Three interconnected DumaOS devices (XR500 and two XR700)

[Dugby]

I currently run two XR700(fw1.0.1.48) as access points attached to a Fritz!Box router(FTTN) in a large domestic environment (no gaming), and have an idle XR500(fw2.3.2.134).

I am fully aware that these DumaOS boxes are designed for gamers, but my interest in DumaOS based boxes is for other their other interesting features.

 

 

I have a previous career history in corporate Network Management, and have been thinking about the either of the following scenarios:

A )  connecting the XR500 to the DMZ of the Fritz!Box, and then connecting each of the XR700s (as access points) to the XR500.

or

B )  connecting the XR500 to the DMZ of the Fritz!Box, and then connecting each of the XR700s (as routers) to the XR500's DMZ.

 

Does DumaOS v3 (in the XR500) have any ability to interoperate with the DumaOS v2 (in each XR700) in the above scenarios ?

What can I expect to see from Network Management in the above.

 

If the nature of this inquiry is beyond the scope of a public forum, please PM me.

 

 

 

 

[Newfie]

The XR700 if wired up to your XR500 will show client connections as wired and as long as the XR500 is controlling the network all clients connected to the XR700 will be controlled by the features of the XR500.

if you require more control over APs ie.roaming, power levels, historic data, security, assigning clients to an AP or more in-depth recourses you may have to look elsewhere depending on the complexity of your network requirements.

When used as APs the XR700 act as a very basic AP with very little control ie you can not control the APs from the central network controller.

Rather than having a rather messy DMZ setup to gain the level of control on each router within your network and as you don’t game I would perhaps be looking at other choices that allow better levels of control so you have a central based network controller with APs that are supported for ease of use.

[Bert]

It's kind of a pointless setup.

 

You will be much better served with a central router and multiple accesspoints like Newfie says.

 

XR700 and XR500 have the exact same wifi hardware if not counting the AD radio's. So if attempting something like this you are better off using a XR700 in dmz and using the XR500 as AP.

 

If you have 2 XR700's there is also some other tricks you can do like using the link aggregation ports to increase bandwidth between the 2 or using 10gbit between the SFP+ ports. This requires a different setup than your average AP since you need to connect LAN - LAN instead of LAN to WAN like regular AP mode.

 

Depending on the size of your property, having a XR700 as main router and a XR500 as AP never really worked for me. The issue was always devices switching, it would stick to the slower router and in the end I decided it wasn't really worth it.

 

XR700 has very good processing power, ie it beats the XR500 threefold in OpenVPN throughput. So using them as AP's is kind of a waste of hardware if you ask me.

[Dugby]

Thankyou for the responses.  Initially I didn't want to overload my inquiry with a network map.

 

The current centralised Fritz!Box router (with wifi off) is located in a network cabinet with two attached 16-port gigabit switches with four more cascaded switches through the building.

At two extreme parts (40m) of the building, each XR700(AP) is WIFI enabled and also allows 6 gigabit attached devices to be connected. There is a third AP in a different wing.

We can roam the building seamlessly moving between each XR700's SSIDs without wifi contention (diligent channel selection making this operational). WIFI scanning tools

confirm the operability of the deployment..  The network infrastructure is working as designed.

 

My inquiry is about interconnected DumaOS's. 

 

I suspect option A will be the simpler outcome after a PoC.

 

 

 

 

 

[Bert]

If you are deciding between A and B, then A is best. That keeps everything on the same subnet. With option B, the firewalls on the XR700 are still working and you will have issues with communication between devices when connected to the different routers.

[Netduma Fraser]

Scenario A would be best out of what you have mentioned, the XR500 will see all devices connected to the APs and therefore can directly influence them with QoS, Geo-Filter etc.

[Dugby]

Thankyou for your responses.

I will try this after my open support cases with Netgear Support are resolved.

I am currently working with Netgear Support on a defect that occurred in both XR700 and XR500 firmwares, which affect how I plan to utilise the above option A.

The XR500 fix was deployed in the latest GA release, they assure me that a similar fix for the XR700 should be soon.