AX3 Dual-Core - messed up AP mode

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Hi, my dear!
Can you provide device information screenshots and configuration screenshots on the device WebUI?
Thanks!

Because I'm unable to access the management page from my PC (over Ethernet) I needed to make screenshots from my phone.

Issues:

- the router should NOT have a WAN IP in AP mode; WAN is controlled by a different router

- if I set the LAN IP to match the rest of the network (192.168.0.X) then the management page becomes unreachable AT ALL

- I should be able to reach the management page of the router from a device connected to the main router

Update: I CAN access the management page if I reconfigure the router in the following manner:
- router is in normal WAN mode
- WAN port is disconnected; AX3 is connected to the local network only via one of the other Ethernet ports
- WAN settings point to some other network segment (i.e. 192.168.5.1)
- LAN settings comply with local LAN settings (192.168.0.x)
- DHCP is disabled

This makes the router accessible from the LAN as it should but it's no longer in AP mode and doesn't have internet connection (for updates, for example). Again, really bad software here; it seems the router's incapable of having normal AP mode set for it.

In a typical, well designed AP mode:

- WAN port becomes just another ethernet port OR is disabled completely

- router does NOT have its own WAN IP at all (it can try and detect the WAN IP from the main router, but this is of no interest to the AP itself)

- router has a LAN IP conforming to the existing network; LAN IP CAN be DHCP provided but usually requires manual setup (+gateway IP +LAN DNS IP)

- DHCP is off but CAN be enabled or forwarded (typically advanced features; not critical)

- management page is accessible from all LAN devices; connected via Wifi or otherwise

The sad bit is that my old TP-Link, which costs like half of the AX3, could do all of the above and then some (at least on the software side; hardware was obviously less powerful)...

good question about AX3 Dual-Core - messed up AP mode

Hello, friend!

Huawei AX3 is a consumer device.

Based on the information you provided:

First question:

As shown in the screenshot of the device information, the LAN IP address of the device is 192.168.3.0. If you need to access the WebUI of the device from a PC, you need to manually set the IP address to 192.168.3.x on the PC and be in the same network segment as the device.

Second question:

After the device is restored to factory settings, the device automatically obtains the IP address of the device. The second problem is that the device cannot access the network due to incorrect configuration. You can see the WAN IP address in the screenshot of the device information. This is the default and fixed egress. You cannot access the Internet because you manually changed the WAN IP address. You need to change the WAN IP address to the default WAN IP address.

Third question:

The AX3 supports VPN and supports PPTP and L2TP. You can configure the VPN on the WebUI of the AX3.

Thanks!

1) I think you got the IPs mixed up. x.x.x.0 is not a valid IP. In AP mode the router shouldn't have a WAN IP at all - yet it does. While the router does permit setting the same IP segment in AP mode as in WAN mode when I did that then the management interface became unreachable from ANY device, Wifi connected or otherwise. 

Remember the network already has a main router.
192.168.0.200 <- primary router, LAN MASK: 255.255.255.0
192.168.0.201 <- should be AX3 in AP mode

2) I CAN access the internet. The ROUTER cannot access the internet. I know why that is in the second configuration; it's because it is a workaround to get the web interface working from any LAN device. I'm just showing how to get around the lacking AP feature; getting the web interface working is far more important than getting the device to play nice in AP mode.

3) The router can CONNECT to OpenVPN networks but it doesn't have a VPN SERVER of any kind (OpenVPN or other). Again, something an old TP-Link device costing half the price can do... Also - this wasn't a question - this was a statement of fact on how poor the firmware on this device is.

Hi, my dear!
The preceding answers are only for how to solve the problem. Whether a consumer router or an ONT accesses the management page of the device through a PC, the management IP address of the PC must be in the same network segment as the management IP address of the device. This is a basic network security setting.
Thank you very much for your support for Huawei devices. If you have any questions about Huawei devices, although the community is mainly for enterprise network devices, I am still keen to help you solve these problems.

"The preceding answers are only for how to solve the problem. Whether a consumer router or an ONT accesses the management page of the device through a PC, the management IP address of the PC must be in the same network segment as the management IP address of the device. This is a basic network security setting."

Except in AP the management page is on a different LAN segment by default (192.168.3.x vs 192.168.0.x) and can be accessed only from WiFi devices connected to the AX3 exclusively (since it's in AP mode ALL LAN devices in the LAN would be in the same segment, being handled by the DHCP, but clearly the AX3 is not treating them all equally); so your answer already doesn't match up with reality.

And when I reconfigured the AX3 to have the LAN IP on the same segment as the rest of the network (192.168.0.x) then the management page becomes unreachable from ANY device.

The saddest part is that your answers don't match up with the actual behaviour of the AX3 or... don't make sense. And you're not willing to accept this as a bug or poor implementation on part of Huawei that it is and that needs to be looked at by Huawei engineers and instead push solutions which don't help in the slightest...

My guess is that the AX3 is designed to be so simple... it becomes uncunfigurable if anything is outside of a very strict and "standard" configuration.