I’ve searched the forum and struggled to find a similar situation. I have an LTE modem which does not allow bridge mode. I would like to connect it to the RB2011 and have all traffic pass through the Routerboard so I can manage bandwidth and monitor data usage etc.
Currently I have the RB2011 as DHCP server and address as 10.0.0.3. I have set default gateway as 10.0.0.1 in DHCP lease settings.
The Modem is 10.0.0.1, and it has router, DHCP and wifi capabilities. I have switched off DHCP and Wifi, so it is only my gateway to the internet. But data is obviously not going through the Routerboard.
I tried connecting the modem to Port 1 (WAN) but could not get the pass through to work. How would I set this up, remembering that the modem cannot be set up in bridge mode?
As I see It, a (LTE) modem that has not a bridge mode Is a (LTE) router.
So It has a WAN side (the LTE) and a LAN side (on one or more ethernet ports) that you have set with IP address 10.0.0.1.
The RB2011 will have as well a WAN side
(by convention ether1) and a LAN side (usually a bridge with all other ports added to It).
Personally I would use 10.0.0.2 on the ether1 of the RB2011 using a /30 network mask, but It Is not a requirement, you can use a wider netmask as well.
All you need at this point Is to add a 0.0.0.0/0 route with 10.0.0.1 as gateway and a masquerade rule in ip/firewall/nat.
On the LAN side of the Mikrotik you can use (say) 192.168.1.1/24 and set the DHCP server accordingly.
The above creates a double NAT situation but in practice It Is not that much a problem.
In this setup, the RB2011 Is a simple router, if you want instead to have a single network (the 10.0.0.0/24) you need to configure it as a (managed) switch, thus It won’t have any WAN, only LAN ports, and you will need to configure the bridge to use the firewall rules (and you won’t have the double NAT anymore).