Fortinet sending logs into Splunk. From a search of the past 4 hours the 2 satellites have ping my FW gateway over 6500 times. My guess is its default behavior and I'm probably stuck with it. I would call it poor coding.
I just now captured my Orbi LAN traffic. My (one) satellite sends ICMP (ping) once per second to the Orbi router, which is also the "gateway". I believe that the default behavior when Orbi is providing DHCP is to provide the Orbi IP address as both the gateway and the DNS for every device on the network that gets an IP from the Orbi. 60 time/min * 60min/hr = 3,600 pings/hr per satellite. Two satellites = 7,200 pings/hr. Thus, my analysis does not match what the firewall is reporting. It should be seeing more than twice as much.
Yes, that sounds like "a lot". On the other hand, we're talking about gig ethernet, so the actual portion of total bandwidth consumed is not "large".
I am still wondering how the firewall is capturing these pings. Is the firewall the "gateway"? Which device is providing DHCP?
I'm running RBK13 in AP mode and I see the same high volume of pings on the gateway. Orbi is not acting as dhcp server in my environment.
I also see a large number of pings to external IP addresses. I have support cases open on these but have not had any responses.
dl42 wrote:I'm running RBK13 in AP mode and I see the same high volume of pings on the gateway. Orbi is not acting as dhcp server in my environment.
I also see a large number of pings to external IP addresses. I have support cases open on these but have not had any responses.
Since the Orbi is in AP mode, I believe it is entirely "normal" for the router and satellites to ping the gateway. To us, once a second may seem excessive, but I have no idea what internet "standards" are for that kind of "keep alive" behavior.
Pings to external addresses are a different matter. Are those from the Orbi equipment?
I don't consider this "normal" for any manufacuter. For me it is only the 2 Orbi satellites I have and they are only pinging the default gateway given by the dhcp server of my firewall. I only started capturing the logs into Splunk yesterday but for 20 hours I show over 40,000 pings (screenshot attached) from the 2 sats. Is it impacting my home network performance, probably not. But does it need to be this excessive? I am a security sales engineer and when I do demos I now have to filter out this excessive garbage so it doesn't skew graphs and reports. Bit annoying.
Hopefully someone from Netgear sees this and can comment. Otherwise I'll be looking to toss the system onto ebay.
V2.3.5.26 RBS20
I just noticed this too. Disturbing and it's not normal. This needs to be fixed.
Did it get fixed in 2.5.1.16?
Somthiing to try for your self and see. I recommend a factory reset and setup from scratch. I would ping test with out the RBS and ALL other devices disconnected from the RBR. use just a wired PC to test with initially.
kwiebe wrote:V2.3.5.26 RBS20
I just noticed this too. Disturbing and it's not normal. This needs to be fixed.
Did it get fixed in 2.5.1.16?
I was hoping to find out from someone already running the later firmware whether the ping behavior was still exhibited. Seems like a reasonable inquiry. Are you running the newer firmware FURRYe38?
