[Kobe 310]

I have a building with 3 floors, i have a 2 linksys routers being used as access points, and 1 netgear router used as an acces point....THES ARE ONLY USED FOR LAPTOPS(1 for each floor, netgear top floor). There are a total of 3 24 port switches, each device connects to the switch directly, except for wireless laptops. Only the LAN side is used on the routers\access points, not the WAN. DHCP server is turned off , and i have the access points static.


The netgear has a link "attached devices" the linksys does not. The Netgear's attached devices do show devices, 27 of them, However the linksys has a status tab which shows "local network" and "wireless" There are none in either 1 of the linksys. Are the devices attached, but linksys doesn't offer that page?

OK, trying to explain this short and sweet the best i can, lol


Now, back to the Netgear, some of the devices attached are LAN devices, as well as wireless, this is a 3rd floor access-point for wireless laptops, why is it showing devices on the first floor and 2nd floor, and why are some lan?

Aslo there are 2 wireless laptops that are connected to the 2nd floor access point(linksys) that shows up on the netgear access point.(There are 15 laptops on that floor, why do just those 2 show up, why not all of them?)

Lastly, if i disable UPnP on the netgear, the devices go from 27, to 16.

1) Are ther devices attached, but linksys doesn't offer that page?
2) Why is it showing devices on the first floor and 2nd floor, and why are some lan?
3)Why do those 2 laptops show up on the netgear, but the other laptops don't?
4) How are Lan printers affected by the UPnP setting of this Access Point?




Hope I explained that well.

Thanks

[auglan]

Your description of the problem is confusing at best. Is the LAN and wireless on different subnets or are they on one flat network? I don't use UPnP at all for security reasons so I cant help you there. If both networks are on the same subnet then it would make sense that the WAP's learn about those hosts on the lan as they are in the same broadcast domain.

[Kobe 310]

yea, sorry, i was trying to figure out the best way to describe, is confusing, can't think of another way to describe. I tweeked the question a little, not sure if that helps.

it is all the same subnet

So it's
normal that the wireless access point learns LAN's as well. Then I'm assuming the Linksys's do too, they just don't have a "Show attatched devices" like the netgear. That asnwers alot.

I guess what i'm trying to ask is, if it's normal for the AP's to learn the network, then why doesn't the whole network show on the AP's, instead of just some devices.

[auglan]

Its only going to learn what is knows about. Since all hosts, wired and wireless are on the same subnet when a a host sends an arp for a host then all devices on the segment will hear it . More than likely you have certain lan hosts communicating with certain wireless hosts (or vice versa). Its also possible its discovering hosts via UPnP. (hence the reason I dont like UPnP)

To stop this behavior you would need to segment your network with vlans. For inter-vlan communication a layer 3 device is required (Router/L3 Switch etc)

[joeqwerty]

The access point will only learn of devices on the other switches when a device connected to the access point communicates with those other devices. That's why only some of the devices show up in the access point. As it stands, the access point doesn't learn the network, it learns of hosts connected to the network, but only those hosts that are communicating with devices connected to the access point.

As an example, on a traditional switch that is linked to another switch, when looking at the MAC address table of the switch you'll see devices that are connected to the other switch. This is because the first switch learns of those MAC addresses when devices connected to it communicate with devices connected to the other switch. You'll see a large number of MAC addresses "affiliated" to the switch port that links the two switches together. This is all perfectly normal.

[Kobe 310]

Thanks, Auglan, and joeqwerty, that is what's weird, is only 1 device(which i stupidly forgot to mention) is connected to that netgear, and that's 1 laptop.


So that's why i'm confused on why the others are showing up, especially the non-wireless devices.


So if i understand you right, that means that 1 laptop is connected somehow to 27 devices?.... I know all of the devices in my network, and who uses them, and who has access to what, that 1 device connected to the netgear, is the BOSS, and no one has access to her laptop, nor does she have printers attatched to her laptop or mapped drives to the other devices that's showing up on the netgear.......Is it possible that another computer shares the same folder as her on the server, and whatever is attached to that other persons computer shows up on the router......or is that what you said and i didn't pick up on it.


For the UPnP, i'm in the process of turning all of the upnp devices off that i can catch, using wireshark.