Adding a guest WiFi connection to a Technicolor broadband router

I recently had to switch out my older router to the latest PlusNet “stock” router as it was playing up.  The old one had a “guest” WiFi capability which I liked, and so I set about trying to add it to the new one.

I quite like this new router (“Technicolor TG582n FTTC”), especially given that it’s effectively a freebie.  It took a while for me to learn to navigate the PlusNet-branded web-based configuration, but I soon got most of my LAN setting back in.

And then it turns out there’s a telnet CLI!  To search for references, as there’s little help, know that the router seems to be a Thomson make.  I found a number of sites and CLI PDFs (e.g., TG787-SIP_CLI.pdf) with more or less information.

An excellent site to start with is this one.  I used information on this site to add my static IP addresses (“dhcp server lease add …”).

There’s a dedicated page to adding extra SSIDs (you can have up to 5);  I did have to follow that page’s instructions on manually bridging the new SSID.  There’s mention on the Net about BT branded routers requiring SSID IDs 1 & 2 to be reserved, so search for that if you need to;  I just added #1.

I shan’t explain the commands, as the page above pretty much does that, but I will highlight what information is important (bold+underline is important output, underline is custom input [depending upon the output or your choices).

These added a working, open guest WiFi connection, isolated from my (secured) main network:

wireless mssid iflist
wireless mssid ifadd ssid=your-guest-ssid-name-here
-> Allocated ssid id[0/1] ethernet port[wl_ssid1_local0]
wireless mssid ifconfig ssid_id=1 apisolation=enabled secmode=disable
wireless mssid ifattach ssid_id=1

# wlan_1 = new name, unique to SSID
eth bridge ifadd intf=wlan_1 dest=wl_ssid1_local0 logging=disabled
eth bridge ifconfig intf=wlan_1 logging=disabled
eth bridge ifattach intf=wlan_1 logging=disabled
eth bridge iflist

saveall

 


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7 responses to “Adding a guest WiFi connection to a Technicolor broadband router”

  1. William Avatar
    William

    Have you checked that you can’t access anything on the main network from the guest network? That configuration looks to me like it will allow the guest network to talk to the main network.

  2. fnx Avatar

    The appisolation setting should prevent that. However, I was finding that whenever I enabled the guest SSID, my main SSID started playing up shortly afterwards, making it unusable (e.g. my phone went into a repeated DHCP cycle). I turned the guest off to make it work & gave up.

    That SSID issue aside, I also found that the router wouldn’t let me access other things on my wireless network after about a day (I have 2 wireless webcams; I could access them from the Internet via the router’s NAT, but it wouldn’t let me see them from my own PC across the LAN!). I also found it got flakey for other wireless devices & had to be rebooted once a week.

    I’ve archived the thing as a POS and bought myself another Draytek Vigor (I’ve had one for ADSL in the past), this time a 2130n; it’s been a breathe of fresh air.

  3. William Avatar
    William

    I think that apisolation is meant to stop different wireless clients from being able to see each other (that’s what it did on mine anyway) rather than different SSID’s from seeing each other (that might explain why you couldn’t access your cameras actually!).

    My thinking is that you’d have to put the guest SSID on either a different bridge or a different VLAN to isolate the guest SSID. I got bored with trying to figure out what the right configuration would be.

    I haven’t (quite) got to the point of putting mine on the pos pile yet, but it’s certainly infuriating and more a thing to play with rather than something to use daily!

  4. fnx Avatar

    I didn’t apply appisolation to my main SSID, and the cameras would work for a day or so after the router was rebooted.

    Although there was quite a bit of telnet-command listing, and several “recipes”, I just got fed up trying to really figure it out.

    I also got the impression the thing runs VxWorks, and I loathe that OS with a vengeance (work related). The Drayteks run Linux, and you can SSH into a full(ish) shell, which gives me a nice warm feeling 🙂

  5. Davii Avatar
    Davii

    It looks like BE ship their TG582n’s with a guest WiFi:
    http://beusergroup.co.uk/technotes/index.php?title=582n_default_config
    Don’t know if that’s any use, but I thought it might at least point you in the right direction.

  6. Joh Avatar
    Joh

    For anyone else stumbling upon this post while trying to create a guest WLAN on the Technicolor router: all the info you need is on the site referenced earlier in the post, just follow option (d) in http://npr.me.uk/advdmz.html
    Don’t worry that this post calls the guest WLAN a DMZ, he means the same thing really.

  7. Omer Latif Avatar
    Omer Latif

    the site dosent work

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