NETGEAR is aware of a growing number of phone and online scams. To learn how to stay safe click here.
Forum Discussion
Nighthawk M2 guests are isolated on different bands
Hi there. I've got the Australian version of the M2 (telstra nighthawk m2) with the latest firmware and I've noticed hosts are isolated without any setting to configure this. My use case is that I have some devices on the 2ghz network, some on the 5ghz, and one on the gigabit port. I've noticed that these clients cannot talk to each other if they're on a different band (or wired-to-wireless and vice versa), so essentially the access points are isolated as far as I can tell.
This is quite annoying, as I prefer to use 5ghz for everything but I have some older devices that only have 2.4g hardware in them, and to talk to those devices I have to switch my computer over to the AP that they're on.
What's weirder is I've noticed I can ping these hosts, as they are on the same virtual interface, bridge and DHCP pool after all, but I cannot get any TCP ports open on those hosts. I've set up a simple HTTP server on one host on the 2.4ghz network, and I've attempted to curl it from a device on the 5ghz network. You can see from the log below that it can be pinged, and I can make the TCP connection to a HTTP host, but there is no reply.
$ ping 192.168.1.94
PING 192.168.1.94 (192.168.1.94): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 192.168.1.94: icmp_seq=0 ttl=64 time=167.448 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.1.94: icmp_seq=1 ttl=64 time=36.506 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.1.94: icmp_seq=2 ttl=64 time=45.234 ms
$ curl 192.168.1.94 -v
* Trying 192.168.1.94:80...
* Connected to 192.168.1.94 (192.168.1.94) port 80 (#0)
> GET / HTTP/1.1
> Host: 192.168.1.94
> User-Agent: curl/7.79.1
> Accept: */*
>
My only solution for now has been to put everything on another access point that doesn't isolate hosts and supply it via the Ethernet port on the M2, but this isn't particularly portable or what I'd expect from a premium travel router.
I've searched the settings on the device for any hints at an isolation setting but haven't found anything yet. As far as I can tell, this isn't a configuration issue, but a mistake in the bridge settings / routing rules in the firmware.
Do these devices still receive bugfixes? is there any chance the engineering team for these could be reached to sort this out?
Firmware version is NTGX24_10.19.03.00
Thanks!
42 Replies
Hey Addyp95,
I have exactly the same issue but across multiple devices and different models.
We have M1, M2 and M6 models and we have confirmed this is an issue on the M2 and the M6 models.
Did you end up finding a fix for this? Did Netgear support reach out?
Thanks.
Ok thanks for letting me know. This is such a weird thing to have inplace an not be able to remove via settings!
I'm going to try and open a support case with Netgear via Telstra and see if i can get an answer as we have multiple devices with this issue. Will let you know how i go.
Struggling with the same issue here. 100's of the M2 devices....
Typical setup for us is a printer on the ethernet and a handful of end user laptops on Wi-Fi (2.4Ghz)...
Strange thing is its works without issue at times... we can have a device working fine then come in the next morning and it refuses to print. Can still ping the printer just not http connectivity.
Sometimes just switching the M2 Wi-Fi config between 2.4Ghz/5Ghz and 2.4Ghz only and restarting it is good enough to fix the issue.
The other thing I've noticed is that if you restart the M2 you do get http connectivity between ethernet and 2.4Ghz interface for about 10-20 seconds before its locked down.
Well according to Netgear, the M2 is no longer supported but they should have this fixed with the M6. I'm awaiting an update from JohnPeng on this forum to see when this will be available for testing.
Yes. The Netgear Nighthawk M2 router isolates guest devices on different bands to ensure network security and prevent guests from accessing devices connected to the main network.
Certainly! By isolating guest devices on different bands, the Netgear Nighthawk M2 router creates separate virtual networks for guests, which are isolated from each other and from the main network. This isolation provides an additional layer of security, as guests won't be able to communicate directly with each other or access any resources on the primary network.
The Nighthawk M2 router achieves this isolation by employing a feature called "Guest Wi-Fi" or "Guest Network." When guests connect to the router, they are assigned to a separate network with its own unique SSID and password, often labeled as "Guest" or with a similar identifier. This network operates on a different wireless band, which means guest devices won't interfere with devices on the main network and vice versa.
Hey Alias12,
Yes i understand that if we used the Guest Wifi settings on the M2/M6 that this would be the desired result BUT we are NOT using the Guest Wifi. We are using the standard 2.4 and 5Ghz wifi settings and devices on both of the bands are unable to communicate with each other or the wired network. There is no settings to disable this. Now the idea of having a network is for all devices to communicate but these devices fail to allow this. Most people don't want isolation enabled on a router for a home device as they want all devices to see each other.
Why hasn't thins been fixed on a new to market device after 6 months?
Been reading this thread with interest since I've just encountered the same issue with a Telstra-supplied M2 after NOT seeing it since I got the thing more than a year ago.
Last week I had to reset it to factory and reconfigure after it totally lost the plot and would no longer respond to the admin login.
What I've seen since then is exactly what you are describing, the hosts on wired and wifi cannot see each other which is useless for my home network, The really weird part is that up until I had to reset the device, it was bridging wifi and wired happily with no issues.
What I would dearly like to know is what changed when I reset it, and is there some incantation by which I can get it to go back to how it was?
The follow up question if not, what is the device I should now get to replace this thing, which is guaranteed to behave how I want, which is for wired vs wifi hosts to be visible to each and accessible for file sharing, ssh and so on, on my home network,
There do not seem to be any user-serviceable configuration parameters to put the M2 to rights, but there had better be somewhere in the product range or I am getting something else.
Charles
