Odd behaviour of Deco E4: issuing DHCP addresses to devices on the Router side!
I have a kit of three Deco E4 units. These are connected in Router Mode using standard wireless back-haul to a Plusnet internet router using LAN subnet 192.168.9.0/24.
- The 'main' Deco collects an address from the Plusnet router's DHCP. Good.
- DHCP (NAT) is enabled by default on the Deco 'main' unit and it issues DHCP addresses from 192.168.68.100 upwards, in the subnet 192.168.68.0/24, to devices connected to itself and to the two slave Deco units. I have no problem with this.
- But the 'main' Deco also issues these 192.168.68.x addresses to devices directly connected to the Plusnet router. This is not polite! It is in competition with the Plusnet router's DHCP server and devices get an unpredictable address from whichever DHCP server responds first. Therefore some of my 'local' devices end up in different subnets and cannot communicate with each other.
Is there a fix for this problem? It must be common.
- I propose that a 'main' Deco should never issue DHCP addresses to its internet interface but only to its back-haul interface.
- ? Can the Fast Roaming feature still work if DHCP (NAT) is disabled on the 'main' Deco? If so, this would be another good workaround: all addresses are issued by the Router (in my case the Plusnet router).
- I cannot find instructions to disable DHCP Server on the Deco network. Do I simply delete the 'Start IP' and 'End IP'?