I am currently living with my parents and we have just started an Internet contract with a 5G wireless company.

The issue is the MFND settings are behind a password and likely not allowed access by the ISP. Even if they weren’t doing port forwarding on 5G likely isn’t possible because of CGNAT. I think I can use cloudflare tunnels or tailscale to get around this, and not many things need to be directly accessible from the Internet.

The more annoying thing is that setting DHCP reservations likely isn’t possible without getting access to the settings. It’s going to make setting up static IPs difficult too.

Before anyone asks fixed line Internet almost certainly isn’t practical in this area. Getting our own modem while possible is more expensive and potentially difficult, and would mean cancelling the contract.

Is there a reasonable way to work around these issues?

Any help or advice would be appreciated.

  • Encrypt-Keeper@lemmy.worldEnglish
    5·
    7 months ago

    In this scenario you could just get your own firewall to serve as an NAT gateway and connect its WAN port to the LAN side of your ISP’s gateway. You’d then have your own LAN you can do whatever you want on. The ISP’s device would provide the WAN IP to your gateway via DHCP, but that DHCP wouldn’t work through your gateway. You’d just make sure your new internal LAN(s) subnet is different from the one that exists between your firewall and your ISP’s gateway. The only problems this would cause in your scenario are because there’s now double the NAT going on, but if you’re already dealing with CGNAT then you’d already have those same problems.

    Outbound traffic should all work just fine, and your ISP’s device would no longer have access to your LAN.

  • rambos@lemm.eeEnglish
    1·
    7 months ago

    Afaik tailscale will work with CGNAT and you can get your own router to sort out DHCP (or just pihole on your server?). Others can probably provide better answer

      • rambos@lemm.eeEnglish
        2·
        7 months ago

        Honestly I think someone else should answer this, but I believe you can just use different IP range (example 192.168.0.x on ISP device and 192.168.1.x on new router). Reading other comment it looks like its not the best idea, but we have that kind of setup in office and it works fine. There is no selfhosting involved tho

  • Possibly linux@lemmy.zipEnglish
    21·
    7 months ago

    First off get your own router. You can pickup a device capable of running OpenWRT from Walmart, Bestbuy or most other stores.

    Once that’s done you will have way more control. For remote access I would use Netbird and if you need to expose services use a VPS and wireguard.

    • areyouevenreal@lemm.eeOPEnglish
      11·
      7 months ago

      I already have a router from another house. Not helpful given it doesn’t have 5G. Also walmart? I am not an American lol.

      So what this would actually mean, is cancelling a 24 month contract, buying two devices, one a 5G modem, and another to run OpenWRT, for well over £300. Shipping the other device back to the ISP. All with no guarantee any of it will work, given my experience with buying cellular modems previously. This would take probably 1 week plus, and cause more disruption to my parents after having already moved house and one of them being in hospital. That’s not taking into account anything that goes wrong with using OpenWRT, which is any number of things given it’s unofficial firmware that I have no previous experience with.

      Yeah no that’s not going to happen. They aren’t going to go for that and honestly I don’t blame them that’s a horrible deal, even if I pay for half the equipment.

      • Possibly linux@lemmy.zipEnglish
        1·
        7 months ago

        You totally misunderstood. I’m recommending that you keep your current modem and plug a new router into it. That will give you the control you are looking for.

        A new device won’t run you £300. If you are ok with WiFi 5 you can get one for about £50