ASUS RT-AX88U - AI Mesh and MAC Spoofing ???

[BruceCleghorn]

Hi guys, thanks off; thanks for accepting me into the Forum. I've been a network engineer on Cisco for +30 years now so hopefully some of that knowledge can help people here. I found this forum invaluable in the setup of my ASUS and I thank you for that.

Anyway, I have a RT-AX88U . . . great bit of gear; love it.
I have a basement with a solid concrete floor separating the rest of the house and have (for my sins) a TP-Link Wireless extender down there to boost the Wifi. The trouble is the TP-Link "spoofs" any MAC address connecting to it's own WiFi before sending to the ASUS

For example the first 24 bits of the OUI are replaced as such
True MAC Address --------------------MAC that arrives at the ASUS
D4:A6:511:E5:FF----------------------CA:BA:C71:E5:FF
10:08:C1:364:7E----------------------CA:BA:C7:364:7E

The problem with this breaks my MAC/IP Bindings I have setup for the kids. (DCHP Pools etc)

So to the question. With Ai-MESH; does the client retain it's MAC address sent to the RT-AX regardless of which Wifi signal a device roams to. If it does my problem is solved and I'll replace the TP-Link

Thanks in advance
Bruce

 

[roboots21]

Roaming between nodes maintains the same IP address/MAC address so your bindings would maintain between nodes. I do this exact thing with my kids phones/chromebooks to maintain some sort of parental control. You should obtain the desired results replacing the TP link, with something like an AX56U or AX58U .. or even an AC unit of sorts. Hopefully this helps.

 

[BruceCleghorn]

Roboots.

Thanks so much for this mate. This is exactly what I was hoping to hear. I have searched tirelessly for this question to be answered on Google but couldn’t find a definitive answer.
Thank you so much for taking the time to answer and providing a solution.

Regards Bruce