Home Relocation/Network Move/RT-AX86U to Pro Migration

[Pegasus9]

I am relocating to another state but will have a few months when I will be moving back and forth. Since I will need networks in both locations, I bought an RT-AX86U Pro for the new site and will leave my RT-AX86U at my old place until the end of the move when it will go to the new locale and be wiped and added to the mesh.

The network in my new location will be a clone of the old—same names, IPs, etc. The two networks will never touch each other. I will take my existing router offline to stand up the new one so it is ready to go after being relocated. I will use my notes and screenshots of the old router to facilitate this.

Any tips, advice, experiences, etc. that anyone can offer would be appreciated.

 

[bbunge]

I am relocating to another state but will have a few months when I will be moving back and forth. Since I will need networks in both locations, I bought an RT-AX86U Pro for the new site and will leave my RT-AX86U at my old place until the end of the move when it will go to the new locale and be wiped and added to the mesh.

The network in my new location will be a clone of the old—same names, IPs, etc. The two networks will never touch each other. I will take my existing router offline to stand up the new one so it is ready to go after being relocated. I will use my notes and screenshots of the old router to facilitate this.

Any tips, advice, experiences, etc. that anyone can offer would be appreciated.

Sounds like a good plan. There are a few minor differences between the AX86U and the AX86U Pro but they should not impinge on your plan. When you move for the last time leave the AX86U configured and when you are ready to add it to the AiMesh do a Hard Factory Reset. If you can use Ethernet backhaul (works well for me between the 2.5 GIG ports).

 

[Pegasus9]

Sounds like a good plan. There are a few minor differences between the AX86U and the AX86U Pro but they should not impinge on your plan. When you move for the last time leave the AX86U configured and when you are ready to add it to the AiMesh do a Hard Factory Reset. If you can use Ethernet backhaul (works well for me between the 2.5 GIG ports).

Thanks for taking the time and providing your experience. Have a great night.

 

[tgl]

I've just been through largely the same thing, although it was just an across-town move not inter-state. Your plan should work fine. One nicety to pay attention to is that any of your devices that use DHCP address assignment will think they are on the same network and try to re-use their last assigned address from the other place. It's a good idea to make sure that the routers on both ends are handing out DHCP leases that are shorter than the minimum travel time, so that a device you are carrying with you doesn't arrive believing that its current lease is still valid. (This was probably a bigger risk for me than you, but if you've got your lease time set to multiple days you could be in for trouble.) If you like address stability you could try to seed the new router's leases file from the old one's, but better keep the lease lifetime short in any case until all the dust has settled.

Also, when you do take the old router to merge into the new place's network, make sure it does not wake up there believing that it is a DHCP server, or trouble is going to ensue. My approach to this was to disable its DHCP service explicitly before shutting it down for the last time at the old place.

 

[Pegasus9]

I've just been through largely the same thing, although it was just an across-town move not inter-state. Your plan should work fine. One nicety to pay attention to is that any of your devices that use DHCP address assignment will think they are on the same network and try to re-use their last assigned address from the other place. It's a good idea to make sure that the routers on both ends are handing out DHCP leases that are shorter than the minimum travel time, so that a device you are carrying with you doesn't arrive believing that its current lease is still valid. (This was probably a bigger risk for me than you, but if you've got your lease time set to multiple days you could be in for trouble.) If you like address stability you could try to seed the new router's leases file from the old one's, but better keep the lease lifetime short in any case until all the dust has settled.

Also, when you do take the old router to merge into the new place's network, make sure it does not wake up there believing that it is a DHCP server, or trouble is going to ensue. My approach to this was to disable its DHCP service explicitly before shutting it down for the last time at the old place.

Great advice! I am so used to DHCP being a set-it-and-forget-it thing it never even occurred to me to prep the old site with shorter leases to avoid issues, Thank you!