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Forum Discussion
Luke0927
Jun 22, 2022Aspirant
Broken Parental and Access Controls RAX45 - New MACs can always connect
Hello Everyone I have not had much luck with support so turning to the community. I run two netgear RAX45s in my house (switched recently from TP link with Circle) to find a better mobile app suppor...
michaelkenward
Jun 22, 2022Guru - Experienced User
Luke0927 wrote:
I run two netgear RAX45s in my house ....
How are they configured?
Two routers on your network can cause headaches. For example, you can end up with local address problems. Among other things, the other router can misdirect addresses that the Netgear router usually handles, such as routerlogin.net or the usual IP address for a router, 192.168.1.1.
This explains some of the other drawbacks.
What is Double NAT? | Answer | NETGEAR Support
Unless you have specific reasons for using two routers – to create two separate networks for example – it is often easier to use just one router and then to set up the second router as a wifi access point. Netgear advises this, as does just about every site you will visit.
That has its own drawbacks:
Disabled Features on the Router when set to AP Mode | Answer | NETGEAR Support
But in your case you have one RAX45 router handling anything that gets disabled on the other one.
Luke0927
Jun 22, 2022Aspirant
Hi,
They are completely separate networks with unique SSIDs. This my my short term solution, the 2nd router the kids do not have access to it supports my home office and our always on devices. With that setup I do not share the network password to kids, when I have to I can physically disconnect the uplink from the "kids" router to the outbound WAN router; basically doing manual off time (not ideal).
This is not optimal because I do like to give my kids some time on weekends past the time I go to bed so I want them to have access to their devices and internet just in a healthy moderation.
The only thing I can thing of unless I'm not doing something correctly is setting up a schedule to block services and try and block output TCP/UDP ports in the router; that may possibly kill all outbound connections past a certain time.
Currently I try and turn off their access by 1am on summer hours, so they are getting plenty of access time.
- michaelkenwardJun 22, 2022Guru - Experienced User
Luke0927 wrote:
They are completely separate networks with unique SSIDs.
That does not eliminate the double NAT issue.
You still have two routers on your network.
You can still create separate SSIDs if you put one of the routers into AP mode. Then you use the router one to control what the kids get up to.
- Luke0927Jun 22, 2022Aspirant
OK yes I agree 2 routers I have to NATs in the house, but the two networks are seperated off no devices see both, they are separate IP subnets in the home I don't allow any devices to cross connect (but mine can if needed);
I could create a single network with an extended AP but how will that fix the issue of the NetGear Fimeware/NightHawk App? By configuring the 2nd router as an AP only is there a feature or way I can then stop all network traffic through the AP at a given time? I see no way in the GUI or App (and no command line) to do anything else.
Unless are you saying if I create the AP with router 2, I can then have it as a device in the nighthawk app I can control? That possibly would work if I have the kids only have access to AP and I can off time it with the night hawk app from router 1.
I have ran 1 single router for longer than the dual setup, and it still does not function with only 1 network.
I can post a screen shot if you like but in my router once I enable parental controls when I go to /Security/Access controls / I have the message to use access controls use the Night Hawk app. (In my 2nd router I do not have parental controls on and can block/allow devices with the ACL).