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[chenks]

I have a primary WIFI and guest WIFI configured.
primary WIFI works perfect, guest wifi is isolated from the main WIFI via interface grouping and also works perfect.

however, i want to be able to hide the SSID for the main WIFI but leave the guest WIFI SSID visible.
it seems that if i set the main WIFI to hidden then it hides the guest WIFI too, even though the setting to hide it is still unticked.

is it possible to do this? as it seems the hide setting from the primary WIFI affects the guest WIFI too.

[burakkucat]

Hmm . . . I don't recall anyone mentioning that in the past and as I don't possess a 8800NL, I am unable to check. 

Perhaps N*Star -- or any other kitizen -- who has one of those devices would be able to check for you?

[sevenlayermuddle]

I have a 7800DXL, that I also configure for guests and private WiFis.   Guests may only access the internet but not one another, and not any of my wired ethernet machines.

The 'hide SSID' option is presented on a page that is common to all interfaces,

Configuration->wireless  2.4G (or 5G)

I do agree it would be nice to hide the private SSID, but not guest.   Not because it provides any protection against hackers but because it avoids guests asking 'which network' and, in answering, it avoids me implying that I don't fully trust them (or at least, their devices).   

[chenks]

yes it seems to be "by design" which is a bit odd.

[chenks]

i managed to get this working.
main wifi - hidden
guest wifi - visible

it took enabled and disabling the hidden status a few times and rebooting the router.

[burakkucat]

That's fiddly. But congratulations in achieving the desired result. 

[chenks]

well it took a support ticket at billion to get it working.

[sevenlayermuddle]

Actually, looking more closely (7800dxl)

There is a 'Hide SSID' option at the top of the configuration page, headed 'Basic'.  But alongside each guest network, there is also a 'hidden' option.   Combined, these would give the required granularity of control.

And indeed when I tick the 'hide SSID' in basic, and do not tick 'Hidden' for guest, it appears to do exactly what it implies... my private SSID is hidden, but guest SSID is visible.  No special jiggery pokery required.   Not sure now, why I thought earlier this couldn't be done.  I was either missing something earlier, or I am missing something now.   

[chenks]

i have the exact same settings, but what i was reporting was that enabling hiden in basic actually hid everything even though the guest hidden tick box was still unticked.
that was the issue i was reporting.

the problem i have now is that even though the hidden WIFI still has the same SSID and password, all devices that had it as a saved wifi network couldn't access it, and i have to manually add the WIFI network to each device to get them to connect again - something i didn't think would occur seeing as the SSID and password didn't change.

i'm also finding that the windows 10 laptop decides to stop auto connecting to it, even though it's been manually added as a known WIFI network.

[sevenlayermuddle]

the problem i have now is that even though the hidden WIFI still has the same SSID and password, all devices that had it as a saved wifi network couldn't access it, and i have to manually add the WIFI network to each device to get them to connect again - something i didn't think would occur seeing as the SSID and password didn't change.

I should have known it wouldn't be so easy.  In my case although the tick boxes appeared to be effective, on inspection, it's even worse, the hidden network is completely inaccessible.  All my devices (all Apple) simply refuse to connect to my private hidden SSID, without even prompting me for a new password.

They do know it's there though.  If I deliberately miss-spell the SSID it says 'Could not find the network', whereas if I spell it correctly it says 'Unable to join...'. 

Apols, I won't be able to contribute further experiments to this topic for a while as I'll incur the wrath of other users, not sure I've been helping anyway.  Will be following any further contributions with interest.

[chenks]

my devices can connect to the hidden WIFI, but i didn't anticipate that simply hiding it would mean having to manually configure all connected devices again.

[sevenlayermuddle]

I'd also have expected, accepting I am no expert, that devices already configured for the SSID would have continued to connect after the SSID was hidden.

But thinking further... Could the requirement for password reentry be a sensible security precaution?   Something along the lines of avoiding spoofed SSIDs?   Just thinking aloud, no firm ideas.

I'll try harder with my iPhones when I bet a chance as I suspect I just didn't try hard enough... i  think should have selected the authentication method and passphrase manually before attempting to connect, rather than wait to be prompted.

[ejs]

Normally, a device will detect the presence of the wireless network by detecting the SSID being broadcast. So if the SSID is not being broadcast, the device will not know the network is there. When connecting to a hidden SSID, the device has to transmit the hidden SSID when searching for the hidden network. So the device probably has to be configured specifically to connect to the hidden network, so that it does the searching differently. With a mobile device, that can mean the device has to keep transmitting the hidden SSID wherever it goes, whenever it searches for wireless networks.