Arlo SmartHub - No connection to cloud server on Enterprise network

[Johan_Pedersen]

Hi

We have a client who want to set up an Arlo Smarthub, but we're having trouble getting an uplink to the Arlo cloud itself.

It does get an IP address and is pingable which goes hand-in-hand with the LED glowing amber.

I've read that it's recommended to have the Base Station directly connected to the main router, whereas it is connected to a switch in our case. Ultimately it shouldn't make any difference though. The environment itself is a Cisco environment consisting of a firewall, WLC and then the switches. My guess is this appliance needs UPnP to work, but that's of course not a possibility. When I was in contact with Arlo Support they told us to portforward 443, 80 and 123. Of course portforwarding port 123 doesn't make any sense, so we didn't do that. We did however do both 443 and 80 but to no avail.

Does anyone else have any experience setting up Arlo on an enterprise network?

Thanks in advance

Johan

[StephenB · Accepted solution]

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@Johan_Pedersen wrote:

I've read that it's recommended to have the Base Station directly connected to the main router, whereas it is connected to a switch in our case. Ultimately it shouldn't make any difference though.

Connecting to a switch is fine.  One of my bases is connected to an Orbi satellite, which in turn uses ethernet backhaul through a switch to reach the router.  No problems with that setup.

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@Johan_Pedersen wrote:

When I was in contact with Arlo Support they told us to portforward 443, 80 and 123. Of course portforwarding port 123 doesn't make any sense, so we didn't do that. We did however do both 443 and 80 but to no avail.

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I don't know why they give that advice so often.  The base needs to be able to reach out to the cloud (or an NTP server in the case of 123) using those ports.  So they can't be blocked (and almost never are blocked).  But that doesn't mean they need to be forwarded.  And if you have multiple base stations, you can only forward to one of them anyway.

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@Johan_Pedersen wrote:

My guess is this appliance needs UPnP to work, but that's of course not a possibility.

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I have UPnP turned off, so the smarthubs don't need that service.

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@Johan_Pedersen wrote:

The environment itself is a Cisco environment consisting of a firewall, WLC and then the switches.

I'm thinking the firewall might be the problem, so maybe see if the base can be whitelisted there.  

Another thing you can try is using a PC to add the base to the account instead of the app.  Connect the PC via ethernet - ideally to the same switch as the base is using.  

[Johan_Pedersen]

Hi Stephen

Thanks for the reply, apparently the issue resolved itself. I asked him to try and add it via a PC like you suggested but when he came back it was glowing blue and working.