Wifi Extener Access Control - I am confused....

[zernichter]

Hello guys, i got a very stange problem, maybe I understand something wrong but its very confusing...

I bought a Netgear Essentials WiFi 6 (WAX206) Wifi Router, and everything works fine, I enabled Access Control and disabled access from new devices so it only works with the devices I had already connected. Works perfect.

I also bought a AX1750 WiFi Mesh Extender (EAX18) Extender, did the setup using the one network name feature to just extend my existing WiFi from the WAX206.

First, it seems the Access Control from my router does not matter to my Extener. I tried removing access for my phone from the Netgear router and it still could connect to the extender. I expected the Netgear systems to work together, but OK, no problem, the Extener has Access Control to....

But now there is the strange thing, the Access Control on the EAX18 works the wrong way around. I can't disable access from new devices, I can only "deny" access if i check the list of connected devices. 

Thats very strange, so if I dont check every minute if some MAC address of a device i dont know is connected there could be someone connected from a device with a new MAC address, whats the point of that access control. Do I understand something wrong? Access Control usually (as it should) work the other way around, like it does also on the WAX206.

[jeanjee]

It appears there's a confusion with your Netgear WiFi setup. Your Netgear Essentials WiFi 6 (WAX206) router's Access Control doesn't seem to affect the AX1750 WiFi Mesh Extender (EAX18). Unlike what you expected, the router's Access Control doesn't sync with the extender. Additionally, the EAX18's Access Control only allows you to deny access for new devices by manually checking the connected device list. This setup seems counterintuitive, as the expected behavior for Access Control is usually to block new devices by default. It's best to review the user manuals or contact Netgear support for clarification on this setup quirk.

[schumaku]

The WAX206 does have a default deny-all policy the user can override by adding selected MAC addresses to allowed.

This is a design which is more common on consumer routers than on extenders or on business class APs.