Using 7800NXL (or 7800N) with an EE 4GEE router

[daryllloyd]

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

[billion_fan]

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

You will need to do the following on the 7800NXL

1. Make sure the LAN IP of the Billion and EE router are not in the same subnet (if there is no option for modem only mode on the EE router)
2. Follow the attached setup to setup your LAN side,
3. Setup a Ethernet >> IPOE (IP over Ethernet) WAN on the 7800DXL (using the quick start option) so the 7800NXL can connect to the EE router
either modem only mode, or router mode

With EE you will not get a public IP, (I guess you already know that lol)

[daryllloyd]

Thank you, billion_fan.

I gave this a try with my 7800NXL. Although the Ethernet LED turned green, I couldn't get to a webpage on a computer. I could, though, ping 8.8.8.8. I wonder if this meant that I didn't quite get the DNS settings right?

Fortunately, though, I followed the instructions for the 7800N at https://support.billion.uk.com/index.ph ... l-disabled which worked immediately.

I'm going to try with the 7800NXL again sometime to see if I can figure out what I did wrong. But the good news is that my entire LAN is working as it was again and the (awful!) 4GEE router is doing nothing other than pulling in the 4G signal.