Netgear WGR614 Router Configuration

Yes. For initial setup, use:

everything after that, use: the "known issues" item #1.

Opinion: This is actually a very good idea by Netgear. Too bad they made the two URL's sufficiently similar that almost everybody (including me) fails to notice the difference.

I think the

is only available while the router is at factory defaults. It is handy that it is available as soon as you try to connect to any web site, but there is a message on screen that it will go away when configuration is performed.

I presume you are accepting DHCP from the router to your PC. Have a look at the default gateway and DNS server settings to see what address is set for the router. Are you on the "Internet" side of the router, or the "LAN/Wireless" side of the router?

From Windows CMD prompt, ipconfig /all will show both the default gateway and the DNS server address, which should be the Netgear. You should be able to open a web page to that address.

The only other thing I can think of is that you may some firewall or filtering set on your PC. Have you tried a different PC? When you successfully connect to the defaulted router, are you specifically connecting to 192.168.0.1, or are you opening a browser and finding the config page as the home page?

I don't read that the same way that you do. I read that the .net and .com are identical and interchangeable.

I think the initial redirection to this URL from any opening web browser is a damn fine idea. Using some goofy name that is destined to be an industry standard is not quite so good.

The original poster indicated that he had also tried 192.168.0.1, which should have worked. It works for me, with a WGR614v4 Firmware Version

5.0_02. I didn't try the "name", .com or .net.

It should work on the LAN side, assuming no configuration changes were made that would prevent it from working. But on the WAN side, in addition to entering whatever IP address it has, you have to add :8080 for port 8080. For example, 111.222.333.444:8080. I have two routers, with the WAN port of the WGR614 connected to a LAN port of my main router, and this allows me to access the WGR614 from that LAN, which is on a different subnet.

But that raises the question: are two LANs involved? If the WGR614 is set to automatically received a DHCP address from a router on a first subnet (e.g., 192.168.0.1), then the WGR614 subnet might automatically be changed to 192.168.1.1. I haven't tried this myself, since I set a static IP address, but that is probably how it would work. (So in that case, he would have to access the WGR614 on 192.168.1.1, or whatever).

The setup instructions at: ftp://downloads.netgear.com/files/wgr614_v2_install_guide.pdf ftp://downloads.netgear.com/files/wgr614_ref_manual.pdf both use http://192.168.0.1 instead of the routerlogin.whatever stuff. I made a guess(tm) from my experience with the MR814, which uses similar names. One name gets you to the initial setup wizard. The other goes striaght to the config page. However, this might be a bad guess(tm). In any case, 192.168.0.1 should work.

You may be right. Just ignore me.

What exactly are you "configuring" when you save the changes and then can't get back to the setup? There are options in there (other than the IP) that will make the setup inaccessible. For instance, if you only go into the WAN Setup and change the "Respond to Ping on the Internet Port" checkbox and save that, can you no longer access the setup?

You have all the right buzzwords, but are apparently lacking in how they are glued together to make a router. Let me try from the beginning:

A router is a box that is designed to connect two dissimilar networks. In this case, one network is the greater internet, also known as the WAN (wide area network). The other network is your own network, known as the LAN (local area network). Additional networks can also be connected using static or dynamic routes, but we won't go there.

The basic requirement is that the WAN and LAN networks do not overlap. Therefore, the LAN side of the router is usually assigned a Class C IP address block of 255 addresses, such as 192.168.1.xxx. RFC-1918 allegedly insures that nobody on the greater internet uses

192.168.xxx.xxx for their internet connection.

On the WAN side of the router, you have a connection to the internet. Your favorite ISP assigns you an IP address for the router, and a gateway through which all packets *NOT* destined for 192.168.1.xxx get to the ISP and then to the internet. This is called the routeing table. The routers purpose in life is to connect devices on the LAN side of the router to the WAN side using rules in this router table. This is not a great time to explain how to decode a router table.

Connecting to the internet from any device on the LAN is fairly simplistic. EVERYTHING goes through the ISP's default gateway IP address and then to the internet. It doesn't matter what IP addresses (except 192.168.1.xxx) or which IP port numbers 1-65535), they all go to the internet via the default gateway. Computers and devices are seperated using NAT (network address translation) and PAT (port address translation as Cisco calls it) which seperate different streams using port numbers.

However, coming in from the internet, we have a problem. Your router has only one WAN IP address. However, there can be as many as 253 computahs on your LAN side. There's no easy way to connect to a specific computah. For this we have "port redirection" which I don't wanna burn time on right now.

Coming into the router configuration from the internet, one connects to the WAN IP address of the router as assigned by the ISP. Coming into the router configuration from the LAN, one uses the LAN side IP address (usually 192.168.1.1). Both these addresses are the same router, just different sides of the router.

From the LAN side, port 80 is usually used. That's not a problem because the IP address used refers to exactly one device (the router). However, coming in from the WAN presents a problem. If port forwarding is enabled and configured, one has to specifically select a port number that isn't already being used. Port 80 is highly likely to be used if port forwarding is configured to point to a web server on the LAN. This is how you run your own web server, by redirecting the WAN side port 80 to a specific computah on the LAN. So, a different port is necessary. It can be any port number but for some odd reason, the cheapo router manufactories limit the choice to 1 or three port numbers. Usually 8080 is on top of the list, so it gets selected. Normally WAN side configuration access is disabled to prevent hackers like me from taking over your router.

I don't know what you think you added that is of relevance. But if it makes you happy, OK.

Sorry. I had a truely rotten day and was snarling at everyone and everything. My appologies for being excessively offensive.

Thanks to everyone for their responses. It turns out that the suggestion to use "ipconfig /all" actually gave me the information that I was looking for.

I'm not sure how it happened, because I didn't try to change the router's default IP address, but the default IP address did change from the documented 192.168.0.1 to 192.168.2.1. Unfortunately, the link that Netgear provides on their setup CD tries to use the former address, because it's supposed to be the default.

Only one question remains.

Why did the default IP address change without me explicitly telling it to (all I was trying to configure was the type of wireless security that was enabled)? There's only the one router on my local network, so it's not like there should have been a conflict. In my opinion, it should never change the default IP address automatically without telling you that the change is necessary and why it's necessary. Thanks to all for your input.

Mike

Can I guess? Perhaps it arrived that way from the dealer? Someone had it before you, returned it, and it didn't get reset to defaults? Try resetting the router and starting over.

That's all well in good, but if that's the case the documentation is severly lacking. The only documented way of entering the router's configuration utility is to use the web address

(or .com, both are listed) or by using the "default" IP address. By the way, both of these addresses actually worked until the router finished it's initial configuration. There should be at least one sure-fire way to enter the configuration utility in my opinion. Either way, at least I know how to get into it now.

There was a yellow Quick Start guide that came with the router that referenced that web address. They also had a copy of the Quick Start guide in PDF form on the CD that came with the router.

When I tried the 192.168.0.1 IP address, the browser would eventually return with the "Web page cannot be found" message. I tried the address a couple of ways. I tried it with the ethernet cable plugged directly into the cable modem and I tried it while plugged into the router, but with cable disconnected between the router and the cable modem. I got the same error message every time.

The routerlogin.net stuff appeared only in the last firmware update for the WGR614. Perhaps the documentation (online and printed) hasn't caught up to the firmware updates. The release notes show both the name and the wrong IP:

they make no mention of using a different Class C IP block.

This isn't the only router that uses different Class C IP blocks on initial setup. Some Belkin router I played with came stock with

192.168.2.xxx. I couldn't tell if the "2" was pre-assigned or randomized. I can see a good reason for doing this on VPN routers, but not for common wireless. Chances of running into a conflicting network (not conflicting device) is close to zilch.

Sorry about my reset guess. I didn't catch that it had already been tried.

He has done a couple of factory default resets, so he could get back into it to do his configs.

This router is so smart (?), I wouldn't be surprised if it changes the default subnet if it detects the existence of the default. I don't think we know what the internet connection is on the WAN side of the router in this case.

I didn't see that name listed anywhere, I just happened to see it in the web browser page during the initial config. Is it in your docs? Not mine. It is on the firmware update page, but I already had the latest firmware, so I didn't visit that page until Jeff pointed it out.

I connected my router, opened a cmd window, ran ipconfig to see the default gateway, and opened a browser to paste in the default gateway address to start my config, and was quite surprised to see the config window opened up instead of a failed attempt to open my home page. (I have to clone my MAC address for my cable modem to allow access to the internet.)

That is a handy feature, and I expected it to go away altogether once the router was taken away from the default config.

What do you get when you try to connect to 192.168.0.1? Anything? I wonder if that's a cable modem or dsl modem address that is available to you. What if you plug your PC directly into the WAN link where you are connecting the router. Can you get to it then? Do you get an IP address assigned if you are connected that way? What are you plugging the router into?

I'll have to have a look at the stuff that came with the router. I bought the WGR814 router and WG511 PC Card at the same time. The WG511 came with old firmware and drivers that didn't work with WinXP-SP2, so I downloaded all new stuff for the card. While I was there, I looked for new stuff for the router. The install guide and reference manual from the Web both refer to the 192 address, and don't mention the router name, although firmware page does.

It didn't occur to me that the docs in the box might be newer. Or do you have the white "v5" router?

Bad: Netgear has a zillion different products, and then, as if that weren't enough, the "version" number will roll on an existing product name, giving you an altogether different, firmware incompatible, revision.

Good: The WG511 card is more sensitive than my Orinoco. Sitting in my office at work, I can connect to WAPs that I couldn't even see before.

Even if you change the address, the internal DNS in the NetGear ought to keep up. That works for me. My Netgear is not at the default address, but both routerlogin.net and routerlogin.com will pull up the admin page. Something is doubly odd with the ToxicMarlin's router.

The yellow card that came in the box does point to the routerlogin.net as the way to configure the router, in addition to the smart wizard automatically coming up in any browser window if the router has not been configured.

What is odd is that the yellow card, as well as the install.pdf and and the FullManual.pdf on the CDROM are newer than what is on the Netgear web site by six months. Looking at pdf properties:

From the CDROM May 11 2004 FullManual.pdf May 11 2004 InstallGuide.pdf

From the website

10 2003 wgr614v4_install_guide.pdf Nov 30 2003 wgr614v4_ref_manual.pdf

I submitted a comment on the web pages.