Kitz ADSL Broadband Information
adsl spacer  
Support this site
Home Broadband ISPs Tech Routers Wiki Forum
 
     
   Compare ISP   Rate your ISP
   Glossary   Glossary
 
Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
Advanced search  

News:

Author Topic: Zyxel VM8924 as repeater - settings  (Read 3576 times)

kitzcurly

  • Member
  • **
  • Posts: 27
Zyxel VM8924 as repeater - settings
« on: March 14, 2019, 07:48:29 PM »

So I have 2 VM8924s - 1 acting as modem in bridge mode and 1 acting as a wireless repeater. And 2 RT-AC68Us - 1 acting as router and 1 as repeater.

Would appreciate advice on config, its not as obvious with this Zyxel as it is with my Asus RT-AC68U (there's an option to select AP mode which seems to take care of the fundamental settings).

My network is made of 1 VM8924 acting as modem sitting next to RT-AC68U acting as router.

The router connects to a powerline network via total 4 powerline adaptors (one for the router obviously).

I have 1 powerline adaptor connected to a 2nd RT-AC68U acting as repeater, and 1 connected to the 2nd VM8924 acting as repeater (the subject of this post).

Each repeater has a separate wifi SSID.

I also have a powerline connected to a switch with various wired devices hanging off it.

So each of the repeaters has DHCP switched off and each is working - I occassionally need to manually switch from 1 wifi SSID to another when I move around but otherwise it just works.

The whole point of this is to get a good strong wifi signal throughout the house.

So although it's working, there are some oddities and questions on the Zyxel side of things:
[updated as I managed to fix a couple of things myself]
1. I originally set it up as modem so there are probably some settings left over from that config!
2. In the Network Map screen it complains that its not connected to internet "The VMG8924-B10A cannot connect to Internet. Please check the connection between your modem and the VMG8924-B10A ."
3. In Broadband screen I deleted all the interfaces listed - is that correct?
4. Loads of settings under Broadband/Advanced are enabled, should they be?
5. The only item under Wireless of interest is Wireless/WDS which I have set to Access Point and Bridge Restrict Disabled
6. In Home Network/LAN Setup I have Interface Group set to Default, I'm using an IP address which is within the DHCP range of my router and same subnet mask, I have IGMP enabled and in Standard Mode, and DHCP & IPv6 are disabled
7. In Home Network/UPnP both UPnP & NAT are disabled as I assume this is looked after by my router (they are enabled on my router)?
8. In Home Networking/5th Ethernet port I have reassigned the WAN port to a LAN port
9. There's nothing set in the Routing section except in Routing/RIP where Default interface is shown but the tick boxes (Enable, Disable Default Gateway) are not ticked
10. QoS is disabled so I assume none of the QoS settings are applicable - again if I wanted QoS that would be on my router (anyway I don't)
11. There's nothing in the NAT section except in NAT/ALG where I have NAT ALG & SIP ALG enabled, and RTSP disabled (no idea what these are for)
12. Nothing in DNS section, which feels right
13. Loads of values in IGMP/MLD section, no idea about these
14. Nothing under VLAN
15. Interface Group section - I just have the Default Group
16. USB and Power Management are unused

Does that all sound right?

Thanks for any feedback.
« Last Edit: March 14, 2019, 08:24:56 PM by kitzcurly »
Logged
Zyxel VMG8924 bridged modem firmware v28
Asus RT-AC68U router
John Lewis broadband

Alex Atkin UK

  • Addicted Kitizen
  • *****
  • Posts: 5260
    • Thinkbroadband Quality Monitors
Re: Zyxel VM8924 as repeater - settings
« Reply #1 on: March 14, 2019, 08:22:17 PM »

I don't know about this specific router but generally as long as the DHCP server and IPv6 broadcasts are disabled then that should be enough due to LAN and WiFi being bridged.

Any NAT, QoS, etc should only affect traffic using the router as the actual gateway and as your main router is dishing out DHCP that will never happen.
« Last Edit: March 14, 2019, 08:27:21 PM by Alex Atkin UK »
Logged
Broadband: Zen Full Fibre 900 + Three 5G Routers: pfSense (Intel N100) + Huawei CPE Pro 2 H122-373 WiFi: Zyxel NWA210AX
Switches: Netgear MS510TXUP, Netgear MS510TXPP, Netgear GS110EMX My Broadband History & Ping Monitors

aesmith

  • Kitizen
  • ****
  • Posts: 1216
Re: Zyxel VM8924 as repeater - settings
« Reply #2 on: March 15, 2019, 10:06:26 AM »

Normal practice is to use the same SSID if the access points are on the same Layer 2 network (ie on the same subnet).   I'd only use separate if there were special reasons to want devices to stay connected to one specific AP and not to roam.  For example at home our normal SSID is available on the main router and on two additional APs connected over power line adapters, I have a second SSID solely on the router which I can use if I'm suspicious of he powerline network.

By the way your description suggests all these wireless devices are connected by Ethernet whether direct or over the powerline,  so they're not actually repeaters in the normal sense.
Logged

kitzcurly

  • Member
  • **
  • Posts: 27
Re: Zyxel VM8924 as repeater - settings
« Reply #3 on: March 15, 2019, 10:29:07 AM »

Thanks for the replies. Would be great to hear from someone else using the same device as a repeater.

Normal practice is to use the same SSID if the access points are on the same Layer 2 network (ie on the same subnet).   I'd only use separate if there were special reasons to want devices to stay connected to one specific AP and not to roam.  For example at home our normal SSID is available on the main router and on two additional APs connected over power line adapters, I have a second SSID solely on the router which I can use if I'm suspicious of he powerline network.
By the way your description suggests all these wireless devices are connected by Ethernet whether direct or over the powerline,  so they're not actually repeaters in the normal sense.
Yes they're all on the same subnet and connected with powerline to the router. I decided to separate them a few years ago because it was easier to manually select the SSID to use based on where you were in the house (the client devices didn't seamlessly choose the AP with the strongest signal). I'll have another look at this though, thanks for the suggestion.
Logged
Zyxel VMG8924 bridged modem firmware v28
Asus RT-AC68U router
John Lewis broadband

aesmith

  • Kitizen
  • ****
  • Posts: 1216
Re: Zyxel VM8924 as repeater - settings
« Reply #4 on: March 16, 2019, 11:19:09 AM »

With different SSIDs I wonder whether the device would hang onto it's existing connection until it fails, even though there's another better SSID available.  I think this would be down to the client itself, normal roaming conventions would apply only between APs on the same SSID.  So I suppose it depends on the client's wireless profile management, when connected to one SSID does it actually monitor any others in case it's better off switching?  I don't know that answer.
Logged

Alex Atkin UK

  • Addicted Kitizen
  • *****
  • Posts: 5260
    • Thinkbroadband Quality Monitors
Re: Zyxel VM8924 as repeater - settings
« Reply #5 on: March 16, 2019, 04:48:37 PM »

You are right it WILL hang-on until it fails completely, but then my experience with a single SSID has been the same where it will hang-on to 2.4Ghz even once in a good 5Ghz signal area.  Or it might drop off 5Ghz when its actually still performing better than 2.4Ghz would.  There is no perfect solution really, other than having so many APs that you NEVER hit a rough coverage area.

You do have me curious though.  I've not tried single SSID in years so I think its time to experiment with all these far newer clients I now have, see how it handles it.
Logged
Broadband: Zen Full Fibre 900 + Three 5G Routers: pfSense (Intel N100) + Huawei CPE Pro 2 H122-373 WiFi: Zyxel NWA210AX
Switches: Netgear MS510TXUP, Netgear MS510TXPP, Netgear GS110EMX My Broadband History & Ping Monitors

kitzcurly

  • Member
  • **
  • Posts: 27
Re: Zyxel VM8924 as repeater - settings
« Reply #6 on: March 17, 2019, 06:39:32 PM »

I think I will stay with separate SSIDs for now as this is a proven solution for my needs, thanks again for the input.

Still interested to hear from anyone else with their Zyxel acting as repeater about the settings.
Logged
Zyxel VMG8924 bridged modem firmware v28
Asus RT-AC68U router
John Lewis broadband