WiFi Mesh Port Forwarding Rules failure

[Wynterpaladin]

Good afternoon!

I was hoping to find help with an issue with my Google Wifi Mesh network. I've recently had to move the house's printer from wired to wireless and obviously I'd like to still reach it from wired PCs in the house.

To do so I went into Google Home App and found the printer, identified correctly by hostname and IP, which I verified on the printer as well.

However, when I add the printer, selectable only via Hostname/IP (Brother/192.168.1.250) and create the rule, it adds it to the rules list using a different name (Withings) and shows only a MAC.  That MAC is -not- the printer.

I have tried deleting and recreating the rule repeatedly. I found some forum posts with similar issues from 1-2 years ago but the answer appears to be "Use the Google WIFI APP instead," which is now defunct.

Does anyone have any advice?  Thanks!!

[olavrb]

Sounds like you are running double NAT. Bridge your modem/ ISP box and put all devices, wired and wireless, behind the primary Nest Wifi unit, which is a fully fledged home router (NAT, DHCP, firewall).

• https://support.google.com/googlenest/answer/6277579?hl=en
• https://dongknows.com/double-nat-vs-single-nat/

If you need more LAN ports on Nest Wifi, simply add an unmanaged switch:

• https://support.google.com/googlenest/answer/6274262?hl=en

[Wynterpaladin]

Good evening, @olavrb !

Thank you for taking the time to reply!  I am, in fact behind a double-NAT setup for the Mesh product.  It is my understanding that the Google WiFi Mesh will not function once you bridge the wireless router.

I live in a fairly wide home and the initial reason to move to this product was for the Mesh functionality, and I have three units for that reason.  The two satellite units would not be convenient to run cabling to, as this house wasn't built with CAT5 lines in mind.

[olavrb]

It's the ISP equipment you should bridge, not Nest Wifi.

This reply has a diagram in it. If you don't want ethernet cables to the other Nest Wifi units, just remove the cables from the switch to Nest Wifi unit 2 and 3, and you have the setup I'm suggesting for you. 🙂

• https://www.googlenestcommunity.com/t5/Nest-Wifi/Two-or-more-Nest-Routers-failed-to-connect-to-the-L...

[Wynterpaladin]

Ah, I see.  This does look like a decent workaround to the error.  Unless someone can offer an actual solution that fixes the problem with the port forwarding grabbing the wrong device after selection, I may have to find a way to move my mesh network devices around and reconfigure the ISP gateway.

I'll lose the NAT protections between the wired and wireless networks that allows me to pretty freely give contractors and acquaintances the WiFi info with no concern for them reaching my wired devices, but I may consider the loss of security worth the convenience.

Thank you for your input.

[olavrb]

You are welcome. 🙂 Though I consider port forwarding the workaround here, and the setup I suggested the standard way of doing it.

Use guest wifi for contractors? It will not give access to wired devices.

• https://support.google.com/googlenest/answer/6327302?hl=en

[AbigailF]

Hey folks, 

We appreciate your help here, @olavrb.
@Wynterpaladin, I wanted to follow up and see if you are still in need of any help. Please let me know if you are still having any concerns or questions from here, as I would be happy to take a closer look and assist you further.

Thanks,
Abi

[Jhonleanmel]

Hi everyone,

Chiming in to see if you still need assistance with this. Let us know if you have additional questions ― we'd love to help.

Best,
Mel

[Jhonleanmel · Accepted solution]

Hi everyone,

I'm just checking in to make sure that you've seen our response. Please let us know if you have any other questions or concerns as I will be locking this in 24 hours.

Thanks,
Mel