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Forum Discussion
"No Internet" when connecting Orbi upstream from a switch
Hello. I have Orbi WiFi Router RBR760 that comes with two satelites. When I connect the router from an unmanaged switch (that is connected to main Cox-Cable Router, although all hard-wired connection...
Kevin, If you are saying that I can (in fact) have an unmanaged switch between my main router and the ORBI, then your customer service and y our statement here are in direct conflict with each other. I spent alost an hour on Netgear's telephone customer support who, in fact, told me that i cannot have an unmanaged switch in between the ORBI RBR760 and my Cox Cable main router. The only way that your customer service said I am able to successfully make this work is to connect the Cox Cable router directly to the ORBI. Then from one of the three ORBI outputs into my SISCO business edition unmanaged switch. Aothough it is working successfully this way, I really wanted to connect as y ou have described should work, but does not. Thoughts?
I side with KevinLiT on this (I have done something similar myself) however there are some important aspects to consider:
- This is definitely not typical. (in other words, nobody in their right mind would do it. unless this is a very special case, it will only lead to problems. My special case is that I wanted to capture every packet that went between the modem and Orbi router, so I connected both the modem and router to a switch and then had the switch mirror traffic from one of those ports to another port that I had Wireshark capturing on. Nothing else was connected to the switch.)
- If the Cox device is "only a modem" and you connect anything else to that switch besides the Orbi router, then there will be problems. The modem has to know the MAC address of the device that it is passing the public IP address to. If there are multiple MAC addresses on the switch, then the modem will be confused. (This is not good.) If you cannot connect anything else to the switch, then there is no purpose to having the switch there. (one reason Netgear support says, "don't do this.")
- If the Cox device is actually a modem/router, then the Orbi router should work, but everything behind the Orbi will be in a different IP subnet than devices connected to that switch. This leads to all sorts of ugly problems when customers ask, "Why can't my PC find the NAS that I connected to the switch?" Or, why can't a PC connected to this switch find the NAS that is connected to my Orbi?"
Note that people sometimes do this on purpose. They want to have a network that is entirely separate from the Orbi network (work vs. family, home vs. tenant, etc.) Their goal is to separate the two networks. And, they are aware of the potential problems created by having a "Double NAT" and have decided that they do not apply to their situation.*
My position is that placing a switch between the Cox device and the Orbi router may work, but typically makes no sense.
It would help if you identify the specific model of Cox device and if anything else is attached to the switch.
* A "Double NAT" definitely causes problems for specific applications (search for "Double NAT") and it is generally thought that not having one is a good idea (like quitting smoking or losing weight).