Assign LAN port as WAN on Technicolor TG582n router

Question

I have recently switched my home Internet connection from copper to fibre. With a copper installation I had a Technicolor TG582n router (Technicolor 582n - ADSL2+ / ADSL2 / ADSL - see top of linked page) and the set-up was simple. Just a filter on the phone socket and then an ADSL cable from the filter into the back of the router, which had a WAN port that accepted an RJ11 connector.

With fibre the setup is different. In the UK it means having a BT Openreach modem installed in the house. A DSL cable then runs from the master phone socket to the Openreach modem. Then an Ethernet cable runs from the modem to an Ethernet WAN (EWAN) port on the router.

My problem is that the router I currently have doesn't have a Ethernet WAN (EWAN) port. There is a variant of this router (TG582n Technicolor 582n - Fiber - see bottom of linked page) that has one of the LAN ports set as a dedicated WAN port for this purpose, but my ISP didn't think to tell me this when I upgraded and I am now having to wait for the new router even though I have an active connection.

Does anyone know if it would be possible to modify my existing ADSL router such that I can configure one of the LAN ports be a EWAN? Essentially turning the ADSL variant into the fibre variant. The web GUI for the router is very restricted, but I am able to telnet onto the router and issue commands.

What I really want to know is if this a hardware issue or not? As I don't want to spend ages trawling through the CLI manual if what I want to do is not physically possible. Does anyone with more knowledge of routing hardware have any thoughts on this?

Solution

Yes, it is possible. I'm not sure whether this can be accomplished with the stock firmware though, as I did it with LEDE/OpenWrt.

Basically, I created two virtual LANs (VLANs), one for port LAN 1, the other for ports LAN 2-4. Port LAN 1 in the first VLAN works as the WAN port, using the PPPoE protocol to communicate with my DSL modem. The other three ports in the second VLAN serve as standard LAN ports for my local network. The specific steps needed are detailed here: https://onetransistor.blogspot.it/2017/04/wan-port-openwrt-lede-vlan.html

Comments

[JohnnyVegas]

Having to do this very thing now - so far I have a list of commands to create the WAN port but need to make changes for DHCP wan. This website is very useful for getting the tg582n to do a lot of great things npr.me.uk/nbridge.html