Using 7800NXL (or 7800N) with an EE 4GEE router
Posted: Wed Dec 23, 2020 2:41 pm
I am hoping to get some advice from someone who knows a lot more about networking than me, please.
Up to now, I have been running a 7800N modem router on a long ADSL line. Most devices are using the DHCP service. But a handful (two Raspberry PI servers, a Humax recording box, a printer, and a LibreElec media server) all have static IPs allocated by the router itself.
Recently, though, I have switched to 4G broadband, using the EE 4GEE broadband router.
Sadly, whoever built the EE firmware on the router has decided to cripple it making it pretty useless as a serious router. There is no way to change the LAN IP ranges, no way of controlling DHCP (e.g. turning it off) and no way of allocating static IP routes to specific MAC addresses. Quite why they have done this, I don't understand. My understanding is that the "clean" version of the router does have all of these things; I wish they had just left the thing alone.
I now have two choices: 1) go through all my devices with static IPs and try to implement the IPs on their side. Plus change the IP references for mounting drives, etc, to the new subnet (the 4G router is on a different subnet and this cannot be changed). This is proving extremely troublesome as the first RPI I have tried just will not accept a static IP. Or 2) use the 4GEE router effectively as a modem only, and then use one of the Billion routers (I've got a 7800NXL and a 7800N) in WAN mode to do all of the actual internal routing.
I've had an initial go at setting up the 7800NXL in this configuration, but I just cannot crack it. I suspect that it is either not possible or is much more complicated that I realise.
So my first question is: am I trying to do something that is inherently impossible?
And secondly, if it is possible, can anyone point me at a good guide to implementing such a configuration, please? Or at least tell me what the right terms to search for?
Thanks in advance,
Daryl
Up to now, I have been running a 7800N modem router on a long ADSL line. Most devices are using the DHCP service. But a handful (two Raspberry PI servers, a Humax recording box, a printer, and a LibreElec media server) all have static IPs allocated by the router itself.
Recently, though, I have switched to 4G broadband, using the EE 4GEE broadband router.
Sadly, whoever built the EE firmware on the router has decided to cripple it making it pretty useless as a serious router. There is no way to change the LAN IP ranges, no way of controlling DHCP (e.g. turning it off) and no way of allocating static IP routes to specific MAC addresses. Quite why they have done this, I don't understand. My understanding is that the "clean" version of the router does have all of these things; I wish they had just left the thing alone.
I now have two choices: 1) go through all my devices with static IPs and try to implement the IPs on their side. Plus change the IP references for mounting drives, etc, to the new subnet (the 4G router is on a different subnet and this cannot be changed). This is proving extremely troublesome as the first RPI I have tried just will not accept a static IP. Or 2) use the 4GEE router effectively as a modem only, and then use one of the Billion routers (I've got a 7800NXL and a 7800N) in WAN mode to do all of the actual internal routing.
I've had an initial go at setting up the 7800NXL in this configuration, but I just cannot crack it. I suspect that it is either not possible or is much more complicated that I realise.
So my first question is: am I trying to do something that is inherently impossible?
And secondly, if it is possible, can anyone point me at a good guide to implementing such a configuration, please? Or at least tell me what the right terms to search for?
Thanks in advance,
Daryl