255.255.0.0 netmask?? [ Edited ]

[arnuschky]

Hey,

we've bought two E4200 and we need to use them with a 255.255.0.0 subnet mask. Unfortunately, the web frontend gives me only the possibility to use 255.255.255.0 and smaller subnets, which is actually quite limiting. 

How can I change this behavior?

Regards,

Arnuschky 

[gv]

If you use them as router they only support LAN subnet masks 255.255.255.0 or smaller. Linksys considers 253 IP addresses enough for a consumer router.

Why do you need a 255.255.0.0 subnet mask? How do you want to use the E4200 in your network?

[arnuschky]

We're running a bunch of robots over these routers. Not at the same time, but many nonetheless. These robots need static ips, so we order them by type to each subnet. For example:

  10.0.0.2-254 robots  type A 

  10.0.1.2-254 robots  type B

  10.0.2.2-254 robots  type C 

Etc. This allows us to add robots in the different classes without breaking the numbering scheme.

The quite useless restriction of the subnet mask does not allows us to do so. 

[gv]

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@arnuschky wrote:

We're running a bunch of robots over these routers. Not at the same time, but many nonetheless. These robots need static ips, so we order them by type to each subnet. For example:

  10.0.0.2-254 robots  type A 

  10.0.1.2-254 robots  type B

  10.0.2.2-254 robots  type C 

Etc. This allows us to add robots in the different classes without breaking the numbering scheme.

The quite useless restriction of the subnet mask does not allows us to do so. 

---

1. If those IP addresses are subnets, then you don't have a 255.255.0.0 subnet, but multiple 255.255.255.0 subnets.

2. The router is a consumer device. As I wrote before: it is not designed to handle that many devices.

3. Install 3rd party firmware and you can set anything you like.

[~robbert]

For the non cloud firmware:

I changed the UI with chrome developer tools and added a 255.255.0.0 option to the select in the HTML and pressed save.

This works, value is stored ... although you can't actually see it. You can't make any port fowards except for the first class C network. I run 172.20.0.0/16 router ip 172.20.1.1 and can only forward to 172.20.1.1/24.