New Shaw Ignite User

[GChuckWright]

I'm a new Ignite user and want to know if I must use the wifi on the Shaw router.  I cannot configure the router to turn off the DHCP so I can use my own.  I have my own 6E router that I want to use.  I would like to just turn off the shaw router wifi and use my own wifi to run my tv sets.  I could run the shaw router in bridge mode, then use my own DHCP and DNS or I could just attach my router in serial to the shaw router and run a double NAT connection.  But if I don't need to use the shaw wifi, then it would be one less wireless device to clog up the airwaves.

Any help or suggestions would be appreciated.  In fact if shaw would turn on the ability to disable the DHCP on their routers, then that would be the best solution.

Thank you

Greg

[rstra]

@GChuckWright  You can put your Ignite Gateway in to bridge mode, connect your router and connect the TV boxes to your router. Detailed instructions are here.

https://communityforums.rogers.com/t5/Ignite-TV/Using-the-Ignite-TV-Modem-Gateway-in-Bridge-Mode/m-p...

[mdk]

@GChuckWright -- your terminology is not correct.  DHCP supplies "private" IP-addresses to every Ethernet-connected device on your home network.  You do not want to disable DHCP -- doing so would disconnect those devices from the Internet.

Yes, you may configure the router to disable either the 2.4 Ghz WiFi channel, or the 5 Ghz WiFi channel, or both.

Then, use an Ethernet cable to connect a LAN port on the cable-modem/router to the WAN port on your own router. Your router will need to send a DHCP-request to the cable-modem/router, and to process the DHCP-reply.

Which cable-modem/router do you have?  If you have 1.5 Gbps Internet service, you should have the XB8 router, which has "6e" capability, just like your own router. If you are subscribed to a lower Internet speed, you should have the XB7 router, which has "WiFi6" capability.

Note that you do not need to change any DNS settings. Your own router will forward DNS-queries to the cable-modem/router, and that router will forward the DNS-requests to Shaw's DNS-server, and the results will be returned to your device that made the DNS-query, through your own router.

[GChuckWright]

No, my terminology is quite correct!

I run my own DHCP server and my own DNS server and have been doing so for years.  I’ve been doing this by attaching my own router to the LAN interface of the Shaw router.  This creates a second LAN inside the Shaw LAN.  This also causes a double NAT to be created when an internal node connects to the Internet.  Not a big problem for what I’m doing, but it can slow down the connection a wee bit.  At the same time, I disabled the WIFI on my Shaw Gateway router as it wasn’t very good.

However Ignite appears to talk to my TVs using WIFI so I was a little leery about turning off the WIFI on my Ignite router and using my own Netgear Nighthawk AXE11000 TriBand WiFi 6E router.  

A previous responder  indicated that I could run the Shaw router in Bridge Mode and use my own router for all my WiFi needs.  I don’t want to run two WiFi networks so close together as my neighbourhood is already quit congested!

It’s just too bad that Shaw and/or Rogers makes this simple task so ornerous.  Thanks for your response.

Greg

[rstra]

@GChuckWright  “A previous responder  indicated that I could run the Shaw router in Bridge Mode and use my own router for all my WiFi needs.  I don’t want to run two WiFi networks so close together as my neighbourhood is already quit congested!”

Bridge mode will disable wifi in the Ignite modem.

[mdk]

@GChuckWright -- Ignite appears to talk to my TVs using WIFI so I was a little leery about turning off the WIFI on my Ignite router and using my own Netgear Nighthawk AXE11000 TriBand WiFi 6E router.

Just "bridge" the cable-modem to disable its built-in WiFi and DHCP-server, and then configure your TV to your own WiFi.

Have you configured your own router to always use your preferred DNS-servers? If not, when the WAN interface on your own router makes a DHCP-request, it will be Shaw's DHCP-server that will supply both a "public" IP-address and the IP-addresses of Shaw's DNS-servers. Any device connected (wired/wireless) that makes a DHCP-request will connect to the DHCP-server inside your own router.

> my terminology is quite correct!

Not that it matters, but I disagree.

[GChuckWright]

Thank you very much for replying; I really do appreciate it!

I do not understand why my terminology is incorrect. 

I have been running my own DHCP server in my home for many years.  I do not use the DHCP server from either my router, nor the router that Shaw supplies.  It is a Linux server that supplies addresses (both static and dynamic) to all my devices in my network.

While I have been retired for going on 20 years, I did spend my whole career (1963-2005) in computer support.  I started as a programmer on big iron, then quickly moved on to systems programming (operating system support) which I did for many years.  Then did system and network support on minis (PDP's) and eventually DEC Vaxen before transitioning to PC Servers where I was primarily responsible for security and email systems.

While I was never a network support person, I was responsible for creating and maintaining Windows server being used as both DHCP servers and DNS servers.

So where am I misinterpreting what a DHCP server is?

Thanks.

Greg

[notsosmart09]

Oh boy... Sir, you are definitely NOT misinterpreting what a DHCP server is and does! When i received my Shaw box a few years ago, I posted about this very thing. This is such a silly problem to have (literally a check box, Shaw!). Check the link below for my viable, shameful, hack of a workaround for it.

https://support.shaw.ca/t5/internet-discussions/disable-the-local-dhcp-server/m-p/34641#M12133

I am not sure if it will work on the newer Ignite boxes. I just received mine and haven't tried to do any colouring outside the lines yet.

Bridging is the default response around here. Having to bridge your edge device, is kinda... inappropriate. Especially if all you want to do is assign DHCP reservations and manage your local DNS zones yourself. I have found that the best way to manage Shaw is to work around them. I put all my stuff on my own networks and NAT route-of-last-resort traffic to 10.0.0.1/24. Then you can do whatever you want and it doesn't impact your TV service either.  This of course, also assumes that you have your own Wi-Fi infrastructure and don't need to use their gateway for it. If you also require their Wi-Fi connectivity... well you're kind of at their mercy. But my solution would account for that as well.

best of luck!

[GChuckWright]

Thank you for the response.

I have bridged the the Shaw router and turned off the DHCP and DNS in my Netgear router and everything is working as it should.  Getting both DHCP addresses DNS from my internal Pi-Hole server.  If I decide at some later date to set the Pi-Hole up with fail-over using Gravity Sync and Keepalived, I can just re-enable the DHCP server in the Netgear router.  I currently run Pi-Hole as a VM in Promox and have tested it using two VM's with Pi-Hole syncing each other.  Just have not implemented as a permanent solution yet.

Thanks again.

Greg