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What does "Access Control" do? Netgear provides contradictory information

mc510
Guide

What does "Access Control" do? Netgear provides contradictory information

Netgear online help says:

"Use the access control feature to block devices from connecting to your router’s Internet connection. Note: Blocking devices with access control only blocks them from accessing the Internet. Devices can still access your router’s local network and communicate with your connected devices."

Netgear R7000 web interface says:

"You can use Access Control to allow or block computers or electronic devices from accessing your network. When a device is blocked, it would only be able to get an IP address from your router, but it won't be able to communicate with other devices, nor it would be able to connect to the Internet."

 

Both agree that a blocked device can't access the internet, but the former says that it can still communicate with local devices on the LAN, and the latter says that it cannot. So which is it?

Model: R7000|AC1900 Smart WIFI Router
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microchip8
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Re: What does "Access Control" do? Netgear provides contradictory information

The second one. It blocks devices trying to connect to the router (they don't get IPs and other information such as DNS)

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microchip8
Master

Re: What does "Access Control" do? Netgear provides contradictory information

The second one. It blocks devices trying to connect to the router (they don't get IPs and other information such as DNS)

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mc510
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Re: What does "Access Control" do? Netgear provides contradictory information


@microchip8 wrote:

The second one. It blocks devices trying to connect to the router (they don't get IPs and other information such as DNS)


Ah, so it basically functions like a blacklist of "banned devices" that can't connect to the LAN at all (and therefore also can't communicate over the WAN)? I guess that kind of makes sense, though I can't imagine that many home users need such a function. Even this behavior, though, is incorrectly described in the web interface, which says that blocked devices will get an IP but can't communicate over the LAN or WAN ... which doesn't make much sense; what's the point of getting an IP address if a device can't communicate?

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microchip8
Master

Re: What does "Access Control" do? Netgear provides contradictory information

It might get an IP (I haven't used Access Control in ages) but as the doc says, it won't be able to communicate with other devices nor access the Internet

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mc510
Guide

Re: What does "Access Control" do? Netgear provides contradictory information


@microchip8 wrote:

It might get an IP (I haven't used Access Control in ages) but as the doc says, it won't be able to communicate with other devices nor access the Internet


I guess so, but it would make more sense the way you described it; the only use for this Access Control function is totally ban a device from the network, right? There's no possible reason that you'd want to allow a device to get an IP address from the router but not be able to communicate on either the LAN or the WAN. I mean, an IP address is utterly useless except for communication with other devices, which Access Control prohibits, so ....

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