Bridge mode on CR1000A has no gateway or DNS?

I have a CR1000A configured as bridge mode / access point mode by following tutorials found here and on YouTube. I noticed that when in bridge mode I can only set the IP address and subnet mask on the CR1000A, but not gateway or DNS. So this means that the CR1000A's NTP client doesn't work. You'd have to manually put in current date and time. If you forget to do this after a reboot, then your logs will be out of whack as far as timestamps are concerned. I have 3.3.1.2 firmware. Have also noticed the same on a friend's 3.6.0.2_BD firmware. Has anyone found a way to put a gateway and DNS on the CR1000A if it's configured in bridge mode? Thanks!

Accepted answers

AlpineMan

I think I have found a work-around, but you lose one of the ports. So in bridge mode, I also put a check mark on "IP Passthrough" so that I can use the WAN port as an additional LAN port. If I remove this check mark, then I can assign a local LAN IP, subnet mask, gateway, and DNS to the WAN port. I would then need to connect a LAN cable to the WAN port then connect to my switch which is then connected to my OPNsense router. However, since the CR1000A is in bridge mode, and its built-in DHCP server is disabled, you need to connect another LAN cable to one of its LAN ports so that anything that connects to it via wifi or wired can get an IP address from your main router, in my case... OPNsense. If you just have a cable on the WAN port and since this port is not part of the bridge, then the WAN port will not be able to pass DHCP assignments from OPNsense over to the bridge. Does this make sense? I wonder if a static route or any other setting can fix this so that only 1 LAN cable will be needed.

All comments

Maverick999

Dashboard > Advanced > Network Settings > Network connections > Network (Home/Office) - Edit > Settings > Bridge - Broadband Connections (Ethernet) - Edit > Settings > General - MTU: Manual > WAN IP Address - Internet Protocol: Use the following IPv4 Address > IPv4 DNS: Use the following IPv4 DNS Addresses > Apply

Cang_Household

This is partially correct. The other half of the story is that the IP address specified needs to be reachable by the router, either through an on-link subnet or static routing entries.

AlpineMan

WAN IP address isn't even present when in bridge mode. If you try setting it, it reverts back to no value. I've only been able to manually set the IP address and subnet mask of the CR1000A. It's on the same subnet as the main router (OPNsense). I can ping the CR1000A and "other" devices on the same subnet if my laptop is on the same subnet. If I connect to a different subnet, I can only ping the "other" devices and not the CR1000A because there's no default gateway setting on the CR1000A.

AlpineMan

UPDATE - I have not found a way to only use 1 LAN cable...well not exactly. If you have 2 free LAN ports on the CR1000A, connect one of them to your switch/main firewall/router. Then use another LAN cable to connect a free LAN port on the CR1000A to the CR1000A's WAN port. Yes, it's a cludgy workaround, but it works. I have not found any other way to only use 1 LAN cable from CR1000A to the switch/main firewall/router to get NTP client working on the CR1000A while on bridge/access point mode.