How to put the Motorola NVG589 in 'bridge mode' (or as close as you can).

[frostcall]

Overview

Most people don't need advanced features that personally owned routers offer and will be just fine using the NVG589 and turning off their personally owned router.  But if you're like me (and I know I am!) then you are probably reading this thread because you have ip cameras, personal clouds, photo servers, guest wifi, VPN's, xbox, QOS settings, et al.  I have an ASUS RT-N66U , a VIP2250, and a wireless reciever with a WAP; but your settings should be similar. 

The NVG589 does not have a simple 'Bridge mode' setting so you will need to get into weeds to get this working.  I hope you're ready.

First Steps

Make sure you have a laptop or a computer that you can connect directly into the NVG589.

Unplug all ethernet cables from the NVG589 except for the one going into the aforementioned laptop.

Write down the MAC address of your personal router (the WAN MAC address if you see different ones for LAN and WAN)

Settings on the NVG589

• Login to your NVG589 by going to 192.168.1.254
• Go to 'Home Network' then 'Subnets & DHCP'.  Your password is on the side of the modem.
• If your 'Device IPv4 Address' is the same subnet as your local router, I suggest changing it.  I changed mine to 192.169.2.254 but you can stick with whatever you like / need.  My subnet Mask remains at 255.255.255.0
• Change 'DHCPv4 Start Address' to 192.169.2.1 (or whatever your above Device IPv4 address is but with a 1 at the end instead of .254)
• Change 'DHCPv4 End Address' to 192.169.2.5, Just a few more than the Start Address.  We need these for any WAP extenders for wifi TV's.  It's important that you only have the laptop plugged into the ethernet at this point.
• Click 'SAVE' at the bottom.

• Go to 'Home Network'  then 'Wireless' and turn wireless off.  You want to use the wifi on your own router right?
• Go to 'Firewall' then ' 'Packet Filter'.  Disable Packet Filters.  Again, we want our router to do the work.
• Make sure you don't have any of your own settings turned on in 'NAT/Gaming' (don't worry if you see 1 in there already that you can't delete).
• Go to 'Firewall' then 'IP Passthrough'.  For 'Default Server Internal Address', select or type in 192.169.2.1.
• For 'Allocation Mode' select 'Passthrough' (I had to do it in this reverse order to be able to type for some reason)
• For 'Passthrough Mode', select 'DHCPS-Fixed'
• Type in the MAC address for your router under 'Manual Entry', lowercase is fine.
• Click SAVE.  It will tell you that it needs to reboot.  Hang on for a minute.
• Go to 'Firewall Advanced' at the top and turn everything OFF.
• Near the top of your screen, you should see an option telling you to reboot the router. Go ahead and do this now. It takes about 2 minutes.

Personal Router Settings.

• Unplug your laptop and plug in your personal router while the NVG589 reboots.  
• Plug your laptop into your personal router and login to it.  For me, it was 192.168.1.1 (hence why I changed things above)
• For the ASUS RT-N66U, I had to go to my WAN settings, then 'Internet Connection'.
• Change 'WAN Connection Type' to 'Automatic IP'.  This will give your personal router the external IP of the NVG589 and is the key to making this whole thing work. Some folks will have to manually enter in an IP and this can be found under the 'Broadband - Status' section of the NVG589 settings.  If you don't have 'automatic IP' then I feel bad for you since you will have to manually change this every time your IP changes.
• 'Enable WAN', 'Enable NAT' and 'Enable UPnP' is all set to YES for me.  
• I recomend Setting your own DNS server.  I use Google's but you use whatever you like.  Google's is 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4
• 'Account Setting - Authentication' is 'None'.
• There are no Special requirements from ISP at the bottom.
• Hit APPLY at the bottom and your router will reboot.

I also changed settings in my IPTV under LAN:

• Profile was None.
• Choose IPTV STB port, I set to LAN3 & LAN4.  I plugged my U-Verse WAP for the wireless reciver into the NVG589 and I plugged the ethernet cable going to the VIP2250 into LAN3 on my personal router.  I'm really not sure if this was necessary but I'm having 0 issues with this setup.  I initially tried putting the WAP on my personal router but had issues so I stuck it back on the NVG589 and it's fine.  I could probably just plug the VIP2250 into the NVG589 as well but I'm just enjoying the small victory of using my personal router for now.  
• Hit apply at the bottom, another possible reboot.

At this point, I checked the internet and everything was working great through the router.  I restarted by 2 TV boxes (the VIP and the wifi ones).  Everything is peachy.

Your mileage may vary.  Good luck.

 EDIT to update WAP configuration. 

[JefferMC]

---

@earl_harbinger wrote:

Is there a benefit to using my Asus as the sole wireless router versus using it as another access point?  And I see that there is a cascade option within the NVG settings.  What's the difference between the IP passthrough and just cascading my Asus router?

---

If you like the way your network was set up (firewall features, UPnP maybe, filtering, etc.) then you want to have your router be a router.  If you only want its wireless feature to connect PCs (because it's better at wireless than the RG), then just use it as an access point (especially true if you want to use Uverse connected apps while connected to your router).

I don't follow exactly what the cascade option does yet.  Haven't set one up.  I understand it helps fix an issue with multiple public static adresses through your router, but I think that's a side effect, not the reason it exists.

[earl_harbinger]

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@earl_harbinger wrote:

UPDATE:

Successfully bridged my router and am able to connect wirelessly to my N66U with my computer.  However, I am unable to connect with my iPhone or iPad.  Recommendations?

---

Any thoughts on this?  Only thing I found was manually entering the DNS but it would only let me do it on a single Apple device.

[JefferMC]

I'd drop the old network connection set up on the iOS device, then re-create it.

[rolfl]

Thanks for bridge mode configuration info.

Can someone verify if IPv6 passthrough is also supported and if so how to set it up?

[frostcall]

I'm probably going to update my post (if I can find the edit button) since I have taken a few suggestions like David's into account.  

edit - apparently, I can not edit the original post.  Hence, I can not make corrections.  

[JefferMC]

Unfortunately, you can only edit a post for a few hours after you create it.  You could copy and paste your original text and edit it in a new reply.

[Rdejesus486]

Thanks a lot for this. It was really helpful. I am having issues getting ports out though. I added port 80 to the Asus but am unable to see it using my public ip. Any ideas on this?

[zombieliz]

Thanks everyone for these great how-tos. I'm pretty much a novice and these posts have been really helpful.
I successfully bridged my NVG589 and am using a linksys wrt54g to route/provide wifi. The wireless broadcaster on my NVG failed which is why I undertook this project. Later we will buy a wireless n/ac capable router so I will be going through all this again.

This is my problem:
I have Uverse TV with a DVR box. It is of course plugged into the NVG. The signal is great and all the channels work but the guide has no info. All the channels say "getting information". I'm assuming the DVR needs some info it can't get with the bridge settings.
Any ideas?

[Anonymous]

Perform a re-boot on the DVR and give it few minutes after it comes up to download the guide info.  If that doesn't work re-boot the whole AT&T router.

[Y3QocAhHAg3j]

Thanks for all of the good info in this thread.  Now that I've got my new NVG589 in passthrough, how do I add a route to the RG for my personal router's subnet so that devices connected to the DVR/STBs via HPNA can see the other subnet?  Here's a little detail of the setup.

Subnet 1

=======

RG LAN IP: 192.168.1.1

RG Subnet Mask: 255.255.255.240

RG DHCP Start: 192.168.1.7

RG DHCP End: 192.168.1.14

Subnet 2

=======

Archer C7 LAN IP: 192.168.0.1

Archer C7 WAN IP: ***pass through of external address

Archer C7 Subnet Mask: 255.255.255.0

Archer C7 DHCP Start: 192.168.0.100

Archer C7 DHCP End: 192.168.0.199

Everything works fine on both subnets, but devices on subnet 1 can't see anything on subnet 2.  I need to be able to access a file server sitting on subnet 2 from devices on subnet 1 (connected to DVR/STB via HPNA [ethernet jack on the back]).  I assume I need to add a route to the 192.168.0.0 network on the RG, but I can't really see where to do this.

[ElWormo]

I followed these instructions (http://www.dslreports.com/faq/17734) verbatim last night. I'm trying to help a buddy out. It works almost flawlessly except his laptop sometimes doesn't want to connect and his stb's and dvr are acting sporadic. It's almost as if his router (Netgear) isn't allotting enough ip's. Dhcp isn't a connection option on his (just dynamic and static). I chose dynamic. This is correct, right? Also, would it help if I entered a different dns server (it's on auto, should I use Google)? Any help would be greatly appreciated. I'm very frustrated.

**edit** I should also mention all stb's have been power cycled. 

[JefferMC]

If you followed a post on DSLreports, why don't you post this question there?

[ElWormo]

Because the thread was old and the instructions posted here are very similar. It is also Att equipment so I figured this is the place to go. Should I start over using the instructions found here?  I'm sorry. 

[Y3QocAhHAg3j]

The instructions there look like they were just lifted from this thread anyway.  What settings did you use exactly for each subnet?  Are the DVRs/STBs all connected via coax?  Is his router showing his external IP address for the WAN interface?

[ElWormo]

I think I got it all figured out earlier. I changed some of the numbers to match what was here and so far so good. One thing that did slightly concern me was on the Att interface, in red at the top, it read "system database is invalid". I rebooted and it was still there but everything is working properly.