Netgear Nighthawk M5 Admin UI only local access

[F911E307-D708-4]

Hi,

I've just bought a Netgear Nighthawk M5 from Telstra to use with a USG3 and found that the Admin UI only works if I connect to the M5's WiFi or its ethernet port.

What I want to do is connect the Nighthawk M5 to the WAN port of my USG3 and be able to access the Admin UI from my LAN.  The M5 connects to the Testra Mobile network ok and I have internet access, but although I can see that port 80 on the M5 responds the Admin UI does not?

The WAN port on my USG3 gets its IP Address from the M5 so its my expectation that devices on my LAN should all appear to the M5 as being the USG3.  Is the Admin UI on the M5 contrained somehow not to work from NATed devices?  

Some insight on whether this is expected behaviour would be appreciated.

Cheers

[cyberfox]

I have the same challenge. Not able to access admin UI from any external IP.

[JohnPeng]

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@F911E307-D708-4 wrote:

Hi,

I've just bought a Netgear Nighthawk M5 from Telstra to use with a USG3 and found that the Admin UI only works if I connect to the M5's WiFi or its ethernet port.

What I want to do is connect the Nighthawk M5 to the WAN port of my USG3 and be able to access the Admin UI from my LAN.  The M5 connects to the Testra Mobile network ok and I have internet access, but although I can see that port 80 on the M5 responds the Admin UI does not?

The WAN port on my USG3 gets its IP Address from the M5 so its my expectation that devices on my LAN should all appear to the M5 as being the USG3.  Is the Admin UI on the M5 contrained somehow not to work from NATed devices?  

Some insight on whether this is expected behaviour would be appreciated.

Cheers

---

If you don't need to use M5 WiFi network, you can enabled IP passthrough for your setup. Then you can access Admin UI via any clients connected to your USG3

Thanks

[F911E307-D708-4]

Hi @JohnPeng,

I certainly don't need the WiFi capability of the M5 so if IP Passthrough works then that would be great but I've read elsewhere that its broken.  

Can you indicate where in the User Manual IP Passthrough is documented?

I simply want to use this device in a failover mode for my NBN connection.

Thanks.

[JohnPeng]

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@F911E307-D708-4 wrote:

Hi @JohnPeng,

I certainly don't need the WiFi capability of the M5 so if IP Passthrough works then that would be great but I've read elsewhere that its broken.  

Can you indicate where in the User Manual IP Passthrough is documented?

I simply want to use this device in a failover mode for my NBN connection.

Thanks.

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You can log in to WebUI and go to Seetings -> Setup -> Mobile Router Setup -> Under IP Passthrough, select ON Disable WiFi on the mobile router.

You can give it a try and le me know if you have any issues. The WAN stability issue is also related carrier network. You may not see the issue for sure.

Thanks

[F911E307-D708-4]

Hi @JohnPeng,

Enabling passthrough doesn't really sort the identified problem.  

What I asked was how do I access the Dashboard from a LAN compter when the M5 is connected to the WAN port of the router.

Enabling passthrough gives the router the ISP allocated address and removes a double NAT situation.  This is good but now I have no access to the Dashboard at all.  With passthrough disabled I could at least connect to the M5 via WiFi.

How does one disable passthrough mode if one nolonger has access to the Dashboard or WiFi?  Is it necessary to reset the M5?

When passthrough is enabled, is the LCD the only management interface?

Thanks.

[JohnPeng]

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@F911E307-D708-4 wrote:

Hi @JohnPeng,

Enabling passthrough doesn't really sort the identified problem.  

What I asked was how do I access the Dashboard from a LAN compter when the M5 is connected to the WAN port of the router.

Enabling passthrough gives the router the ISP allocated address and removes a double NAT situation.  This is good but now I have no access to the Dashboard at all.  With passthrough disabled I could at least connect to the M5 via WiFi.

How does one disable passthrough mode if one nolonger has access to the Dashboard or WiFi?  Is it necessary to reset the M5?

When passthrough is enabled, is the LCD the only management interface?

Thanks.

---

After enabling IP Passthrough, you can access the public IP gateway assigned by the carrier to access the M5 WebUI using the client connecting to your router. 

Please give it a try. Another way is to connect your laptop to the M5 LAN port and visiting 192.168.1.1 to access the WebUI admin.

Thanks

[F911E307-D708-4]

Hi @JohnPeng,

I have aquired a 2nd M5 for testing as the original unit is currently in operational use.  This new unit behaves exactly the same way meaning the Admin GUI is not accessible when the device is connected to the WAN port of my router and I'm connected to the LAN side.

If I attach it directly to my laptop when the M5 is in passthrough mode my MacBook gets the WAN address ...

At this point I note that I can access the Admin GUI via either the Router address of 100.88.221.1 or the address configured in the Admin GUI which in my case was changed to 192.168.0.1 (to avoid a conflict with the existing LAN which is already 192.168.1.0/24).

When the M5 is connected to the WAN2 port of my USG-3P I do have connectivity so its operational but the Admin GUI is not accessible.

If I have passthrough disabled I can ping, traceroute, and scan port 80 of the admin address of the M5 but actual http access does not work.

If I have passthrough enabled I cannot ping, traceroute, or portscan the admin address ... either of them.  I suspect the subnetmask of 255.255.255.255 may have something to do with not being able to access the passthrough router address (100.88.221.1).

In my situation the Netgear Nighthawk M5 is being used as a replacement for a Netgear V7610 (aka Telstra Business Smart Modem with 4G backup).  When that device was connected to WAN2 of my USG-3P I was able to access the Admin GUI.  The M5 is behaving differently to what I expected.

I guess I'll just have to live with the Admin GUI only being accessible if the client device is connected directly to it via WiFi or to the ethernet port.