Safari blocks access to 192.168.1.1 router on EXTERNAL LAN

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Safari blocks access to 192.168.1.1 router on EXTERNAL LAN

Safari blocs access to 192.168.1.1 router on external LAN

Configuration (unusual but perfectly functional - except this problem):

My LAN is on 192.168.2.X network - Its router at 192.168.2.1 is connected (thru its “WAN" port) as a device of another “external” LAN on 192.168.1.X - this LAN is created by the internet provider modem, acting as a router at 192.168.1.1.

Problem:

Safari from my Mac Studio connected to 192.168.2.X refuses to access the provider modem at 192.168.1.1 and shows “This connection is not private” - Its button Show details does nothing. Firefox instead allows to proceed after a warning.

Is there any Safari Security/Privacy configuration than allows to do what I need ?

I tried many but probably not all of them (remark: till some time ago Safari allowed to access 192.168.1.1 in exactly this same network configuration)

Config: Safari 26.2 on Mac Studio M1 MAX running Sonoma 14.8.3

Thanks Piero

Mac Studio (2022)

Posted on Jan 20, 2026 12:42 AM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

Camelot

Level 9

59,073 points

Jan 20, 2026 10:30 AM in response to piero.fiorani

This kind of double-NAT setup is discouraged, to say the least. While not technically illegal (in the conventional, not legal sense of the word), it can cause problems, and Safari is at least partly right to block access to private-class addresses that aren't on the local LAN.

s there a reason that your 192.168.2.x LAN is a separate subnet, rather than having the router act as transparent access point to the 192.168.1.x network?

Either way, there are cases where it's valid e.g. VPN connections often provide routing to internal corporate networks, so routing to private LANs is possible. The question is where the problem lies.

The thing that concerns me most is that Safari appear to connect to the router, but refuses to establish a secure connection. That implies that the problem is not one of network routing, per se., but something wrong with the server certificate.

There are a couple of things to check. First, in Safari -> Settings -> Security turn off the 'Non-secure web site connections' warning. Safari will always prefer a secure over a non-secure connection, and this option can prevent you from connecting to http (vs. https) based sites.

You can also try explicitly entering http:// vs. https:// (or nothing) in front of the 192.168.1.1 address to provide a hint to Safari as to how you want to connect.

There are some lower-level network things that we can try, but the fact that Firefox can connect indicates that the network itself is probably not the issue, but we can dig into those if the above doesn't help.

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Answer 2

Jan 20, 2026 4:24 PM in response to Camelot

Thanks Camelot for your answer.

Why do I use this configuration ? it is a private home LAN I first installed at least 15 years ago, when (for some reason I don’t recall) my external modem didn’t provide a full featured router: so I preferred to add my own Cisco router in order to have more control on my 12+ devices. For my home LAN I then used the 192.168.2.X subnet not to conflict with the modem built-in 192.168.1.X net (and this allowed me to migrate to later modems without any change in the LAN configuration, DHCP etc.).

I already tried your suggestion to turn off the 'Non-secure web site connections' warning, but it didn’t work.

But I do believe it is some glitch or “hidden” configuration with Safari since in earlier versions (but I don’t know which one) at my attempt to access 192.168.1.1 from a 192.168.2.x Mac Safari warned me, but I could take control and decide what to do (exactly as Firefox does now). Now it only warns: “This connection is not private” but Its button “Show details” does nothing.

Note: I tried with Safari on my iPhone on the same LAN and I get a little further: the Show details button opens a new dialog where I can view the certificate and a “To the web site” button seems to finally allow me in: not really! the button is red and tapping it does nothing once more...

There must be some Safari configuration...

Thanks again

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Answer 3

Jan 21, 2026 2:35 AM in response to piero.fiorani

Update (not sure what happened...)

I made a new attempt right now using Safari on iPhone (connected to my LAN wifi) ... and the router login page appeared as it was supposed to do since the beginning... Problem solved ? Not sure what happened besides my previously mentioned attempts. To be true I also accessed the modem using internet instead of LAN but I could not do anything useful to fix its LAN access (to my knowledge...)

Insisting is the solution ? (sorry.... kidding)

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Safari blocks access to 192.168.1.1 router on EXTERNAL LAN

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