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Forum Discussion
Address Reservation with EX7300 Mesh WiFi Extender
I'm using a Nighthawk R7500v2 and just added a EX7300 mesh extender. I need to have assigned/reserved IPs for specific devices that are now connecting to the extender rather than directly to the rou...
Note that if the extender is connected to the router network then it shouldn't be assigning any IP addresses. The DHCP messages are forwarded to your router, and it assigns the addresses.
The extender will assign IP addresses when it isn't connected to a router network. That's needed to allow extender setup.
Is the extender working properly (that is, can you reach the internet when you are connected to it)?
crispy3 wrote:
There are no "virtual MAC addresses" listed anywhere on the connected devices page. It only lists IP Address, Device Name, and MAC address, which is the original MAC address for the device, not an altered or "virtual" one.
Assuming the devices connected to the extender can reach the internet...
You should be able connect the devices to the extender, and then see the virtual mac address in the router's attached devices list.
It is also possible to get them from a PC. With Windows you can ping the device, and then use arp -a. That will show you the full arp cache (including the device you just pinged).
Note that the router won't let you reserve the same IP address to two different mac addresses.
Unfortunately the 'Connected Devices' interface on the router does not list these devices, however they are connected to the extender and do have internet access. When I view the extender (mywifiext.local - which forwards me to the extender), it lists these devices but with their correct, non-"virtual" MAC addresses.
After pinging the devices and running arp -a, all devices connected to the extender have the same MAC address, which appears to be invalid. They are all listed as e:2:8e:98:96:6c, including the extender itself. So I'm still at a loss as to how to assign these devices IP addresses.
By the way this is the hardware and firmware:
Router - Nighthawk X4 R7500v2 -- V1.0.3.36
Extender - EX7300 -- V1.0.2.136
crispy3 wrote:
So I'm still at a loss as to how to assign these devices IP addresses.
If they all show the same mac address, then your only option is to use static addresses, which is not ideal.
Many of the connected devices are small, simple smart home devices such as WiFi controllers. They need a consistent IP address to be correctly identified and tie in with some other smart home systems and automations. I'm not sure how I could even assign a static IP address to such a device, is there a way?
This is incredibly disappointing as I did a lot of research before making these purchases and multiple Netgear articles indicated this would not be an issue. This among other Netgear issues and bugs has me incredibly frustrated. Unfortunately its too late to return the router, but looks like the extender will be going back if this cannot be handled in a way that Netgear's documentation indicates. I'll have to go with a company that has their act together. Obviously that's not Netgear.