Help Connecting a Vodafone HG659 with a Netgear Nighthawk XR700 Router

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Fiztban

10 posts

Wannabe Geek

#288804 24-Jul-2021 15:08

Hi all,

I have a Netgear Nighthawk XR700 I'm wanting to use as my main router especially for WiFi as it has a much better range around and outside our house.

I'm in a rented home (NZ) which provides included Vodafone VDSL which came with an Ultra hub.

I need a bit of help understanding how I set up the 2 routers (correctly) to achieve the desired end result, explained below, with help understanding things as far as do I connect the two routers WAN to WAN port or LAN to WAN. As this is all a bit new to me (setting up a network).

My Desired Setup

The desired result I would like is for my XR700 to manage all the houses main devices and WiFi (so PCs and phones etc) but I may want to connect some wired things like my printer and Pi-Hole to the modem/router but that these may be accessible and visible to devices on the XR700. The reason for this is purely logistical based on placement. The modem/router access point is conveniently placed for the printer & Pi-Hole and I've put the XR700 higher up the wall to get better WiFi range to the outdoors.

Why i Got a HG659

While doing research on how to set things up I ran into this post: Bridging vodafone ultra hub (geekzone) that mentioned the problem of double NAT and that what would be best is to get a HG659 and bridge it to avoid this.

Attempt 1: Bridging the HG659

I have now got a HG659 and followed this guide: HG659 Guide > Setting Up Bridged Mode. The end result was that the HG659 didn't seem to receive or pass on any Internet to the XR700 once I followed all the steps. I connected the HG659 WAN and LAN ports to the XR700 WAN port and neither worked. Note I reset all routers before setting up from scratch. So I gave up. I don't know what I was doing wrong. The XR700 would just inform me it had no Internet in its set up and that was that.

Attempt 2: Just Feeding Internet to the XR700

So from that point on I just kept the HG659 at default setting and only with the VDSL Internet profile and WiFi disabled and given the XR700 a static IP. The two routers are connected by LAN ports.

The Problem

This works in so far as that the XR700 has Internet and devices connected to it work. However it decided to default to a 10.0.0.1 IP to avoid clashing with the HG659 meaning I can't connect to devices on the HG659 LAN ports now.

Could someone please help shed some light on what I could be doing differently? And whether the double NAT issue is to be avoided or not?

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#2749250 24-Jul-2021 17:57

Hi when you bridged the 659, did you state a vlan, if you put vlan10 in the vdsl config it will strip the vlan so any downstream router will not need a vlan10 setting.

Cyril

Fiztban

10 posts

Wannabe Geek

#2749274 24-Jul-2021 19:09

cyril7: Hi when you bridged the 659, did you state a vlan, if you put vlan10 in the vdsl config it will strip the vlan so any downstream router will not need a vlan10 setting.

Cyril

I am not entirely sure, the setting of the VDSL connection says under VLAN ID: 10, it is probably not helpful that the links I added to my post did not come through. The procedure I followed did not mention anything vlan10, see the Vodafone HG659 User Guide under Setting Up Bridged Mode.

So if the XR700 does not need the vlan10 do I just turn it off?

Fiztban

10 posts

Wannabe Geek

#2749276 24-Jul-2021 19:12

For the record the mentioned link about the Bridging vodafone ultra hub topic on geekzone is linked here. That is where I read that you wouldn't want double NAT, but honestly I am not sure what is and isn't good for what I am trying to achieve.

cyril7

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#2749281 24-Jul-2021 19:24

Hi if vlan 10 is set in the 659 Bridge, then it's not needed in any downstream router.

Cyril

Fiztban

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Wannabe Geek

#2749287 24-Jul-2021 19:36

cyril7: Hi if vlan 10 is set in the 659 Bridge, then it's not needed in any downstream router.

Cyril

Good to know it was just something I couldn't even get round to figuring out when setting up the XR700 as it wasn't letting me set up the router for a while if I wasn't passing internet to it.

Could you clarify what bridged mode actually is, does it just turn the HG659 into a modem only and look to pass on internet to the XR700? Would I need to use the HG659 WAN port to pass it on? Because once I put it in bridged mode for some reason I just stop having internet access (following the above linked guide). I couldn't understand what I was doing wrong.

Oblivian

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#2749293 24-Jul-2021 19:57

A bridge covers a chunk of water or *something*

It has an entry. And an exit. If you do not apply a rule on side a, you generally apply one on side b

In this case. Bridging. Turns it into a dumb mode. Where the device attached at the other end does the routing work.

As sparksuggests

Connect the Huawei HG659/HG659b to your 3rd party router:

Connect the cable between the LAN port of the HG659/HG659b and the WAN port of the third party router
Configure your third party modem setting by completing the following steps:

Configure the WAN connection settings on your 3rd party router:

Turn off VLAN and 802.1P

It also requires the login details to be provided on the 3rd party if applicable.

Fiztban

10 posts

Wannabe Geek

#2749296 24-Jul-2021 20:13

Oblivian:

A bridge covers a chunk of water or *something*

It has an entry. And an exit. If you do not apply a rule on side a, you generally apply one on side b

In this case. Bridging. Turns it into a dumb mode. Where the device attached at the other end does the routing work.

As sparksuggests

Connect the Huawei HG659/HG659b to your 3rd party router:

Connect the cable between the LAN port of the HG659/HG659b and the WAN port of the third party router
Configure your third party modem setting by completing the following steps:

Configure the WAN connection settings on your 3rd party router:

Turn off VLAN and 802.1P

It also requires the login details to be provided on the 3rd party if applicable.

That makes sense put like this. Seems the Huawei instructions have more details than the Vodafone ones!

When you speak of login details that is the login details to the HG659 router? As in the admin/admin login for example?

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Oblivian

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#2749297 24-Jul-2021 20:17

Nope, The broadband details. In the case of most ISPs, It doesn't care. But some like spark require sparkbb@xtra.co.nz

Fiztban

10 posts

Wannabe Geek

#2749302 24-Jul-2021 20:30

Oblivian:

Nope, The broadband details. In the case of most ISPs, It doesn't care. But some like spark require sparkbb@xtra.co.nz

Gotcha, see this is the thing I have been wondering. Because I do not know the landlords login details. That being said the HG659 connects without them, but for some reason once I do step 8 of the Vodafone guide:

8. Go to Home Network > LAN Interface: Turn off UPNP, IPv6 DHCP Server and DHCP Server (IPv4)

I lose internet connection on the HG659.

The Huawei guide mentions nothing of many of the Vodafone steps it just goes as far as editing the VDSL connection to Bridged and unticking TR069 & Voice rather than turning off UPNP, IPv6 DHCP Server and DHCP Server (IPv4). Is that not a needed step or are the two versions of the HG659 different?

Apologies for the many questions, both guides mention changing the IP ranges of the bridged HG659 and 3rd party router, does that mean the LAN ports of the HG659 cannot be used for say a network printer if connecting via the 3rd party router?

Oblivian

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#2749305 24-Jul-2021 20:57

Naturally. I'd expect turning those off, means the WAN port of the 3rd party, takes over and gets the true WAN/internet address and stops it sending additional LAN/NAT addresses from the Huawei LAN ports.

It becomes the internet pass-through. Problem goes away if it was fibre. Or your netgear was replacing it. You could ditch it and use a direct port on the netgear with vlan enabled. But as it's xDSL and you want them in different spots, you still need to have something change it from copper to ethernet. Bridge mode on a vdsl router does that for a downstream non-vdsl router. Even though yours appears to.

However fix your computer IP to what it has when it works. And use a 2nd LAN port of the first router to manage it directly if you must. Will also tell you if a printer would work. BUT, you won't be able to access it from anything hanging off the netgear

In theory (I've not got this setup) the management IP of the 1st router shouldn't change. But it won't be accessible suddenly when toggling bridge as your Netgear is meant to be dishing out the new and likely different range downstream and doesn't know where to send your requests.

That's why they suggest setting the ranges the same separately first. So the spice may flow as it were. This is done by adjusting the management IP and DHCP range on the device you can mess with (netgear)

In my head, non bridge would look like this. You could limit DHCP on each device to allow for direct printers to the huawei. Or use it as the manager to pass-through to everything else. The XR700 would be come a wireless AP

| Internet - vDSL | -> Huawei (192.168.1.1 - DHCP .10-.19) -> LAN -> WAN -> XR700 (192.168.2 - DHCP .20-.60 (or DHCP relay host 192.168.1.1))

With that, all the wireless/LAN off the netgear, would get addresses and still be able to reach the huawei

Bridge, would isolate so your XR700, was the primary device.

Fiztban

10 posts

Wannabe Geek

#2749308 24-Jul-2021 21:06

Oblivian:

Naturally. I'd expect turning those off, means the WAN port of the 3rd party, takes over and gets the true WAN/internet address and stops it sending additional LAN/NAT addresses from the Huawei LAN ports.

It becomes the internet pass-through. Problem goes away if it was fibre. Or your netgear was replacing it. You could ditch it and use a direct port on the netgear with vlan enabled. But as it's xDSL and you want them in different spots, you still need to have something change it from copper to ethernet. Bridge mode on a vdsl router does that for a downstream non-vdsl router. Even though yours appears to.

However fix your computer IP to what it has when it works. And use a 2nd LAN port of the first router to manage it directly if you must. Will also tell you if a printer would work. BUT, you won't be able to access it from anything hanging off the netgear

In theory (I've not got this setup) the management IP of the 1st router shouldn't change. But it won't be accessible suddenly when toggling bridge as your Netgear is meant to be dishing out the new and likely different range downstream and doesn't know where to send your requests.

That's why they suggest setting the ranges the same separately first. So the spice may flow as it were. This is done by adjusting the management IP and DHCP range on the device you can mess with (netgear)

In my head, non bridge would look like this. You could limit DHCP on each device to allow for direct printers to the huawei. Or use it as the manager to pass-through to everything else. The XR700 would be come a wireless AP

| Internet - vDSL | -> Huawei (192.168.1.1 - DHCP .10-.19) -> LAN -> WAN -> XR700 (192.168.2 - DHCP .20-.60 (or DHCP relay host 192.168.1.1))

With that, all the wireless/LAN off the netgear, would get addresses and still be able to reach the huawei

Bridge, would isolate so your XR700, was the primary device.

Thank you for going into this much detail I will look to attempt this tomorrow and see how far I get.

I feel quite happy that with what I have been learning I was beginning to think I should be trying what you have just described: limiting the range of DHCPs to be non clashing between the two routers.

Oblivian

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#2749316 24-Jul-2021 21:39

Ooops, I made a missing . typo

| Internet - vDSL | -> Huawei (192.168.1.1 - DHCP .10-.19) -> LAN -> WAN -> XR700 (192.168.1.2 - DHCP .20-.60 (or DHCP relay host 192.168.1.1))

Crux is, unless you have them both on 192.168.1.x, it makes things trickier without some further mods to tell it how to traverse the 2 different ranges. Or you get 'double-NAT' which you may have heard bashed around before.

Fiztban

10 posts

Wannabe Geek

#2749380 24-Jul-2021 23:22

Oblivian:
Ooops, I made a missing . typo

| Internet - vDSL | -> Huawei (192.168.1.1 - DHCP .10-.19) -> LAN -> WAN -> XR700 (192.168.1.2 - DHCP .20-.60 (or DHCP relay host 192.168.1.1))

Crux is, unless you have them both on 192.168.1.x, it makes things trickier without some further mods to tell it how to traverse the 2 different ranges. Or you get 'double-NAT' which you may have heard bashed around before.

Ah yes I actually had read it as you've just typed. But after a quick attempt wasn't quite sure how to interpret the DHCP setting within the router interface. Cause if the XR700 is to be the relay host at 192.168.1.1, how can it hold that address on the HG659? Or is the ip given to the XR700 (say 192.168.1.10)on the HG659 just a communication port address between the two?

Does anything set to 192.168.1.1 automatically become the relay host for DHCP?

Oblivian

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#2749385 24-Jul-2021 23:43

You've missed something there

Huawei. 192.168.1.1
Dhcp server on. (Starting at .10)
+
Netgear 192.168.1.2
Dhcp server off
Dhcp-relay : 192.168.1.1
Ie. if anything asks, forward to dchp server based on huawei (1.1) to give things attached to me, an address. And mange the table there instead

Much cleaner.

Vs

Huawei 192.168.0.1
Dhcp on. Limited range clients. (.11-19 - Excluding static device ie 2nd router)

Netgear 192.168.1.2
Dhcp on .20-.50

Draw it on paper. Each device with it's own address. It will make more sense to see the flow needed.

Dns = what can tell me the internet addresses if i ask.
Gateway = what single device has both an internal address AND internet connection together, so will send my request to internet.

Keeping this in mind means you can get a feel where duplicate settings won't look right.

Fiztban

10 posts

Wannabe Geek

#2749525 25-Jul-2021 19:15

I ran into some issues doing this method.

When I proceeded to set up the IP addresses for both routers it wouldn't let me put the XR700 onto the 192.168.1.x as it stated it would clash with the WAN port subnet. With some research I realised that LAN to WAN means the secondary router has its own private network by definition.

So I proceeded to attempt a LAN to LAN setup. Once the HG659 was connected LAN to LAN all devices showed up on the same network (I believe I had already disabled the XR700 from being a DHCP server).

However, from that point on WiFi did not work and the XR700 was no longer accessible via its usual portal, and I just didn't know where to find the access IP to it. It appeared with an IP on the HG659 but punching that IP in did not bring me to the portal either.

I think what happens in this mode is that it just acts as a sort of AP and the wifi network can only be controlled by the HG659. I can easily be wrong but for all my poking and prodding I couldn't get it to work. Maybe I need to do all the XR700 setup before connecting it LAN to LAN?

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