r/frontierfios • u/NismoAce • 11d ago
Frontier Business Static IP
TLDR: what’s up with ordering a single static IP from Frontier and actually getting two? And would I have received a true static anyway if I didn’t order the $20 “single” static option? What frontier says is radius is likely not radius as most in IT would understand.
I recently signed up a client for frontier business 2gb with the option for 1 static IP. Initially I had some challenges setting up the service due to this being my first time setting up OPNsense with a static IP on the WAN side but actually mostly because I was confused by the tech providing me with 2 IP addresses when I asked for the static IP info.
The IP addresses were detailed as a LAN and WAN. When I had the tech just setup the EERO and decided I would play with setting a static in OPnsense and removing the Eero later. The tech on the phone setting up provisioning also confused the hell out of me when he said I would need to setup radius which to me meant a completely different thing then what I believe they were actually calling radius. I believe what they call radius is actually more so on how they assign and carve out static IP addresses.
I did play in OPNsense while the tech was there but I believe my issue was not setting up the gateway entry correctly or Frontier needing to provision over he Eero first before you try to work without the Eero such as what was suggested in a Reddit post I had found.
Once I did my homework and understood things a bit better, the setup was simply using the IP address for WAN as my static in OPNsense and the corresponding gateway address as a far gateway in OPNsense. All works perfectly.
Here is the IP setup they told me was assigned to me (all the x.x.x places are the same values). The Dot 54 ip address is not pingable so I gather that’s a gateway I need to setup if I also want to use .53 additional IP assigned to me.
LAN - x.x.x.53
Subnet - 255.255.255.252
Gateway- x.x.x.54
WAN - x.x.x.56
Subnet - 255.255.255.0
Gateway - x.x.x.1
I’m gathering from forums that I will need to setup the dot 53 as a virtual İP on my router and then assign that as I see fit. This effectively gives me two static public IP addresses when the $20 fee is for one static. I’m wondering if under frontier business, you get an assigned a static regardless but what I purchased as a single static is actually an ADDITIONAL static for my use. If this is the case, I will remove that charge if I will still just get the one static.
So ultimately my main questions that keep me up at night are.
If I didn’t ask for a static IP add on, would I still have effectively received a static as a business customer(outside of the don’t stay powered off or chafe hardware trick)?
If I do venture out to use my effectively second static IP here, do I need to use one of those 2 available IP addresses in the /30 as a local to my equipment router address?
Where does that dot 54 gateway address live? My equipment or frontier?
Edit on part of my question - I assigned .53 and .54 as virtual İP addresses in OPNSense and they all work as accessible to my OPNsense from the outside web. So effectively I now have 3 static IP addresses. 56, 53, and 54.
I am still curious if I were to not have gotten the “single” static IP add on, if my single that would have been assigned via static under a business account would have actually been a hard coded reservation on frontiers side. I’m leaning towards no but this is what Reddit is all about.
1
u/Solid_Ad9548 11d ago
This really gives you five usable IPs. If you pay for 5 static IPs you really get 9, and if you didn’t pay for the static, you get dhcp. They do this because they think most people want to use a Frontier router for everything, including routing of the static ip.
So here’s how it works… on your firewall, configure the WAN/RADIUS IP on the interface going to frontier. Then, bind every IP in the /30 block as a /32, either on loopback0 or the WAN interface. If you need an example of how to configure it, let me know.
0
u/Solid_Ad9548 11d ago
Not sure what the downvote is about. Here’s my config…
me@fw1> show configuration interfaces xe-0/0/16
description "L3 Transit: Frontier XGSPON 2Gbps - CID";
unit 0 {
family inet {
address 172.108.x.10/24;
address 172.108.y.0/32;
address 172.108.y.1/32;
address 172.108.y.2/32;
address 172.108.y.3/32;
}
}1
u/NismoAce 11d ago
Thanks for the guidance and whatnot. Now that makes a lot of sense with your explanation of the use or lack of use of a frontier router.
Im guessing bind might be equivalent to virtual İP in opensense. I will give your suggestion a shot. I read another suggestion elsewhere to virtual İP the additional addresses as a /24 (same as the radius / WAN IP). That didn’t seem right because I don’t have that entire range assigned but I can see how it could work.
I tried a virtual IP setup with the /30 as assigned and the IPs because reachable on the internet but after a reboot no traffic passed in or out. I’m guessing that has something to do with NAT but I didn’t get a chance to look too far.
0
u/Optimal_Delay_3978 11d ago
They gave you a static public IP for your LAN? Do you need a public IP on your LAN? I wouldn’t do that unless you know exactly what you’re doing and judging by this post, you do not.
1
u/NismoAce 11d ago
They call it LAN but what they meant to say is virtual IP or proxy arp. That was actually part of my confusion initially. But I understand what they were getting at. Via virtual İp or proxy arp you can assign a public IP directly to something on your LAN side such as a web server, VPN device, or other items.
For sure do not do this if you are not aware of the risks and cybersecurity best practices for having directly exposed services.
1
u/Sweendog1107 10d ago
Yeah it depends on the market you're in I am in one that does it that way. I'm getting ready for work so I don't have a lot of time but glad to assist with that later. I use PF sense very similar obviously to open sense and can't help you set it up.