[SOLVED] What is AP isolatio and how it works?

[techguy2001]

Hello everyone!

By default, AP isolation is enabled in most routers (for security reason). As far as I understood, it's an access point, if disabled allows wireless devices to communicate with each other. I turned it off on my router and I expect to see all wireless devices (including Android phones) to be visible in my Windows homegroup but it seems not the case. I don't see any of my phones on Windows network places.

Please help me understand it better, it's limitations and capabilities.

Thank you in advance.

 

[bill001g]

It has nothing at all to do with homegroups. That is a microsoft concept for file sharing. Although some other platforms support it the feature is not turned on it won't work. Pretty much if the device is not "windows" it will not show up in the windows network places.

You can likely see the devices if you were to scan for ip and/or mac addresses. Even then many device have firewalls that can prevent any device from detecting them.

 

[techguy2001]

Yes, I was able to ping the wireless devices' I.P address. So, does it mean that even if the AP isolation is disabled, still I cannot share my phone's file to my PC wirelessly?

 

[bill001g]

If the file sharing is supported you should be able to mount the share point via ip address. The phone may not support the microsoft discovery stuff.

 

[techguy2001]

Thank you so much! Now I got it. Whenever I enable my AP isolation I can't browse my phone's file via I.P. address and I can't ping it as well. But if it is disabled I can connect to my phone's files via the browser. Thank you!