NETGEAR is aware of a growing number of phone and online scams. To learn how to stay safe click here.
Forum Discussion
Two MACs from One RBE 971
Wanted to start a different thread from my random reboot thread -- because I am not sure if this is a related or non-related issue.
In my home system, I have an RBR970 previosly described in AP mode
Attached to my RBR are two RBS-971s. One is wired and one is not.
I monitor my network using FING (it is great - check it out if you haven't heard of it).
Here is the behavior that is hard to understand:
My WIRED RBS... always throws out two MAC addresses to the network. The first MAC begins with 28:94:01:XX:XX:XX. It has a DHCP reservation of 192.168.1.4.
There is a phantom MAC of 2A:94:01:XX:XX:XX which is EXTREMELY similar to my Wireless RBS that Fing detects at exactly the same IP address (192.168.1.4). I think it may be the wireless side of the RBE that -- should not be there if it is wired - if that makes any sense.
To test this behavior out, I moved this satellite from 192.168.1.5 (which also had the phantom MAC) to 192.168.1.4 and sure enough, the phantom MAC appears in my Fing network scan also at 192.168.1.4.
My network runs just fine. I bring this up only as a WTF moment.
The wireless RBS does not show any phantom MAC following it around. I am thinking that for some reason -- when in wired mode -- the system is reporting both the wireless and wired MAC across the network.
The Debug page on the RBS found at 192.168.1.4 reports:
- Basic Information
Firmware Version :
V9.12.5.3
CPU Load :
15.81%
Memory Usage(Used/Total) :
622 MB/1743 MB
System Uptime :
0 days 0:19:30
Hop Count :
1
Bootloader Version :
U-Boot 2016.01_rtm-9.6.0.2 (May 27 2023 - 00:22:49 +0000)
I have attached a screen capture of the Fing device listing for discussion/my education
Look forward to any thoughts on this one!
Maybe I need to reflash the firmware?? Maybe this is normal for a wired RBS?
5 Replies
What do you see if you wirelessly connect the RBS instead of ETH connect it?
Most likely due to the Wireless has it's own MAC address and the wired has something slightly different when it's ETH connected.My bet? The wireless backhaul. Since it can't be disabled, its still connecting/connected even if it isn't in use. It probably assigns the IP address as the host for the backhaul whether its using wired or wireless.
I disconnected wired backhaul and another -- more similar MAC appeared, so not that. I had thought the same thing.
So I disconnected the ethernet cable from the satellite... and sure enough, it jumped over to wireless backhaul... but with a different MAC address that looks like 28:94:01:xx:xx:88. This MAC looks very similar to my other satellite which also has a mac address that looks like "28:94:01:XX:XX:00". So I wonder where the MAC address that begins with "2A" is coming from within the Satellite.
The really weird part of it is that it shares a couple of the "Octets" within the Satellite MAC address with the exception of the first and the last.
Even more weird is it just generated yet another phantom mac that began with "3E" and shared all the other Octets.
I think if anyone else tries this (going from wired to wireless or vice versa", they will find the wireless MAC is very close to the Wired MAC with the exception of the last Octet.
I suspect my next step it to factory reset that satellite, reintroduce it to the network and see if it still does the same thing.
Really odd, huh?
Any other suggestions out there?
I changed the RBR to fixed IP as recommended.... same behavior with this phantom MAC address... that occupies the same IP space as the RBS 971. When I change the IP of the satellite, the phantom MAC address goes with it. Interesting the other satellite doesnt do that. As I mentioned, I also made both wireless, same behavior. The wireless works just fine, but this is just an odd byproduct. Will probably hard factory reset that device, reinstall firmware to see if that does anything.
