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RBR50/RBS50 DNS over Wifi always returning IP of Access Point
Have had a setup with RBR50 router and 3 RBS50 satellites working for a while. Recently tho' the two MacBooks have started having problems with DNS over Wifi. All DNS requests seem to return the address of the satellite the device is connecting to. I know the Orbi satellites intercept DNS requests to let OrbiLogin.com etc work, but they seem to be doing this with every request.
It is completely reproducible. If I connect the MacBook to the router via an ethernet cable DNS lookup works fine. If I only connect via WiFi DNS lookups return the IP of the satellite I am connected to. It doesn't matter which DNS server the router is set to. I can even explicitly pass a DNS server IP to a `host` request and it still happens.
I have tried:
* rebooting everything (router, satellites and MacBooks).
* power cycling everything.
* updated all devices to 2.7.5.4 firmware.
At this point I have run out of ideas.
Found the answer after going back through the logs on the router when I was doing the Wireshark checks.
Turns out the two Macs that had the problem had been blocked (as had my Wifi printer which stopped working yesterday). There's a limit to the number of devices the Access Control list in the router can keep track of. Once it runs out of space to track it just blocks the device. And it does this by giving back local IP addresses. I guess it made sense to someone somewhere - so at least you could connect to the router UI to clear out the lists if you accidentally blocked yourself.
Cleared out the massive list of no longer connected devices and turned off the access control.
3 Replies
Interestingly, it happens on 2 out of 3 MacBooks.
13 inch, 2016 MacBook Pro - MacOS Monterey 12.7.5 shows problem
15 inch, 2017 MacBook Pro - MacOS Ventura 13.6.7 works fine
14 inch, 2021 MacBook Pro - macOS Sonoma 14.5 shows problem
So I just did a Wireshark capture of the DNS query going out from one Mac book where DNS is working and one where it isn't. I can't see any difference between them. Same UDP packets go out from each to the same port on the router.
One gets the right response, the other gets the IP of the satellite that the MacBooks are connected to.Found the answer after going back through the logs on the router when I was doing the Wireshark checks.
Turns out the two Macs that had the problem had been blocked (as had my Wifi printer which stopped working yesterday). There's a limit to the number of devices the Access Control list in the router can keep track of. Once it runs out of space to track it just blocks the device. And it does this by giving back local IP addresses. I guess it made sense to someone somewhere - so at least you could connect to the router UI to clear out the lists if you accidentally blocked yourself.
Cleared out the massive list of no longer connected devices and turned off the access control.