Need help with new DSL Bridge Router & Tomato

John9412 · Dec 4, 2013

I'm fairly new to routers in general so I need a little help. Right now I have DSL, and a Netgear 7550 modem/router combo from my ISP. What I want to do is put my current modem/router in bridge mode and use my new ASUS RT-N12/D1 to do things like QOS and everything the modem doesn't control (and put Tomato on it; I know it works with this model router)

How do I get started? Do I put Tomato on the new router first, or do I have to set everything up as a working bridge first? The new ASUS RT-N12/D1 doesn't have USB.

And when I'm done, how will my setup look? Right now it's
Wall>Phone line>DSL Modem/Router>Ethernet>PC (and wifi for other devices)

I'm thinking it will be
Wall>Phone line>DSL Modem/Router>Ethernet>New Asus Router>Ethernet>PC (and wifi for other devices); is that right?

bill001g · Dec 4, 2013

I would first convert the new router to tomato and then test it by plugging into your current netgear leaving the netgear as a router. Then if you have issues you can just plug your PC back into the netgear and work at fixing the new router. Only thing to be careful of is to use a different subnet on the lan in your new router than the netgear is using. Some people run this way mostly because they can't make their first router into a bridge for various reasons.

Once this seems to work you can set the netgear to bridge mode.

Much safer to change only 1 thing at a time.

You are correct for the cabling.

Tom Tancredi · Dec 4, 2013

you can't. Bridge mode means to just 'pass through' the data, it does not 'manage' (aka ROUTE) the data in any way, so you can't do QoS or 'everything the modem doesn't control'. Your only solution is to contact your ISP and inform them you intend to purchase a DSL modem router and us it instead of thier device, and other then calling up to 'provision' the device on thier network, will they provide the setup information / have a setup page for it. They may not 'allow you' to use your own device.

jcaulley_74 · Dec 4, 2013

If you run into problems getting the netgear to work in bridged mode, there is another option. You can set the netgear to DMZ your asus router. I gave up on trying to get bridged mode to work a long time ago and just started using the DMZ to effectively do the same thing. The only real difference is that your asus router will have in internal ip address on its WAN port and the netgear's WAN will be the external ip address.

bill001g · Dec 4, 2013

Tom Tancredi :

Of course you can place a DSL modem/router in bridge mode. You technically can if you work at it run a PC directly on a DSL modem and let it receive the IP address.
He already stated he was going to get a new router so he will get all the features of the router and the modem will just do the ATM to ethernet conversion. Of course he will have to move the PPPoE configuration to the new router. People do this all the time and the ISP could care less.

John9412 · Dec 4, 2013

Ok, I nearly bricked the Asus router (I'm attempting to 30/30/30 it) and it was nearly impossible to get any internet access at all for some reason, I had to restore my netgear router three times because going to the configuration IP didn't do anything. I'm going to need to get a few things straight before I try this again.

I just did a reset on my Netgear router (not using the Asus at all right now, but at least I have internet access), and this http://s18.postimg.org/6sb73x2kp/image.png is what my current router setup says. I'm confused as to why it says Routed Bridge, and whenever I try to change it back to PPPoE the internet doesn't work; resetting the router changes it back to Routed Bridge. I have normal internet access but I don't know why it's defaulting to Routed Bridge, and why it's working normally without being PPPoE (which I think it was originally before I started changing anything).

What exactly do I have to change in my Netgear Modem/Router to get started? I disable the firewall, and WiFi (I was seeing 2 wifi networks the last time I was doing it), and all forwarded ports, and change the VCs to bridged.. Is there anything I'm missing?

It worked for a while earlier, I had internet access through the new router, but as soon as I installed Tomato I started having problems. It flashed fine, but I think the problem it had was not getting an IP from the netgear router. I tried changing just about anything I could in Tomato (and resetting if it didn't do anything), but nothing worked.

And in regards to the new router not being able to control things like QoS, I'm kind of confused as to what the advantage of putting a router like this with Tomato behind a modem is. If Cable and DSL use ISP based modems, and these types of non-modem routers are so popular; what exactly are they for? I always read about how people say third party modem/router combo units are notoriously bad and often have problems with the setup, so people suggest putting these behind your modem.

bill001g · Dec 4, 2013

I tend to use dd-wrt rather than tomato on my devices but I do know some that you can only get a tomato load for.

If the netgear device is giving private IP and doing nat then it is a router. When it runs in bridge mode it should be invisible. The main down side is most these device the only way to log into them after you put them in bridge mode is a with a directly connected pc which generally means you must unplug your router anytime you wand to check things.

It been quite a while since I used a consumer router to do DSL so I forget what I used to do to bridge these, maybe someone else will know. likely there is a youtube video showing how.

If you can live with the double nat and port forwarding issues you could leave both device run as routers. I know the main reason I bridge a DSL router was I needed to run multiple VPN sessions to the router and it was impossible to do it behind another router.

Tom Tancredi · Dec 5, 2013

Well honestly if the ISP has setup the actual router inside the COLO and just feeds out to the connections to the end houses with a Bridged Router (yes a few were doing this so they can oversell a region and control the amount of 'hours' people were online defining 24x7 'ACCESS' as it is there like a door, you can USE the door anytime 24x7, but they do not sell, except business class, 24x7 USAGE of the ACCESS).

The ISP would be the best source to answer the questions since it IS thier network they setup and should know it.

Normally people ONLY got a SINGLE modem device from ISP (Cable, TV, Satellite) for a SINGLE computer to connect to. When people had multiple computers or now (heaven forbid) wireless share the connection the ISPs refused to assist with sharing the connection. That is where these routers come into play for consumers, they would add onto the modem and setup the internal network with the single 'pipe' out through the Modem to the world.

To reduce 'support costs' because all consumers started barraging the ISP with support help needs because ALL consumers now had more then one Internet accessing device, they went with the Modem / Router model but kept the Admin access to themselves. This worked until Wireless got popular then people were adding a Wifi Router to the Modem / Router (pretty straight plug and play) and deal with it that way. Now ISP give a Wireless Router/Modem so again to reduce any of the support calls again, because they provide the WHOLE solution and there is 'nothing the consumer needs to do but turn on the computer' supposedly.

When I had my Cable TV guy set us up, I made mention I wanted QoS enabled, he went into it for me during installation and tried to find it, but they customized the interface and renamed it. I found it for him, and enabled it and since then no problems with multiple streaming Netflix while trying to game at the same time.

Search

Need help with new DSL Bridge Router & Tomato

John9412

Honorable

Tom Tancredi

bill001g

Titan

Tom Tancredi

Judicious

jcaulley_74

Distinguished

bill001g

Titan

John9412

Honorable

bill001g

Titan

Tom Tancredi

Judicious

TRENDING THREADS

Latest posts

Moderators online

Share this page