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Re: Notify when somebody new connects to WiFi?

jtpryan123
Aspirant

Notify when somebody new connects to WiFi?

This AP is kind of old so we will probabley need to upgrade to get this funcionality.  But we would like to know when somebody joins our WiFi network for the first time.  I don't want it enforce MAC filtering as I support this company as a side gig and it would just be something else I need to investigage everytime one of the employees conncects a new device.

 

So, If I can't do it with this one what recommendations would you have?  Office is ~500 sq ft with 30 people max, most hardwired.

Model: WAC120|SOHO 802.11ac Gigabit Wireless Access Point
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Re: Notify when somebody new connects to WiFi?

The WAC120 listed in  your footer isn't a typical router. That's where you'f expect to monitor things as they join the network. After all, the router is in charge. So it may not be possible to find any wireless extender that will alert you to new clients.

 

You may be able to persuade the Netgear desktop genie to play ball. .

 

genie | Product | Support | NETGEAR

 

This has a setting on the Network map page to show a popup when new devices connect to the network.

 

 

You have posted your message in the section of this community given over to General WiFi Routers (Non-Nighthawk). (This is easily done, given Netgear's complicated community structure.)

Many questions apply to different types of device, so there may be useful responses here, but you might get more help, and find earlier questions and answers specific to your device, in the appropriate section for your hardware. That's probably here:

WiFi Range Extenders & Nighthawk Mesh - NETGEAR Communities

I will ask the Netgear moderator to move your message.

In the meantime you could visit the support pages:

Support | NETGEAR

Feed in your model number and check the documentation for your hardware.

You may have done this already. I can't tell from your message.

I mention it because Netgear stopped supplying printed manuals and CD versions some years ago and people sometimes miss the downloads.

Message 2 of 4
antinode
Guru

Re: Notify when somebody new connects to WiFi?

> [...] If I can't do it with this one what recommendations would you
> have? [...]

 

   I don't follow these devices closely enough to recommend anything, so
I know nothing, but I wouldn't expect any wireless access point (or
router) to keep a permanent record of all the connected devices (MAC
addresses?) which it has ever seen.

 

   Knowing nothing, I'd expect to need to write some kind of program
which periodically extracts some kind of Attached Devices report from a
WAP or router (DHCP server?) which has current info, using that to
create and maintain a (very) simple data base, and check for novelty.

 

   Assuming a web-browser interface, a program/library like Wget or
curl/libcurl might be helpful.

Message 3 of 4
schumaku
Guru

Re: Notify when somebody new connects to WiFi?


@jtpryan123 wrote:

But we would like to know when somebody joins our WiFi network for the first time.  I don't want it enforce MAC filtering as I support this company as a side gig and it would just be something else I need to investigage everytime one of the employees conncects a new device.


Trouble is that decent wireless clients make use of randomized MAC addresses by default (unless disabled by SSID on the client side typically) so you find plenty of "new" somebodies almost every day. And when you investigate, you find it's just the same Windows, Mac, iOS or Android device again, coming in with a new random MAC address.

 

Typical wireless access points (and this includes business class units from any brand as far as I'm awere of) store some of the recent connected MAC in volatile memory, and tend to forget these e.g. on a cold boot. From the design prospective, there is simply not the amount of storage to remember virtually endless or unlimited amounts of MAC addresses, so hard to find if there is a new one in use.

 

If you really want the detection of new devices, you need to challenge all the users to configure the wireless clients not using random MAC addresses, and set-up some monitoring which keeps track of wireless associations. Netgear Insight can do this so some extent, the notifications can keep track of associations, re-associations, roaming, .... but it won't tell you if this is an previously visible MAC or a new MAC.

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