Orbi 960 Wired Backhaul Requirements

[jabenedicic]

Good morning, does anyone know if there are any specific requirements for wired backhaul on these units?

On my previous XS508M switches they would connect wired without any issues. Since changing to the MS510TXM managed switches I’ve not been able to get wired backhaul to work at all.

Orbi’s are in AP mode, static IP addresses from a pfSense box. All work fine with wireless backhaul.

Have previously tested in Router mode as well with the same switches, no luck.

Also while I’m here, anyone found a way to rename the RBR in AP mode? I can custom name the RBS units in the web interface, but there’s no option for the RBR I can find.

[FURRYe38]

https://kb.netgear.com/000051205/What-is-Ethernet-backhaul-and-how-do-I-set-it-up-on-my-Orbi-WiFi-Sy... 📡

What CAT# lan cabling are you using? CAT6A STP is recommended if your using the 2.5Gb ports between the RBR and RBS. 

If the XS switch worked before and the MS switch doesn't, this points to the MS switch causing a problem. Seen historically that managed switch can cause problems with Orbi systems. 

Try disabling any IGMP and green ethernet protocols and features on the MS switch. 

Put the XS switch back in place. 

My XS505M and GS110MX work great with the 9 series.

[jabenedicic]

It’s all Cat6 cabling or fibre between my switches.

I can’t switch anything back to the XS series as Netgear took them back when they swapped them out for these MS series. The XS devices had some strange issues where some ports would just randomly stop forwarding any traffic at all, engineering looked at it for a while and just replaced all my switches for me.

I use the MS series in Insight managed mode so there really are only a handful of settings you can use. They are really basic.

I’ll try open a support case as there’s something that just doesn’t play nicely. May try an Orbi Pro with Insight management as well, see if that works.

[FURRYe38]

Interesting, I did find one odd with with my two switches and Apple TV:

https://community.netgear.com/t5/Unmanaged-Switches-Forum/XS505M-and-GS110MX-and-10Gb-SFP-and-Apple-...

Changing the cabling around on the ports seems to help for me. 

Ya, have no experience with the MS series switches. So there maybe some issues seen here with this if IGMP and or if Green Ethernet features are enabled. Saw this on other branded managed switches and users posted that disabling these helped get RBS ethernet connected correctly to the RBR. If your in NG support, I would bring this up to them about any known issues between MS switches and Orbi AX series systems. 

[CrimpOn]

@jabenedicic wrote:
Also while I’m here, anyone found a way to rename the RBR in AP mode? I can custom name the RBS units in the web interface, but there’s no option for the RBR I can find.

---

The router can be given a unique  name on the Advanced Tab, Setup Menu:

[jabenedicic]

Device name is greyed out and not available in AP mode.

[CrimpOn]

---

@jabenedicic wrote:
Device name is greyed out and not available in AP mode.

---

Well, that's annoying!  Sheesh.  What about changing the mode to router temporarily, set the name, then switch back to AP mode?

[jabenedicic]

It wipes the config changing modes.

[CrimpOn]

Well, that was fun!

I have a spare RBR750 router  that can be connected to the network for testing.

• In router mode, I set the Device Name: "Test750"
• In the Internet table, set it to use 1.1.1.1 and 8.8.8.8 for DNS.
• Because it is connected to an existing system, the Orbi automatically changed the LAN subnet to 10.0.0.0.
• In the LAN setup table, defined a laptop and tablet with reserved IP addresses
  • 10.0.0.2
  • 10.0.0.3
• Verified with the Orbi app that the Network Map showed the router as "Test750"
• Changed from Router Mode to Access Point Mode.
• (after waiting... and waiting...)
• The 750 appeared in the primary system with the name "Test750"
• Verified with the Orbi app that the Network Map still shows the router as "Test750"
• Logged into the 750 web admin and now it shows all sorts of devices connected (from the primary system)
• Changed the 750 back to Router Mode.
• (waited... waited...)
• Now, it is back to being 10.0.0.1 in Router Mode.
• Logged into the web interface.
  • Device Name remains "Test750"
  • DNS entries remain 1.1.1.1 and 8.8.8.8
  • Two assigned IP addresses remain 10.0.0.2 and 10.0.0.3

Thus, my conclusion is that changing from router to AP mode (and back) does not "wipe" the configuration.

Plus, why would I care?  In AP mode, there is nothing to configure except the WiFi SSID/password.

[jabenedicic]

I’ll give that another go when I can swap things around again. When I initially swapped it over I had nothing carry over, but that might be my fault. I had some weird issues when I first moved it over as I hadn’t changed the LAN cable over from the 2.5GbE port to the 10GbE WAN port.

In other news, I finally found where they hide the IGMP Snooping feature in Netgear Insight, disabled that on the VLAN, but still no luck on the backhaul working. The AP gets an IP address and I can get to the web interface, it just never shows up in the list of satellites or seems to work at all.

Although I’ve found a shed load of other issues in the Insight Managed mode of the switches, things that used to work when I had them locally managed, like LACP to my NAS, just no longer works. I’m going to end up changing these back to locally managed mode and see if I can find any more settings that I can disabled to get the wired backhaul working.

While the Insight management is a nice idea and having an app/cloud based management is convenient. The fact is doesn’t have feature parity with the local interfaces and the design of the system feels like Netgear don’t hire UX people at all, just makes it unusable.

[FURRYe38]

I recommend in short term, you find a non managed 1Gb switch or try GS110MX for 2.5Gb support and see if you can get the RBS ethernet connected properly. The RBS can be 1Gb or 2.5Gb connected.

Seems like this MS model switches maybe causing problems here.