I am really stuck so any help will be appreciated.

I have a mesh network with a 2862 as root and three 903s as unwired nodes. It works fine and I can log on to it and all the nodes.

I need to install it in someone’s house – they have the internet from a Virgin router which “cannot be touched”!

So all I want to do is connect the router and 2862 with an ethernet cable and run the mesh network, but for the life of me I can’t get the 2862 to see the internet from the router.

Any ideas? Cos I've run out...

Cheers
Chris

chris_long wrote:
they have the internet from a Virgin router which “cannot be touched”!

Well, it needs to be "touched", in so far as, it needs putting into "Modem" mode. If not, at best you're going to be double-natted.

Once the VM hub has established a connection, you should see the 2862 get a 192.168.100.x address, with a very short DHCP lease-time. Some time afterwards, it will get a public IP address from VM.

Unless you clone the VM Hub's MAC address into the 2862, the public IP address will change. From past experience, when VM sees a new MAC address, it causes all kinds of ructions - requiring a few restarts to overcome, so it's worth doing anyway.

(I've not been a VM customer for two years now, so things could have changed...)

Unfortunately you will have to touch the virgin router to put it into Modem mode, as previously stated. Once done you no longer have to worry about Mac addresses, Virgin have changed their method. Just plug the ethernet cable from the Virgin modem (ensure you use the correct output as only one will work in modem mode) straight into the WAN port of the router. Switch on the Virgin router and let it settle then power up your Draytek router and it will get its IP address as required. I am currently using a Virgin router in modem mode connected directly to a Vigor 2927 router and 2 AP903 as mesh nodes and it all works very well.
The only point to watch is to check your Vigor router can handle the speed of Virgin. A while ago I upgraded my Virgin to 500MB and my Draytek router was topping out at 300MB which was a bit annoying and caused me to upgrade to the 2927.

xvk4 wrote:
Once done you no longer have to worry about Mac addresses, Virgin have changed their method.

I'm intrigued - what's changed :?:

(I understood that DHCP was a necessary evil, as far as DOCSIS networks are concerned - and of course - DHCP revolves around MAC addresses). It was September 2019, when I last had the good fortune to be a VM customer - using the (finally fixed) Hub3.

I am not sure what has changed. I have been running a Virgin hub for a many years now, having had several hubs following various upgrades. I operate the hub in the modem pass through mode and just connect my 2927 router to the hub ethernet output. The ethernet address that my router acquires agrees with the details that can be seen on the hub (which you can still monitor through the DrayTek router). The Draytek router provides all services including DHCP services; the Virgin hub is just acting as a modem with cable in, and ethernet out. Interestingly you cannot connect a computer to the Virgin hub when in pass through mode, it has to be a router.
I do agree that in the early days you had to set the Mac address of the router to match the Mac address of the hub but for several years (10+) I have not had to do this. I cannot remember if this happened when I upgraded a hub or whether Virgin changed something. It might also be related to the service provider before Virgin bought them out.

xvk4 wrote:
Interestingly you cannot connect a computer to the Virgin hub when in pass through mode, it has to be a router.

Well that would represent a change in behaviour as well. I sometimes used to connect a PC (having cloned the Draytek's MAC address to it!) and issue repeated IPconfig Release/Renew commands. Once that worked, I knew I could plug in the Draytek and it would work as well.

I do agree that in the early days you had to set the Mac address of the router to match the Mac address of the hub but for several years (10+) I have not had to do this.

It wasn't so much that it had to match - it was just when the VM end saw a change, it sometimes seemed really reticent to acknowledge it.

(I started using NTL cable, via a link to the Samsung STB (when you had to manually register your attached device's MAC address!), then in the VM era everything from the Ambit Cable Modem, as far as the Hub 3. I was on the beta test program for the Super Hub 2 and the 2nd attempt at the Hub 3. I used to monitor and seasonally adjust my signal levels, using the vast collection of line Equalisers and Attenuators I'd acquired! That aspect at least, seemed to become far less necessary, as time went on.)