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Forum Discussion
Ports report 'closed' instead of 'stealth'
I just installed the RBE771/770 and ran Gibson Research's (grc.com) Shield's Up! 'port authority' scan. It reports that all ports are "closed", which means they are detectable by scans from the Internet. With my previous routers, including a previous Orbi system, GRC reported that all ports were "stealth". What do I have to do to get the RBE771 to stealth it's ports?
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What FW do you have loaded on the system?
Are you doing the GRC can with only one ethernet connected PC to the RBR and the RBS and ALL devices disconnected from the RBR?
Please post screen shots of the GRC results.
Do the uPnP port test pass?
No, I'm doing the test with my usual devices connected to the RBE 771, which is connected to a cable modem. Why would disconnecting devices on the LAN side of the router matter - the router should prevent those devices from being visible, and those devices certainly are not using every port. I've always gotten full stealth without diconnecting those same devices when using my previous router.
Yes, it passes the uPnP test. Here's the screen shot - as I said, it shows all ports closed instead of stealth and failed the true stealth analysis.
Oh, my! Not what one would expect. Just to double check: the RBE771 is connected directly to the internet (modem, ONT) and not connected to an ISP router?
Nope, connected to an ISP modem, but not a router.
It appears that the RBRE771 firmware may be configured differently than older Orbi routers. My RBR50 and RBR750 routers both "stealth" every port that has not been deliberately port forwarded or opened for VPN.
GRC is a convenient "easy to use" tool. Users can duplicate this using any Port Scanning utility. For example, this is how ford.com scans:
Probably something an engineer at Netgear might find interesting.
Historically we've never see all ports marked for Stealth on Orbi systems. Mostly been always closed save some of apps or devices connecting thru may change to stealth.
We've brought this up to NG before. I did this years ago on the CBR50 back then.
Just not sure if NG intends to follow what GRC puts forth.
Will see if anything happens here.we've never seen all ports marked for Stealth on Orbi systems
Beg to differ. GRC on my RBR50 shows the first 1056 ports Stealth (and has since the first time I found out about GRC years ago.)
That's simply not true. My Orbi RBR50, which I had for years and just replaced, ALWAYS showed all ports as Stealth.
And thats based of older FW code which doesn't have newer features like protection engine that seems to be now seen under the hood in newer Orbi models.
FW code has changed greatly since the Orbi AC series. Possible that NG maybe taking different development paths in FW and may not follow what we might expect to see from GRC Results.
Only NG engineering would know though.
Something to submit a support ticket about and let NG know and see if you get any feedback.
And for one of my Orbi BE Systems, here is results for it:
I'm working with Netgear support on this issue and will report back if/when there is a solution.
Thanks for the update. Just wondering if during the initial conversation the support person gave any indication, such as....
- "I have to find out what this 'stealth', 'closed', business means"
- "Ports are supposed to be.... what?"
Unfortunately the initial (and one subsequent) phone conversation was just a person from Netgear support asking for information. Some of what she asked seemed irrelevant and she could not explain the relevance when I asked (I provided the requested information anyway). She clearly is only an information gatherer and is reporting what she gathered back to someone else.
Strange. The Community Forum said this conversation was updated July 23, but I cannot find a post from July 23 (today).
Was hoping to hear "news".
Alas, no update from Netgear support - they seem to be ignoring me. The update to the conversation was a post from Furrye38 that did not address the issue.
Unbelievable: 2.5 months after reporting this issue and I'll I've gotten from Netgerar is periodic "we're working on it" updates. Today I finally was told that they are going to release a firmware update that will address this issue but they cannot tell me when that update will be released. I guess that's progress. Worst customer service ever!
770 FW was released yesterday, if you havn't tried it already.
Will need to be patient while NG works on this. Changes don't come over night and may take a long time. Also this effects other NG routers as well so I'm sure they want to fully review things and make sure changes effected are not causing other problems. All this is beyond forum help. I've already passed this and my testing on to NG for review. No router mfr gives details on when new FW will be forth coming. Been like this and not changing.So you'll need to be patient or find a different router that has good testing results with GRC. My RS600 series gets all stealth with protection engine disabled on it. Works well.
Furrye38 - I WAS patient: 2.5 months with no meaninful communication is very poor customer service, no matter how much you try to make excuses for NetGear - there is no excuse for that level of customer service on a $600 router system. Ironically I had a older NetGear router that was fully stealthed at GRC until I decided to upgrade to the 771. If they know how to stealth a router, why don't they release them that way? Finally, they just told me TODAY that a firmware update is coming at some undetermined time in the future, so their communication is REALLY bad if they were referring to the firmware update that you say was released yesterday. Stop being an apologist for bad customer service - you only encourage more of the same.
