How do I put my NVG589 in bridge mode?

Overview

Most people don't need advanced features that personally owned routers offer and will be just fine using the NVG589 and turning off their personally owned router.  But if you're like me (and I know I am!) then you are probably reading this thread because you have ip cameras, personal clouds, photo servers, guest wifi, VPN's, xbox, QOS settings, et al.  I have an ASUS RT-N66U , a VIP2250, and a wireless reciever with a WAP; but your settings should be similar. 

 

The NVG589 does not have a simple 'Bridge mode' setting so you will need to get into weeds to get this working.  I hope you're ready.

 

First Steps

Make sure you have a laptop or a computer that you can connect directly into the NVG589.

Unplug all ethernet cables from the NVG589 except for the one going into the aforementioned laptop.

Write down the MAC address of your personal router (the WAN MAC address if you see different ones for LAN and WAN)

 

Settings on the NVG589

• Login to your NVG589 by going to 192.168.1.254
• Go to 'Home Network' then 'Subnets & DHCP'.  Your password is on the side of the modem.
• If your 'Device IPv4 Address' is the same subnet as your local router, I suggest changing it.  I changed mine to 192.169.2.254 but you can stick with whatever you like / need.  My subnet Mask remains at 255.255.255.0
• Change 'DHCPv4 Start Address' to 192.169.2.1 (or whatever your above Device IPv4 address is but with a 1 at the end instead of .254)
• Change 'DHCPv4 End Address' to 192.169.2.5, Just a few more than the Start Address.  We need these for any WAP extenders for wifi TV's.  It's important that you only have the laptop plugged into the ethernet at this point.
• Click 'SAVE' at the bottom.

• Go to 'Home Network'  then 'Wireless' and turn wireless off.  You want to use the wifi on your own router right?
• Go to 'Firewall' then ' 'Packet Filter'.  Disable Packet Filters.  Again, we want our router to do the work.
• Make sure you don't have any of your own settings turned on in 'NAT/Gaming' (don't worry if you see 1 in there already that you can't delete).
• Go to 'Firewall' then 'IP Passthrough'.  For 'Default Server Internal Address', select or type in 192.169.2.1.
• For 'Allocation Mode' select 'Passthrough' (I had to do it in this reverse order to be able to type for some reason)
• For 'Passthrough Mode', select 'DHCPS-Fixed'
• Type in the MAC address for your router under 'Manual Entry', lowercase is fine.
• Click SAVE.  It will tell you that it needs to reboot.  Hang on for a minute.
• Go to 'Firewall Advanced' at the top and turn everything OFF.
• Near the top of your screen, you should see an option telling you to reboot the router. Go ahead and do this now. It takes about 2 minutes.

Personal Router Settings.

 

• Unplug your laptop and plug in your personal router while the NVG589 reboots.  
• Plug your laptop into your personal router and login to it.  For me, it was 192.168.1.1 (hence why I changed things above)
• For the ASUS RT-N66U, I had to go to my WAN settings, then 'Internet Connection'.
• Change 'WAN Connection Type' to 'Automatic IP'.  This will give your personal router the external IP of the NVG589 and is the key to making this whole thing work. Some folks will have to manually enter in an IP and this can be found under the 'Broadband - Status' section of the NVG589 settings.  If you don't have 'automatic IP' then I feel bad for you since you will have to manually change this every time your IP changes.
• 'Enable WAN', 'Enable NAT' and 'Enable UPnP' is all set to YES for me.  
• I recomend Setting your own DNS server.  I use Google's but you use whatever you like.  Google's is 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4
• 'Account Setting - Authentication' is 'None'.
• There are no Special requirements from ISP at the bottom.
• Hit APPLY at the bottom and your router will reboot.

I also changed settings in my IPTV under LAN:

• Profile was None.
• Choose IPTV STB port, I set to LAN3 & LAN4.  I plugged my U-Verse WAP for the wireless reciver into the NVG589 and I plugged the ethernet cable going to the VIP2250 into LAN3 on my personal router.  I'm really not sure if this was necessary but I'm having 0 issues with this setup.  I initially tried putting the WAP on my personal router but had issues so I stuck it back on the NVG589 and it's fine.  I could probably just plug the VIP2250 into the NVG589 as well but I'm just enjoying the small victory of using my personal router for now.  
• Hit apply at the bottom, another possible reboot.

At this point, I checked the internet and everything was working great through the router.  I restarted by 2 TV boxes (the VIP and the wifi ones).  Everything is peachy.

 

Your mileage may vary.  Good luck.

 

 

 

 EDIT to update WAP configuration.