Need help with router suggestions

[Kitar]

I need a bit of advice on expelling the router portion of my cable modem by bridging. My Hitron cable modem is a horrible thing that won't remember DHCP reservations and can't restrict more than 10 IPs. My idea is to bridge the cable modem and add a small router that I can run DD-WRT or something similar. Four ports would get me by, but an 8 port non-WiFi is preferable as it will live in a structured wiring box. Size is also a factor as space in the structured box is at a premium.

As I recall my ISP will issue 2 IPs in Bridge Mode. Normally this was done with a hub and 2 routers plugged into it, each getting a unique WAN IP. That is a whole lot of hardware to get 2 IPs. Would a router based on pFSense or DD-WRT allow me to segment it and pull 2 IPs from my ISP, or if I would need to use the hub and 2 router combo?

[simplextech]

I need a bit of advice on expelling the router portion of my cable modem by bridging. My Hitron cable modem is a horrible thing that won't remember DHCP reservations and can't restrict more than 10 IPs. My idea is to bridge the cable modem and add a small router that I can run DD-WRT or something similar. Four ports would get me by, but an 8 port non-WiFi is preferable as it will live in a structured wiring box. Size is also a factor as space in the structured box is at a premium.

As I recall my ISP will issue 2 IPs in Bridge Mode. Normally this was done with a hub and 2 routers plugged into it, each getting a unique WAN IP. That is a whole lot of hardware to get 2 IPs. Would a router based on pFSense or DD-WRT allow me to segment it and pull 2 IPs from my ISP, or if I would need to use the hub and 2 router combo?

If you have 1 modem (one connection) Then I'm thinking the 2 IP's the ISP will give you are static public IP's and would not be on different segments for use in things like load balancing or fail over. Since the IP's are on the same segment any router will be able to use them as either DMZ IP's or for doing port forwarding (NOT recommended).

A lot of people are using Unifi equipment (myself included) and use the Unifi Security Gateway (USG) for a router and then there are also a lot of pfSense users here as well. Both are very good firewall/router boxes. If your end goal is to run DD-WRT then you'll need to find something else.

[Kitar]

Thanks for the input. I am unclear as to what you meant by "segment". Our cable company issues 2 WAN IPs via DHCP. They may be on the same subnet.

DD-WRT came to mind because it is more configurable than standard firmware. PFSence is likely the way I would want to go, but is there any hardware that would give me 2 WANs via DHCP.

[simplextech]

Thanks for the input. I am unclear as to what you meant by "segment". Our cable company issues 2 WAN IPs via DHCP. They may be on the same subnet.

DD-WRT came to mind because it is more configurable than standard firmware. PFSence is likely the way I would want to go, but is there any hardware that would give me 2 WANs via DHCP.

Yes you can get 2 WAN interfaces from PFSense appliances or Unifi USG or TP-Link Load Balancing router. There's lots of hardware that can provide that. You do not have 2 WAN interfaces to use. You have 2 public IP addresses coming from a single WAN connection.

[Pete]

There is also the option of using OpenWRT on a little dual port travel router. Many today already come with a simplified gui and the OpenWRT GUI.

Here use one NIC port of 6 on my PFSense box as a failover WAN connection (cellular) which works fine.

There are Qotom boxes with 2,4 or 6 network interfaces. They are very lite relating to power consumption. I just configured a 2 port Qotom box.



Instead of bridging an interface you can also just put the firewall in a DMZ. I did this with my first FIOS combo router box.

Lots of choices out there today and all of the 3rd party choices are levels above the ISP provided SOHO router combos. (that is my opinion).

[karenritter]

I need a bit of advice on expelling the router portion of my cable modem by bridging. My Hitron cable modem is a horrible thing that won't remember DHCP reservations and can't restrict more than 10 IPs. My idea is to bridge the cable modem and add a small router that I can run DD-WRT or something similar. Four ports would get me by, but an 8 port non-WiFi is preferable as it will live in a structured wiring box. Size is also a factor as space in the structured box is at a premium.

As I recall my ISP will issue 2 IPs in Bridge Mode. Normally this was done with a hub and 2 routers plugged into it, each getting a unique WAN IP. That is a whole lot of hardware to get 2 IPs. Would a router based on pFSense or DD-WRT allow me to segment it and pull 2 IPs from my ISP, or if I would need to use the hub and 2 router combo?

Do you have this modem? Cause I have the same problem.