Setting up OpenWRT as a Router on Zyxel GS1900-8 Switch

Installing and Using OpenWrt
1

I have a Zyxel GS1900-8 i port managed switch. Have OpenWRT running on it 23.05.5, and it came up initially with all 8 ports in 1 bridge with VLAN 1. No DHCP on LAN, no WAN, etc. because it sees it as a switch I suppose.

I"m trying to use it as a router, however, so I did the following:

  1. remove port 1 from the LAN bridge and vlan.
  2. Create a new Interface (named it 'wan'), set it for DHCP to pull and IP from the ISP.
  3. Rebooted.
  4. connected ISP model to Port 1, and PC to Port 2.
  5. Set static IP on PC 192.168.1.3, as DHCP is not even an option on the LAN interface under 'Edit' in Luci (at least not yet).
  6. I can't get to the internet when connected to the device in this manner.

I see that the device is pulling an address from the ISP. If I reconnect a different device (not the Zyxel) I can get to the internet, so that's all working.

I'm obviously missing some setup steps somewhere as I can't:

  • get to the intenet
  • Get DHCP to work on the LAN interface so my PC pulls an address automatically.

Any help or direction would be much appreciated. I've searched around for turning a switch into a router, and found a thread about turning a router into a switch (the opposite of what I'm trying to do).

Best,

2

You need to enable DHCP server on br-lan to hand out IP addresses on subnet
Then forward traffic lan->wan and do masquerading on wan port/zone.
Then assign actual interfaces to zones.

3

For the DHCP, I don't have the DHCP options on the interface while or after creating it. It's just not there.

4

While it is possible to configure the device as a router, keep in mind that the CPU is quite slow. You can expect something around 20 Mbit/s or so (I don't have exact numbers, but you may be able to find posts from other users in the forum).

3 Likes
5

It can be dhcp server. And the "undefined behaviour" having same physical port in LAG and bridge would exhibit even with real network cards.