Guest network web access but main wifi Nada?

[psychbiz]

Was supplied a new modem from ISP (a TP-Link VX420 G2H) Unable to get bridge mode recognised by my RT-AC86U so just disabled wifi, DHCP on modem, and connected a LAN port on modem to WAN port on router. The result is that I have no internet on the 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz wifi, but do have internet on the 2.4Ghz guest wifi. I'm running Merlin firmware 386.11 and don't really know where to look to solve this.

 

[CaptainSTX]

Was supplied a new modem from ISP (a TP-Link VX420 G2H) Unable to get bridge mode recognised by my RT-AC86U so just disabled wifi, DHCP on modem, and connected a LAN port on modem to WAN port on router. The result is that I have no internet on the 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz wifi, but do have internet on the 2.4Ghz guest wifi. I'm running Merlin firmware 386.11 and don't really know where to look to solve this.

Try running your setup in a double NAT configuration. Unless you need to run an inbound server there are no real issues running double NAT. Turn DHCP back on what you are referring to your modem leave the wired connections as you have them connected. Just be sure that on your AC86 you assign IPs from a subnet that isn't the same as the TP-Link. Everything will work fine on your AC86.

 

[psychbiz]

Try running your setup in a double NAT configuration. Unless you need to run an inbound server there are no real issues running double NAT. Turn DHCP back on what you are referring to your modem leave the wired connections as you have them connected. Just be sure that on your AC86 you assign IPs from a subnet that isn't the same as the TP-Link. Everything will work fine on your AC86.

Thank you for the advice. Much appreciated. I have been thinking the issue must be some setting in the Merlin firmware blocking WAN traffic (firewall??) on the non-guest SSID with the bridged modem, as routing of internet through guest network seems to work. My level of understanding is a bit too basic to solve the internal routing issue on the RT-AC86U.

I do want to access my OpenVPN server when away from home too.

 

[drinkingbird]

Thank you for the advice. Much appreciated. I have been thinking the issue must be some setting in the Merlin firmware blocking WAN traffic (firewall??) on the non-guest SSID with the bridged modem, as routing of internet through guest network seems to work. My level of understanding is a bit too basic to solve the internal routing issue on the RT-AC86U.

I do want to access my OpenVPN server when away from home too.

Your ISP router is probably using the same subnet as your Asus main LAN (192.168.1.0/24 on older routers). The guest wireless 1 uses a different subnet so that is why that one works.

You can check this by going into the Asus GUI and looking at the WAN IP and LAN IP. If they are both 192.168.1.x then you need to change one of the two to use something else. Newer Asus routers use 192.168.50.x for this reason. Guest wireless uses 192.168.101.x for 2.4 ghz and 192.168.102.x for 5ghz.

However bridge mode should work fine on the isp device, there is nothing for the Asus to recognize, all it cares is that something upstream is giving it an IP. Keep in mind that after changing to bridge mode you probably have to reboot the ISP router at least once (and any time you change the device connected to it).

 

[psychbiz]

Your ISP router is probably using the same subnet as your Asus main LAN (192.168.1.0/24 on older routers). The guest wireless 1 uses a different subnet so that is why that one works.

You can check this by going into the Asus GUI and looking at the WAN IP and LAN IP. If they are both 192.168.1.x then you need to change one of the two to use something else. Newer Asus routers use 192.168.50.x for this reason. Guest wireless uses 192.168.101.x for 2.4 ghz and 192.168.102.x for 5ghz.

However bridge mode should work fine on the isp device, there is nothing for the Asus to recognize, all it cares is that something upstream is giving it an IP. Keep in mind that after changing to bridge mode you probably have to reboot the ISP router at least once (and any time you change the device connected to it).

The ISP modem/router in bridge mode has a LAN IP of 192.168.1.1, 255.255.255.0. I have enabled 2.4Ghz wifi band to facilitate administration with DHCP enabled. The Asus RT-AC86U has a LAN IP of 192.168.50.1, 255.255.255.0. The WAN connection is PPPoE with manual DNS server entries (just my ISP DNS servers) On the "Network Map" tab the WAN IP is listed as 121.44.91.254 which I assume is a dynamic IP that the isp's DHCP provides. Also my DDNS is registered successfully. I rebooted the bridged modem and it created another connection presumably an ISP recovery/management option. But the bridge remained selected and active.

I still suspect it's some internal routing issue in the Asus RT-AC86U blocking WAN traffic access to the internal network. Same issue whether wifi or ethernet connected to three Asus RT-AC86U, which I don't know how to resolve.

 

[psychbiz]

Turns out the problem was a dumb error on my part. At one stage when I couldn't get bridge mode working, I pointed the Asus Lan to the ISP router as gateway in Lan DHCP settings on the asus and forgot to change it when I successfully bridged the tp-link. Removing that gateway address restored internet access to my Lan. I really appreciate the help given to try and resolve this.