Comcast / AT&T Router and SNMP

(this is a guest post by Antoni Sawicki aka Tenox)

This is a lame duck, low effort post. If you already know it’s 🤦 obvious. However this question seem to be asked a lot on the intertubes. I was stupid and searched for it too. I hope this will help someone else, as there is no good readily available answer out there.

Problem: I want to have SNMP on my Comcast/Xfinity/AT&T router so I can monitor current bandwidth usage.

Research:

  • Possible to enable on vanilla router? – Nope
  • Do 3rd party, compatible routers do? – Nope
  • Can you SSH or hack in to the router to do it? – Nope
  • Can you load custom / hacked firmware to do it? – Nope*

Nope or very hard / unsupported.

So is it possible at all? Yes, but with a separate device.

Comcast/Xfinity routers have so called “Bridge Mode” which essentially turns them in to a DOCSIS modem without the router / firewall / wifi access point. AT&T has a passthrough mode which works similarly.

Solution: Turn on Bridge/Passthrough Mode in your vanilla router and buy a WRT firmware router / access point. I got Linksys AC3200 for $99 on Amazon. Ssh to the router and run: opkg install snmpd. 🤦

Done.

7 thoughts on “Comcast / AT&T Router and SNMP

    • Whether you own it or rent it it’s not really relevant. My point is that I have not found a modem/router combo that is officially supported by Comcast and has SNMP or WRT/Linux firmware. You have to use separate modem and router. Own or not.

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