RBR20 Mesh System Hardwire/Wireless Mix

---

arichter11 wrote:

- Is the only way to get the mesh system to run as a whole if I plug the satellite directly into the RBR20? or is there a way that I can sync all of this up by keeping it plugged into the Verizon router directly?

---

Yesd, you understand correctly. The Orbi router expects to see satellites either (a) over WiFi, or (b) over the ethernet LAN port.  NOT on the ethernet WAN port. That is what is keeping the satellite from syncing.

There are several ways to make this happen:

• Run a second ethernet cable inside the house to the RBR20 location and connect that garage ethernet cable to it using an ethernet connector.  I got some from Amazon:
  https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B016B13UDK/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1 
• Physically reroute that garage cable to the router location.
• Use a pair of managed switches to allow the single ethernet cable to carry both the WAN traffic and the LAN traffic at the same time.
  There is an excellent discussion describing how to do this in this post:
  https://community.netgear.com/t5/Orbi/Disabling-automatic-subnet-reconfig/m-p/2031354#M110164 
  29 posts is sort of a long read. The original question had to do with a problem which got solved along the way and much discussion of what might have caused the situation.  The end result appears to be really stable.
  A pair of GS108v3 switches is about $120 on Amazon, which could be less than the cost of running an ethernet cable.
  In my own case, installing ethernet cables in my two story house is nearly impossible. (I so fondly remember the crawl space and attic in the old house. Made wiring projects SO simple!)
  There are managed switches from other vendors that are less costly. The key is to be able to define port based VPN's.