Hi all,

I thought it would be as simple as flicking a switch to change from router to bridge mode and plug in my own router, and that couldn’t have been further from the truth :(

My ISP provides a huawei hg8145v5. I ordered a static IP from them as well. They gave me full access to the router to be able to put it in bridge mode. The router I’d like to handle all actual routing is an asus zenwifi xd8.

The setup I’m going for is ISP ONT/Router > Asus Zenwifi XD6 -> TrendNet 10g unmanaged switch -> NAS, PC, server

So in the isp router, I set it to bridge mode and connected it to the wan port of the asus router, then connected LAN 1 of the asus router to my 10g switch. basically just inserting the asus router in the chain that had been working before.

I had no internet at all. Strangely, the asus reports that the internet is connected, but the speed test on the qos section cannot connect whatsoever.

I thought it might have something to do with the static IP, so I tried setting the static IP assigned to me to the WAN IP, used the same subnet mask the isp router had assigned, and set the isp router as the gateway. Same exact thing. Basically everything I tried resulted in either a “connected” status yet no internet, or a “disconnected” status.

I’d really appreciate some help. I really though I’d just change the isp router to bridge mode and I’d be smooth sailing but I’ve basically blown up my network. Also for some reason, the windows network tab is not finding my NAS anymore. I can only connect by typing its local ip or mapping a drive, but I used to be able to go to the network in window explorer and my nas would show up there and I could just access everything I wanted that way. anyway, I’d appreciate any help. i’ve been at this for literally the entire day and am only now reaching out for help. Thanks!

  • litchraleeEnglish
    0·
    1 year ago

    This may be a sizable leap in debugging, but for strange networking issues, I’ll usually start Wireshark and monitor whatever traffic is coming from the ISP’s equipment, looking for clues. A really nice clue would be something like VLAN tagged traffic, which would indicate the ISP requires a certain VLAN ID. Or perhaps you could see if your DHCP requests are being answered or not.

    I do recognize that this sort of network sleuthing is as much art as it is science, so your mileage will vary.

    • MonkCanatellaOP
      2·
      1 year ago

      Thanks! Yeah I’m actually not totally sure my networking skills are up to snuff. But there is some vlan stuff in the admin interface of the isp’s router. So I would just copy the vlan id over to the correct place in the asus router?

      • litchraleeEnglish
        1·
        1 year ago

        If the ISP router has a VLAN ID configured, there’s a possibility that they strip it before passing through to your equipment, so you wouldn’t need to configure it on your end. So while there’s no guarantee copying the VLAN ID will work, it could still be worth a try.

        • MonkCanatellaOP
          2·
          1 year ago

          My router doesn’t allow vlan, it’s an asus zenwifi xd8. But I figured it out. I was making it too complicated. I thought I was supposed to put my static IP into the wan configuration, but I just set it to auto configuration and put the isp provided ont/router in bridge mode and I’m good to go! I think I must have fucked something up early on without realizing and went way down the rabbit hole. What’s weird is that a traceroute is still showing that I’m on CGNAT even with a public ip.

          I’m getting this entry as the last hop before it hits my isp provided ont: customer-GDL-PUBLIC-CGN Also it is strangely hitting 10 hops for a tracert to google, with about 5 of them being on the 10.3.x.x addresses.

          Also, would it make sense for the ont to even have an ip address if it’s in bridge mode?

          • litchraleeEnglish
            1·
            1 year ago

            The ONT can still have an IP address independent of pass-through mode; this is often done so the ONT can be remotely trouble shooted by the ISP, although if they’re burning a public IPv4 address to do this… that’s just wasteful.

            As for CGNAT, I think what matters is whether other hosts on the Internet can see the address your router has configured. I like to check https://wtfismyip.com/

            Traceroute has some known deficiencies, or rather it is often used for things it wasn’t meant for, so I wouldn’t necessarily put too much concern behind what it reports for the intermediate routers. If you’ve got a pubic IP address and it behaves like one to your applications, then you should be good to go.

            For a discussion about traceroute: https://gekk.info/articles/traceroute.htm