What is this COVR AX bridge mode for?
This configuration mode allows us to keep the operator’s router in our home, and take advantage of the coverage and speed of the WiFi 6 of the WiFi Mesh system, without having problems with the dreaded double NAT and port forwarding.
When we buy a WiFi Mesh system or a neutral router, the ideal scenario is that the new equipment is the one that has the public IP of our connection, to do this, it is necessary that the operator’s router allows the bridge or bridge mode, or that let’s have the ONT separate from the router. However, there are times when it is not possible to perform this configuration on our operator’s router, in these cases, the “bridge” mode of the COVR AX WiFi Mesh system will allow us the following:
- Have a WiFi Mesh network with WiFi roaming, band-steering and all the advantages of WiFi 6.
- Have additional Ethernet ports on our local network.
- If your house is wired, you can interconnect them via backhaul Ethernet cable and provide the best possible performance.
And all this without having the dreaded double NAT, so these teams will be like one more within the network of the operator’s router. In this configuration mode it is absolutely necessary to deactivate the WiFi of the operator’s router, to avoid interference with the COVR AX that we have just installed. We must remember that these COVRs allow us to connect up to a total of four nodes to extend the wireless network throughout our home.
Once we know what this configuration mode is for, we are going to configure it with the wizard that integrates this D-Link WiFi Mesh system.
COVR configuration in bridge or bridge mode
The first thing we will do is take one of the nodes of the package, connect it to the electric light and wait a couple of minutes. Next, we will connect to it via cable or WiFi, if you connect via WiFi the default password is on the installation card or on the sticker just below the COVR router. Once we have connected, we will have to put the IP address 192.168.0.1 in the web browser and access the configuration menu, the default password is “password” and click on “Start session” to start with the complete configuration wizard step Step.
In the first menu we can see the terms of use and the privacy policy, we must click on “I accept” to go to the next configuration menu.
The “bridge mode” that we are going to configure does not appear anywhere in this menu, it is completely normal, we must go directly into the firmware to be able to configure this. In this menu we must configure it in router mode, to later configure it in bridge mode, in this way, we will not have any problem when changing the configuration mode.
In the following menus we will configure the Internet connection, by default DHCP and without VLANs, as we are going to configure it in bridge mode, it is not necessary to configure the Internet connection part. We also have the possibility to change the WiFi SSID network name and the WPA2 password, change the router’s admin password and configure the updates of the WiFi Mesh system, finally, we can see a summary of everything we have configured.
If you have more COVR nodes, you can plug them into the mains now so that they are automatically configured with the main router, we do not have to do any additional configuration.
Once we have finished the configuration wizard, we go back to the firmware of the WiFi Mesh system, regardless of whether we have the COVR nodes connected or not, it does not matter that we have not turned them on yet.
We have to go to «Configuration / Operating mode»To change the mode to bridge or bridge mode.
We select the bridge mode, it will indicate that in this configuration mode the parental control, QoS, firewall and other services such as NAT and DHCP server will be deactivated, something completely logical and normal in this operating mode, all these functionalities must now be done by the our operator’s main router, and not the COVR AX.
Click on “Accept” to confirm that we want to change the configuration mode, the router will automatically restart and be available again after approximately one minute.
Once the COVR AX that acted as a router has been restarted, now we will have that the IP address is that of the LAN of our operator’s router, something completely normal because the WiFi Mesh system is working as a WiFi access point, but with Mesh functionalities.
If we go into the «Configuration» menu we can see that we only have the WiFi, network and operating mode options enabled to change the configuration mode again, something normal because the rest of the services will not be available in this operating mode .
If we turn on the COVR nodes, we can see that it will connect to the main equipment without any problem, that is, we will have WiFi roaming and band-steering but using the main network of our operator’s router, without doing NAT, which was what we intended initially. Of course, we will have all the WiFi configuration options such as changing the SSID and the password.
We hope that with this tutorial you can correctly configure your WiFi Mesh D-Link COVR-X1862 system in bridge mode, to be able to connect it to your operator’s router and not have any problem regarding the double NAT that occurs in these cases. Thanks to this bridge mode, we can connect one of the nodes to our operator’s router and have a complete high-performance WiFi Mesh network. Of course, do not forget to deactivate the WiFi wireless network of your operator’s router, to avoid WiFi interference with the WiFi Mesh system.
