Getting a Motorola SBG6580 into “Bridge” mode

gistfile1.md

found at: http://fascinated.fm/post/2379188731/getting-a-motorola-sbg6580-into-bridge-mode-on

Getting a Motorola SBG6580 into “Bridge” mode on TimeWarner Wideband

1. Unplug coax cable from Motorola
2. Hold down the white reset button on the back panel with a pen for 30s.  This resets all settings to factory defaults. The modem will be auto-reconfigured once you plug in the coax cable.
3. When modem is back on plug in a computer with an Ethernet cable into the modem.
4. Connect to http://192.168.0.1 and login with “admin” / “motorola”
5. Now you will make some changes:
 
   • Wireless -> Primary Network -> Disabled
   • Basic -> Setup -> NAPT Mode -> Disabled
   • Basic -> DHCP -> No
   • Advanced -> Options -> Rg Passthrough -> Enable
   • Advanced -> Options -> Passthrough Mac Addresses -> Add WAN MAC address of your router 6. Connect port 1 on the Motorola modem to the WAN port of your router.
6. Plug the coaxial cable back into the modem and power cycle it.

Once Motorola SBG6580 is in Bridge Mode, if the new router can't connect to the internet, then you might have to set the router's MAC address to match Motorola SBG6580's MAC address. This is because some ISPs only allow certain MAC addresses to connect.

In my case, I set my router's MAC address to the Motorola SBG6580's "GATEWAY MGMT MAC ID" and I was able to connect.

For the life of me, I simply can't vision why somebody would want to do this procedure.
Buying something and then stripping it of 98% of it capabilities just doesn't make sense to me.
If all you want is a modem, then why not just buy a modem.

Just sounds like a lack of understanding in what the end result should be.

@electroman00... Because people's needs change. I bought my SBG6580 before I had a roommate who liked trading copyrighted stuff using BitTorrent. Comcast put me on notice of violation and I couldn't trust the roommate to voluntarily stop his activity. I needed to put a router between the roommate and the Internet that allowed for application blocking. Since the SBG6580 firmware provided no reasonable avenue for that I ended up putting it into bridge mode and setting up a dd-wrt router behind it that allowed application blocking (among other things). It was either that or find a new roommate. The bridging option seemed easier.

@jlpeifer you don't have to put the modem into a bridge mode to do what you want. The SBG6580 has a provision for connecting routers to it and passing through aka bridging internal to external.
IOW doing the procedure here isn't necessary because the SBG6580 has a provision for doing what everyone wants.

It was important for me to disable NAPT mode as the very last step. Because the modem automatically reboots when you click Apply, I was getting locked out of the modem settings because the other steps weren't yet completed.

The reason people would want to disable the router capabilities of a modem is because they're generally underpowered as a router. There are quite a few more powerful and efficient routers, even at the SOHO level.

RE: Motorola SBG6580...Port Forwarding Problem....Hi everyone. I am new here. I have a question about this "great" little router. Actually, I don't think that the problem is in the router. I think that the problem is my ISP at my local cable hub...not at my home location/router & LAN...We had a lot of trouble in my neighborhood recently. Xfinity was working in my neighborhood for weeks. They seem to have gotten internet speed back up and internet connections are not dropping every few minutes as they were for many weeks. Ever since Xfinity "worked" in my neighborhood, ports that I open through my router via Port Forwarding can not be found via http://www.canyouseeme.org/ or via any software that I am using remotely to access my various ports. For example, I have opened ports for my Moxa 16-Port RS-232 Server. Its local address is 192.168.0.200. Ports 4001 through 4016 are opened in Port Forwarding in my router. However, no one can "see" my opened ports. I used "http://www.canyouseeme.org/." Some of the old standards are visible like 8080, but none of the other Ports that I have tried to open are visible. How would I prove who is at fault here? Any ideas? I have been on the phone with Xfinity for hours. Most of the Techs have no idea to what I am referring. They tell me that I must not know how to open ports in Port Forwarding. I explain that I have been doing this for several years and they have no idea what to tell me. Any ideas would be helpful...Thank you in advance Daniel.

@electroman00

People need to place the modem often in bridged mode when dealing with VOIP applications, gaming (i.e. xbox one complains about strict NAT), configuring a vpn, etc to avoid double NAT scenarios. When in bridge mode the external interface of the device behind the SBG6580 will receive the Comcast Public IP that was once assigned to the external interface on the cable modem. The SBG6580 also had a known issue with it's wireless (I believe with certain firmwares) that it would drop the wireless network intermittently - you could plug in via a wired connection and connectivity would work without issue. The Firewall and other features on the SBG6580 are also lacking to say the least.

This did it for me - thanks @cdmckay

"On my SBG6580, all I had to do was disable NAPT mode (click the Apply button immediately below it) and that switched it into bridging mode. The SBG6580's IP will then change to 192.168.100.1 and you can login there if you need to. When you're ready, plug in the coax, cycle your modem, and plug it into your router's WAN port. It should work shortly thereafter."

"The SBG6580 also had a known issue with it's wireless (I believe with certain firmwares) that it would drop the wireless network intermittently"

I have started seeing an issue like this. Any references you can provide? TIA.

1. "Rg Passthrough" is gone for me but doing everything else worked great.
2. You can do this all without an ethernet connection if you use your new router as a wireless bridge to the Motorola, then at the last minute set it back to be an actual router.

My firmware version is SBG6580-8.9.0.1-GA-00-092-NOSH.
I can access the control panel via 192.168.0.1 and using admin/motorola for the login/password.
There a section in Basic > Setup, called Primary Mode. It has a Gateway Mode setting with the options of 'Routed' or 'Bridged'.
Anyone know if it's as simple as just switching this over to 'Bridged' in order use with another router?

i am wondering the same thing, @huntermaclean. did you find out?

@huntermaclean @guti14650

Basic > Setup > Primary Network Only Mode: Bridged was all I had to change on SBG6580-8.9.0.0-GA-05-062-NOSH.

So, in full:

1. Unplug coax cable from Motorola
2. Hold down the white reset button on the back panel with a pen for 30s. This resets all settings to factory defaults. The modem will be auto-reconfigured once you plug in the coax cable.
3. When modem is back on plug in a computer with an Ethernet cable into the modem.
4. Connect to http://192.168.0.1 and login with “admin” / “motorola”.
5. Now you will make some changes:

   • Basic > Setup > Primary Network Only Mode -> Bridged.
6. Plug the coaxial cable back into the modem and power cycle it.

Afterwards you can reach the router configuration page at: http://192.168.100.1

Notes:
You may come across this page: http://arris.force.com/consumers/articles/General_FAQs/SBG6580-v8-5-x-Bridge-Mode-Setup
It actually suggests the opposite, changing Gateway Mode to Bridged. But when I tried that the router would just reset its configuration back.

I was using an Time Capsule. That needed to be power cycled, otherwise it would still warn about Double NAT.

I am having trouble getting my SBG6580 to work properly in bridge mode. I have firmware SBG6580-8.9.0.1-GA-00-092-NOSH. I followed the instructions above by @mikew and after I hit Apply, I cannot log into the SBG6580 using 192.168.100.1. When I connect my router to the modem, it says there is a problem with the DHCP from the ISP, but I can't log into the modem to check what the problem is. I have tried about 10 different times with slight tweaks, but get the same result every time. I contacted Comcast about it today and they said they couldn't log in because it is a customer owned router. It sounds like setting the SBG to bridge mode should be pretty straight forward from all the different posts I have read about it (most of which had the same instructions). I am wondering if I am missing something or my SBG6580 is a lemon and won't function as intended in bridge mode. The router I am trying to connect to the bridged SBG6580 is an Asus RT-AC87U with the most recent AsusWRT Merlin build. The Asus router works fine when the SBG6580 modem is set to route mode, but has no connectivity after the SBG is switched into bridge mode. If anyone else has experienced a similar problem, please help!

I saw some mention they no longer have access to login to the device after disabling NAPT mode (or enabling Bridge mode). I learned the hard way...always disable wireless first then go back in to disable NAPT, disable dhcp, and enable Rg Passthrough. When your router or pc pulls a public IP address, you know you've done it right.

I am having the exact issue @jonechuc is describing with a Linksys EA6350. Lost a hard earned Sunday working on this, and settled on letting it stay on "Routed" mode with the firewall off. In bridge mode, with a computer directly connected, I get a public IP, but no connectivity. So strange.

firmware SBG6580-8.9.0.4-GA-02-141-NOSH is missing option "Gateway Mode" when attempting to put into Bridge mode, per Arris's own instructions. Epic Fail.

https://arris.secure.force.com/consumers/articles/General_FAQs/SBG6580-v8-5-x-Bridge-Mode-Setup/?l=en_US&fs=RelatedArticle

@cdmckay's comment mostly did it for me BUT I also needed to set wireless to off. Another issue was that my new separate router wasn't broadcasting any networks, which I thought was the fault of the SBG6580, but actually I had to factory reset my router and then it broadcasted its networks.
So in full, these steps worked for me:

1. unplug coax cable
2. reset SBG6580
3. connect computer with SBG6580 via ethernet (although this could've been done from the beginning too)
4. connect to 192.168.0.1 and enter "admin" and "motorola" (or whatever else you set these to)
5. set
   -Wireless to Disabled (not just the primary network!)
   -Basic -> Setup -> NAPT mode to Disabled
6. if you still need access to the landing page, use 192.168.100.1 . Otherwise, plug in the coax cable, take out the ethernet cable to your computer and power cycle it
7. connect the SBG6580 in bridge mode with the new router via ethernet cable and then factory reset the new router if necessary
   ezpz