FRITZ!Box 7390 in a Mesh Network

I’m able to VPN into a remote mesh network of FRITZ!Boxes to manage a remote FreeNAS server. The server is hard-wired into an older FRITZ!Box 7390 configured as a mesh repeater. This is connected wirelessly to a FRITZ!Box 7490 set up as the mesh master.

This arrangement has worked admirably for several years. Unfortunately, Unfortunately, FRITZ!OS 7.21 is the last version for the 7490 OS that will fully support a 7390 mesh repeater. At the time of preparing this post, the recently released FRITZ!OS 7.27 is the latest version available for the 7490. It’s disappointing that AVM, the company behind the FRITZ!Box, made no mention of this issue in the release notes. I found out the hard way and had to roll back to reinstate functionality.

Interestingly, the 7390 still appears in the mesh if the 7490 OS is upgraded to the latest version. It’s also possible to connect to it and manage it. However, it’s not possible to connect to a server attached to the 7390. The symptoms are a refused connection. I doubt that AVM will be interested in fixing this issue as its clear from their website that the 7390 is EOL.

Curiously, the remote 7490 auto-updated from 7.21 to 7.27 and I’m now able to connect to the FreeNAS server attached to the 7390.