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Forum Discussion
Mac address flipping on Orbi Satellites
I have the new Orbi RBR850 (AX-6000) with two satellites. I upgraded from the RBR50 as I had no issues with them. The new router was not cheap and it came at the cost of almost $1200.00 after few wee...
Dehart wrote:I have the new Orbi RBR850 (AX-6000) with two satellites. I upgraded from the RBR50 as I had no issues with them. The new router was not cheap and it came at the cost of almost $1200.00 after few weeks for delay. Then once installed in AP mode the satellites would not sync with the router wirelessly unless it was few feet away. Only way you could sync the satellites was to run a direct ethernet cable between the router and the satellites.
I agree that Netgear customers who own the "AX" product are more likely to notice posts in the forum for the AX product (rather than this community of "people who have the old Orbi").
Perhaps it would be worth revisiting why is the Orbi in AP mode? Was it placed in AP mode before the satellites were connected?
The usual advice is to sync Orbi satellites over WiFi before connecting them with ethernet. So, this Orbi system satellites would not sync over WiFi? Really?
I see the exact same thing in my router logs, both satellites (RBS750) flipping macs back and forth from a netgear mac to an unassigned or make believe mac.
One satellite accounts for about 90% of the arp messages. As far as I can tell the Orbi system is working fine. I am in AP mode with an OPNsense router.
Ragar99 wrote:I see the exact same thing in my router logs, both satellites (RBS750) flipping macs back and forth from a netgear mac to an unassigned or make believe mac.
The "make believe" MAC addresses are reserved private MAC addresses.
They have started showing up with phones for aledged "improved security".
I've turned that functionality off on my mobile devices becuase I keep a table of MAC addresses of devices in my household so I can identify them.
Virtual Machines created on my NAS also use private MAC addresses which isn't suprising and works well.
Are you sure these private MAC addresses your seeing aren't actually from your local devices?
raven_au wrote:
Ragar99 wrote:I see the exact same thing in my router logs, both satellites (RBS750) flipping macs back and forth from a netgear mac to an unassigned or make believe mac.
The "make believe" MAC addresses are reserved private MAC addresses.
They have started showing up with phones for aledged "improved security".
I've turned that functionality off on my mobile devices becuase I keep a table of MAC addresses of devices in my household so I can identify them.
Virtual Machines created on my NAS also use private MAC addresses which isn't suprising and works well.
Are you sure these private MAC addresses your seeing aren't actually from your local devices?
Being in AP mode it might be MAC address proxying/forwarding in combination with ARP causing the flip flopping ... it might not be a real problem ...
I don't think I was clear, only two IPs flips MACs. Those IPs are of the two Orbi Satellites. Are you saying this is potentially caused by phones that are connected to them?
