Changing base station VLAN

[Guilvir]

Hello,
I have created separate VLANS and want to move my base station to one of these.
If I do so, my base station will be assigned a new IP.
Will it break anything on the app side for me to have access to my cameras? I mean does Arlo keep track of the IP with no way for me to update it remotely without having to re-adopt the base station locally (me running the Arlo app and connecting to the same VLAN as the base station)?

Thank you!

[jguerdat]

Nothing changes since nothing is tied to the base's IP address. The same thing could happen if you rebooted the router. The base simply needs an Internet connection, regardless of how it gets there.

[Guilvir]

Many thanks, JGuerdat, for your reply.

Would you know how the Arlo cloud establishes the communication to the base station to watch live the cameras?

Thx again.

[StephenB]

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@Guilvir wrote:

Would you know how the Arlo cloud establishes the communication to the base station to watch live the cameras?

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Arlo doesn't provide details on their protocols.

But the usual approach is that the base makes a persistent connection outbound to the cloud, since the cloud can't make an inbound connection to the base if you have a NAT router.

Note you will have problems onboarding cameras (or re-onboarding the base itself) after you put the base on the VLAN.  So you will need to move it back to your normal home network from time to time.  Also if you use homekit, you will find that the apple device needs to be on the same network as the base.  Not sure if Alexa/Echo Show needs the base on the same network or not.

[Guilvir]

Many thanks StephenB and, again, JGuerdat, for your helpful feedbacks.
I feel now more comfortable proceeding with my switching the base station to a VLAN.

Thx also for raising the point of attention regarding Apple HomeKit. I will keep it in mind but it makes sense to have the Apple hub on the same IoT VLAN anyway (hoping it supports VLAN).

About the possible difficulty to register new cameras once the base station is moved to a VLAN, I imagine it would because the WLAN originally registered on the base (and to be used by the Arlo private wifi) is not on the same VLAN.
Connecting my phone to a SSID on my IoT VLAN and re-registering again the base station should make the trick. Am afraid the existing cameras would have to be registered again though...

[Guilvir]

Or rather something to do with the EAPoL protocol apparently used to register the cameras?

https://blog.newskysecurity.com/brute-force-vulnerability-in-netgear-arlo-f561c3bc1f3d

[StephenB]

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@Guilvir wrote:

About the possible difficulty to register new cameras once the base station is moved to a VLAN, I imagine it would because the WLAN originally registered on the base (and to be used by the Arlo private wifi) is not on the same VLAN.

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No, I don't think that's it.  There are apparently some broadcast protocols being used, and they only work if you are in the same broadcast domain.  And by definition a VLAN is a logical broadcast domain - so you need to be connected to the VLAN in order for those protocols to function.

If you can put an AP on the same VLAN, then joining that from the phone would solve the problem.  Similarly, putting a wired PC on the same VLAN would work.

[Guilvir · Accepted solution]

Just sharing that I have gone ahead and moved remotely my base station to a VLAN and...everything worked like a charm!
My base got a new IP and I can still connect with my cameras!

Bravo to Netgear! I am not as lucky with other systems...

Thanks, gentlemen, for your kind and valuable inputs.