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Eero with Cujo

Hello,

I just got my Eero's today to test out and see if they can replace my Plume system.  So far so good but I had 3 internet disconnections (and prior to this I have never had a single one in the 10 months of service.  I monitor my network's uptime).  I am not sure but I'm thinking that it may have something to do with the Cujo.  So I wanted to check in here and see what the recommended way of connecting these two devices are.  I am thinking that I need to setup the Cujo in bridge mode and have my internet connect to this first and from the Cujo connect to my eero (acting as a router).  

17 replies

    • eero Community Manager
    • Jeff_C
    • 6 yrs ago
    • Official response
    • Reported - view

    Hey rafaeldiaz

    Thanks for reaching out and welcome to the eero community!

    Have you tried these steps from Cujo yet? https://support.getcujo.com/support/solutions/articles/9000111248-dhcp-mode-eero

    Hope this helps!

      • nnyan
      • 6 yrs ago
      • Reported - view

      Jeff C. thanks for the prompt reply.  I have not tried that and it really doesn't tell me exactly how to connect the Eero and Cujo.  I'll look around the Cujo website and see if they have any guidance.  Since i'm going to be changing around network devices will the Eero "reset" itself or will I need to reset it manually to reconfigure?

      • nnyan
      • 6 yrs ago
      • Reported - view

      Jeff C. I should be clear.  Right now the port on the eero that is connected to my ISP will be connected to the Cujo (which will now be directly connected to my ISP).  If the Cujo is going to route things I assume I have to change the Eero to bridge mode?  Also I got the Pro 3 pack does it matter which one I use for the main unit?

      Thank you

      • nnyan
      • 6 yrs ago
      • Reported - view

      Jeff C. Also what features/protection do I loose by this method?  Any plans on allowing the DHCP server to be turned off?

      • eero Community Manager
      • Jeff_C
      • 6 yrs ago
      • Reported - view

      rafaeldiaz sorry for the delay! I was in the midst of traveling.

      If you put your eeros into bridge mode, you will lose access to all advanced features, including Family Profiles, eero Plus, device usage, and potentially any other future features.

      In regards to which eero to use as your gateway, you can use any of the three. Only eero Beacons can’t be used as the main eero connected to your modem due to there being no Ethernet ports.

      One more question - is there any particular reason why you would like to use Cujo over eero Plus? I’d be happy to share this feedback with our team.

      eero alone is designed with the highest security standards for your network. And with eero Plus, you get great features like content filtering, advanced network security against online threats to all your devices, ad blocking, and soon access to apps for VPN, password management, and virus scanning.

      • nnyan
      • 6 yrs ago
      • Reported - view

      Jeff C. I haven't yet played around with all the features but based on a weekend's experience at a friends cabin (who had Eero's with Eero plus but it was some time ago) the Eeros are missing some really basic features that most other firewall devices have.  For example:

      1.  Cujo does device ID's much better.  Typically most devices are correctly identified in minutes with a high level of detail.  

      2.  Cujo sends me alerts of threats (blocked and potential).  It tells me what type of threat, where it came from (IP etc...) and what it was trying to do (a common one is attempt to connect to my Synology/Qnap/Asustor NAS devices and IOT devices).  I also see a history of such threats.  All of this is vital, I need to know when someone tries to attack my network.  It also allows me to unblock connections that are legit in almost real-time mode.  The reports I saw from eero Plus just basically had the number of threats blocked with almost no details, which immensely limits the benefits to such alerts.  I did see a number of posts on the forums about this dating back some time and no replies, this leads me to believe that this is not a feature that is likely to happen.

      3.  With Cujo internal connections were blocked (for example Gibson Research Firewall Leakage Tester)

      Some other feedback, I had a hard time finding out how the eero plus ad-blocking feature worked. Is it DNS based?  I am sorely missing the ability to see HOW the eero's are connected to each other (and the quality of that connection, the channel, etc..).  It would also be really nice to see which clients are connected to each device (and details about the connection) in a more simple holistic way.  I would also love to see the routing/firewall/IDS/IPS features expanded with visibility.  Coming from my pfsense firewall (which worked brilliantly with cujo) as a layered defense external testing of my network came up as everything blocked.  With eero i get the following not closed:  

      53/tcp  filtered domain
      
      135/tcp filtered msrpc
      
      138/tcp filtered netbios-dgm
      
      139/tcp filtered netbios-ssn
      
      445/tcp filtered microsoft-ds
      
      593/tcp filtered http-rpc-epmap
      • MAscooby
      • 6 yrs ago
      • Reported - view

      Nnyan Good summary of why Cujo > eero Plus. And yes, ad blocking (and, I believe, malware blocking) are DNS-based.
      While I've subscribed to a year of eero Plus because I love eero (from the technology & implementation to the way they support the product and communicate with customers) and I want to support the product & future development, the current implementation isn't remotely comparable to Cujo let alone pfsense and similar tools.

      If you're looking for a basic trust it & ignore it solution, eero Plus may be good enough, but if you're looking for detailed insight into what's happening on your network, let alone the ability to control what's happening on your network, eero Plus is just about useless.
      And while the recent addition of Encrypt.me , MalwareBytes, and 1Password are "neat" they're not really what I'd consider "core" offerings (plus, I already have more powerful / flexible VPN, and better-for-me antivirus & password management tools).

      • nnyan
      • 6 yrs ago
      • Reported - view

      MAscooby  I would love for Eero to include a site-wide VPN server/client that allowed us to connect to our own VPN provider and the option to route all or some traffic through the VPN.  What I've seen of the ad-blocking it leaves much to be desired.  As of now I'm working on running OPNSense in bridge only (extra layer of firewall and reporting, with OpenVPN connected to my provider) and a VM with Pi-Hole for ad-blocking.  It's just getting to be a really long connection string with all those "devices" in-line.  I too love Eero and want to support it but lack of these features (and having only two ethernet ports) really kills it for complicated setups.  

      • MAscooby
      • 6 yrs ago
      • Reported - view

      Nnyan Yeah, agreed that eero's definitely not an "all in one" solution for complex setups.  

      The two ethernet jacks don't bother me (I just hang switches off each of my eeros) and I'm not running a bridged firewall yet, but I'll probably be adding one soon (pfSense).

      For now, I've got coax coming out of the Verizon FiOS ONT into their Quantum Gateway router, then I hang the eero off of that in a double-NAT config. I have an OpenVPN server running off an Asus router with Asuswrt-Merlin firmware for inbound VPN, and I also have an AirVPN subscription, which I could use to VPN all outbound (and inbound, I suppose) traffic if I wanted to.

      While I think a VPN client option would be a nice addition to the eero, I can live without it. I can even live without the VPN server option since I have the Asus, but I think that'd be a (really) nice to have feature. And while I think a more robust firewall option would be nice, I also don't think it's necessarily core business for eero, and options like pfSense will almost certainly be more advanced, more extensible, and more robust.

      And I'm still running Circle for my parental controls because it was cheap & "good enough" for my needs... poisoned ARP fun aside. :-)

      With all of that said, I can see the cloud-based malware and ad-blocking being nice "fire and forget" features for the average eero user, and I think eero's got a golden opportunity to implement Cujo/Circle-like parental controls as well. That aside, what I want from eero in that space is better visibility into what's happening on the LAN, including for their malware and ad-blocking functionality. 

    • YetAnotherUserName
    • 6 yrs ago
    • Reported - view

    Personally we got Cujo because eero Plus hadn't launched.  Also they have a lifetime offer rather than just monthly or yearly.

    • nnyan
    • 6 yrs ago
    • Reported - view

    Just to close this loop following the Cujo instructions worked, but it wasn't a smooth process.  The Eero/Cujo combo took a number of reboots before it kept working without issues after the change.  It seemed like once they got into sync they would come back up after reboots.  also during the process, IF you are not on the same network when you get to the step to change the network your connectivity dies.  They are going to update the process to improve that.

    • nnyan
    • 6 yrs ago
    • Reported - view

    Just upgraded to the latest release and it was a nightmare.  At first the update kept failing (reboots required by unplugging units.  Crazy that on the same network you can't reboot from app).  After the required reboots the 3 Eero's would seemingly randomly not connect.  After two days of reboots and failed upgrades to two leaf Eero's were upgrade but the primary one wouldn't.  More reboots and eventually it updated but it kept going down (internet down, it wasn't). I'm sure having the Cujo in the mix made things more difficult (it's already complicated with Eero on one subnet and Cujo on another).  I did notice that one Eero unit had an IP on the non-Eero subnet (10.0.1.X vs 10.0.7.X).  Don't see how to change that or even if I should.

    • Mc3311
    • 5 yrs ago
    • Reported - view

    It would be nice if this topic ended in what is the best way to connect cujo to erro. I have a lifetime cujo sub so can't see not using it until erro plus gets better and has a lifetime subscription.

    • Chi7
    • 5 yrs ago
    • Reported - view

    I know this thread is a year old but can anyone advise how to setup up CUJO with Eero properly?  

     

    Ive followed their instructions with the Eero in DHCP mode and “Eero Wifi System” shows being CUJO protected, but I don’t see any of the individual devices in the CUJO app.  

    • spek06
    • 5 yrs ago
    • Reported - view

    Yeah - I just purchased an eero system and have a lifetime sub to cujo. Im unclear on the setup and what I lose by connecting cujo. I see steps for dhcp mode and bridge mode. I have a Spectrum Coax --> Surfboard --> Eero --> Switch--> Ports throughout the house where I have wired in two additional eeros. 

      • Chi7
      • 5 yrs ago
      • Reported - view

      spek06 I’m not familiar with spectrum since I have FIOS so not sure of the spectrum settings but one thing we can agree on is, Eero suggests using it in router mode and bridge mode.  to do this I had to set the FIOS Router to bridge mode with WiFi off.  This way the Eero handles the DHCP and IP distribution as I understand.  Also you maintain all of the eeros app feature.  

       

      Now comes the tricky part.  I have the CUJO handling DHCP hardwired into my FIOS router per their instructions and set the Eero in manual IP found here:

      https://support.getcujo.com/support/solutions/articles/9000111248-dhcp-mode-eero

       

      the CUJO is smiling and the app shows online and protected but in the devices, I can only see the Eero system as a whole, not all my devices, so I’m unable to set up family profiles.   I’m not sure if it’s connected right to be honest and I just emailed CUJO support for help.  

Content aside

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