How do I connect to TP-LINK 8816 in Bridge Mode

RouterOS General
1

Thought the title might catch some attention here. Just trying to get my head around a new RB2011 wireless in enclosure.

I upgraded my DSL Modem from a $16 TP-LINK 8616 to a $25 TP-LINK 8816 just to get some good DSL line quality stats.

Both modems are officially allowed for “bring your own modem” on my ISP. Otherwise I would get a $130 modem from the ISP that does not do bridged mode because the ILEC does not “allow it”. And besides, I can’t get the higher speeds in my location anyways.

Line quality is important to me because I am about 11 thousand feet from the DSLAM and 5 Mbits down/800 Kbits up will suffice as long as it is very stable.

I have a static IP from my ISP using PPPoE and I also have a /29 from them too. (That’s another configuration project for another thread I guess).

So my question is how do I access the modem which is in bridged mode (but it does support TCP/IP simultaneously)?

Some guru’s on dslreports.com here in North America say it can be done by adding and address to the MikroTik router so that a router gets created.

Of course the Mikrotik is using the default network of 192.168.88.0/24 and I don’t intend to change that. And I setup the TP-LINK modem/router with an address of 192.168.0.1 so as not to “interfere” with the LAN subnet on the Mikrotik.

But when I access “192.168.0.1”, I get to the router interface itself and not the Modem GUI.

I must be doing something stupid !\

The TP-LINK documentation is the best I have seen for such a low cost product but the technical support folks at TP-LINK are clueless.

So here I am trying to drop my unsupported DD-WRT’s and OpenWRT’s and roll out new MikroTik’s to my clients and stop being a hobbyist and use RouterOS as a real supported product but I sure need some help in the next few weeks.

I would appreciate any suggestions on this topic. And I should let everyone know that I have had some good success so far with community support especially when it comes to basic firewall filter and firewall nat rules.

2

I presume you want to access the modem web interface to check configuration ADSL stats etc. Depends on how the modems LAN setting work. But try this.

Usually these devices, as a minimum you can set the LAN port to a fixed IP. So set it to:

Address: 10.0.0.1
Subnet: 255.255.255.0

In the Tik, add an IP address to the Tiks’ Ethernet interface that connects to the modem (not the PPPoE Client WAN interface sat on top of the Ethernet interface) as follows:

Address: 10.0.0.2/24
Network: 10.0.0.0

Heres the bit most people miss: Because the LAN settings on the modem dont allow you to add a gateway, the modem has no idea how to route replys to traffic from foreign LAN clients. But it can however respond to anything on its subnet (10.0.0.0/24) and we just happen to have an address on that subnet so a simple masquerading rule should do the trick.

Add a masquerading rule to traffic leaving the Ethernet port that connects to the modem. This is in addition to the masquerading rule you likely already have on traffic leaving via you PPPoE Client connection, AKA you WAN.

LAN clients on the Tik (default 192.168.88.0/24) should now be able to hit 10.0.0.1 with their browser and get the web interface on the modem.

I use this setup on many of the sites I look after. I can even add routes to my local router for the remote modem subnets (10.0.X.0/24) and get to the modem interface over a VPN for checking etc.

Hope this helps.