Question about client list function

Product Discussion Pepwave AP & Surf
1

I installed a new Surf SOHO yesterday and noticed that the client list did not show a printer that had a hard coded static IP address. This was understandable at first, as I had not printed anything. But then, from a computer on the LAN, I used the web interface on the printer. That is, from a browser I did

http://192.168.1.22

and looked at assorted web pages from the printer. Despite the LAN side traffic this generated, the printer still did not show up in the client list.

Is this a bug or on purpose? Firmware is 6.2. I did RTFM. It says nothing about this.

Thanks.

2

The printer did not have to use the Surf SOHO to reply back to your PC on the same network. The printer will use its default gateway however to access anything beyond its own local network and this is normal. You can ping the printer from the Surf SOHO to see it active on the network as it will respond back.

3

Not sure what you mean. Certainly the printer did have to through the router to respond to an HTTP://1.2.3.4 request from a LAN based computer. That said, one port on the Surf SOHO has a switch plugged into it and printer may be plugged into the switch (not sure). But the computer was directly plugged into the router. I don’t see how the default gateway comes into play as the printer is responding to an HTTP request that originated on the LAN.

4

Hi. The assumption here is that your computer and the printer are on the same LAN segment and the SOHO is acting as that LANs internet gateway.

The SOHO will list clients whose traffic it routes from the LAN to the Internet - this is the only traffic the SOHO ‘sees’. Traffic between devices on the LAN (like the http request from your computer to the Printer) is effectively ignored by the SOHO since that traffic is not acted on by the SOHO (it doesn’t have to route it anywhere WAN side).

I haven’t personally tested this with a statically assigned LAN device, but if you opened a port on your WAN that forwarded to your printers web interface, since the traffic is being routed by the SOHO from WAN to LAN (and back) the SOHO would see the traffic and would likely list the printer as a client.

5

Yes, the assumption is correct. Your explanation makes perfect sense. I would only suggest that this be documented. Interesting “edge” case. Thanks.