Disabling automatic subnet reconfig

I would ask you to start a post thread here and post about this in this switch forum:

https://community.netgear.com/t5/Smart-Plus-and-Smart-Pro-Managed/bd-p/business-smart-plus-click-switches

If this is being triggered by switches, then there maybe something on the switches that needs to be looked at and would not be a Orbi problem. Seems like someting with these managed switchs is causing Orbi to trigger the subnet config incorrectly. The one managed switch I have and use doesn't do this, however it's a D-Link DGS-1100 and it's set for a static IP address of 192.168.0.11 which is out side of the DHCP IP address pool on my router. 

Good Luck.

Ya, seems odd that switches are causing this. Even when out of the box, .0.### shouldn't trigger Orbi to change subnets if Orbi is on 1.1. Like I said, I haven't seen this before so seems like something on the switch side does something that Orbi sees falsely. Seen odd things with Orbi and managed switches. Would be one test to try a non managed switch in place to see if the same thing happens. I presume you shouldn't see this. 

Hopefully someone on the switch side can point you in the right direction. 

Mine just about opposite of your house. Two story with basement. ISP modem and router on 2nd floor upstairs. All in electronic closet. Then I have patch panel for CAT6A to wall outlets on 2nd and some on 1st floor. I have 1 non mananged switch segment connected to the back of the RBR, NG GS-108 that connects my DISH Hopper system, ATT microcell in the living room and 1 line that goes down to the living room on 1st floor where 1 non managed switch and microcell is, then this continued line that goes to the back far office room down the hallway where the original office and networking was a few years back. Here there is a wall jack we put in the runs from this room down to the basement area where a tennant lives and 1 non managed switch and last RBS is connected on this line. The living room and basement switches use NG GS-105s. Basement has two xbox consoles, power switch and a PC. All this works with no VLANs or managed switches. 

Hopefully you can figure out whats going on with the switches. Possible just a configuration issue. 

Good Luck. 

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djaesthetic wrote:
FURRYe38: Wish I could use unmanaged switches. Actually swapped *OUT* a pair in place for these managed ones.

I have a single Cat6 run between two floors of my house. My internet comes in to the basement. About 6 other physical runs terminate in the same location. My router is in my office one floor up. I needed a way to connect all of those physical LAN connections *AND* the internet WAN connection over a single cable. The solution was to put in two managed switches. The single Cat6 run between floors is a trunk passing *ALL* VLANs on Int1. Int2 (on both sides) is the WAN VLAN (where the ATT GW plugs in on one side and the Orbi “Internet” port plugs in on the other). Int3-8 on both sides are dedicated to LAN. It’d work beautifully if it weren’t for this Orbi “feature”.

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What a puzzle.  Sorry to have no inside scoop on how Orbi functions with regard to IP address conflicts.  There are questions all the time from people who have only a single ethernet cable to the Orbi location and buying a couple of switches would be vastly less costly than tearing open the walls to install more cable.

I do wonder, however, if part of the first problem was the Orbi DHCP subnet mask. The Orbi subnet mask was changed from 255.255.255.0, correct? Having "no conflict" in the actual DHCP ranges may be less significant than an "implied conflict".

On the switch issue, can the problem be repeated by power cycling the switch?  Both the GW and Orbi are responding to DHCP, correct requests, correct? Which one will the switch get an IP from?  I can imagine the Orbi observing, "My internet gateway is 172.x.x.x, and 'oh, my' there's a device on my LAN which is in the same subnet.  How about hard coding static IP's in the two switches?

Or... sorry I don't understand.

"Disabling automatic subnet reconfig" - you can't disable this wonderful commodity ***. Just ensure no 192.x.x.x network ever shows up on the Orbi WAN port - and nothing strange will happen. 

For anything else - follow my reply on you other thread -> GS108Ev3 firmware update triggering Orbi subnet reconfiguration - with your qualification a snap 8-). Up front: It's not a switch issue. 

CrimpOn : Appreciate the response!

I'd considered the DHCP idea, except Orbi doesn't allow you to define a proper subnet for DHCP. Instead they just ask for a range (i.e. there's no subnet mask defined re: DHCP).

Oddly enough, the issue is NOT repeated by power cycling the switch. After seeing the firmware update issue, I'd assumed a power cycle would cause the same behavior -- but it doesn't.

The GW has a DHCP range set for two IPs (172.16.0.60-61) solely for performing a WAN IP passthrough back to Orbi's WAN interface (public WAN IP). Orbi has a DHCP range set for 192.168.1.150 - 192.168.1.190.

Both switches have hardcoded IP addresses of 192.168.1.2 and 192.168.1.3 respectively.

I think another poster may have dropped a clue in the other thread regarding specifically would be triggering this (i.e. Orbi's *WAN* port seeing an IP address that matches the subnet of it's LAN configuration), so going to focus the conversation there. I'm seriously thinking VLAN 1 is my likely culprit. Just trying to figure out how to validate it before sharing the final cause in these threads for the next poor !@#$!%^! who stumbles across the issue.

So this is totally stable now, every after power cycling of all components?  Two switches for about $120 beats the heck out of installing another ethernet cable.

Just curious, can you downgrade one of the switches, then re-upgrade to see if this triggers anything? Just an idea...

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djaesthetic wrote:
CrimpOn: Seems it. I’ve bounced both switches, the AT&T gateway, and the Orbi - **ALL** at least twice and no issues. I wish I could test a firmware update on those switches (as that reliably triggered the problem before) just to be sure — though I really do feel the removal of VLAN 1 from all ports was the likely culprit (once I understood what specifically was causing Orbi to do this in the first place).

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On a scale of 1 to 10, how difficult would you describe the process of setting up these switches?

There have been many posts from people who discover that their ISP connection feeds to a wiring hub in the basement with ethernet cables running all over the house, but only one to each location.  Baements are a horrible location for WiFi routers, especially if the only thing "down there" is the wire center. If not too difficult to implement, this would be of help to such people.

Looking further, this is SO COOL.  A pair of 5-port TP-Link managed switches is only $50.  (or, a 5-port at the Orbi location and a larger switch at the wiring hub would be more useful).  Still WAY less than the cost of placing an ethernet cable in a finished structure.

(Waiting for the shoe to drop....) There have been MANY posts expressing frustration with connecting Orbi satellites to the router through a switch.  Does this network design extend to connecting satellites over ethernet, or are they connected using the default WiFi backhaul?

The common wisdom is to avoid "managed switches", which clearly includes these.

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CrimpOn wrote:

Looking further, this is SO COOL.

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Welcome to the world of networking in 2021 my friend!

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CrimpOn wrote:

A pair of 5-port TP-Link managed switches is only $50. 

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Never mind, we're on the Netgear community here. Guess you talk of the Netgear Smart Managed Plus like TP-Link Easy Smart/Unmanaged Pro Switches which have very much in common.

All these devices are not built on managed cores, these are much more configureable switch cores combined with a tiny 8051 class microcontroller.

Two major differences apply: 

1. There is no STP (or RSTP, or MST) - this is avoiding the issues people have with Orbi and Web/Smart managed and true managed switches.
2. There is no management VLAN. In DHCP mode the switch will pick-up an address from any VLAN (this can be the cable modem if it's a plain IP one). Similar, the management IP can be reached on any VLAN. Few models support the ability to configure a management IP to "restrict" the access. 

The second point does (in my opinion) disqualify these switches for exposing to the wild Internet.

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CrimpOn wrote:

There have been MANY posts expressing frustration with connecting Orbi satellites to the router through a switch.

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Root cause is always the STP on by default on almost all Web/Smart managed and true managed switches, the non-compatible STP default config, and Netgear's lack of documentation on the Orbi STP design. 

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CrimpOn wrote:

Does this network design extend to connecting satellites over ethernet, or are they connected using the default WiFi backhaul?

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Wired backhaul of course.

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CrimpOn wrote:

The common wisdom is to avoid "managed switches", which clearly includes these.

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This wisdom is OK to keep people away doing things requiring more than pluging a cable and start shouting about the bad Orbi or bad switch maker instead. 8-)