Google Fiber & Ubiquiti’s Edgerouter

*Note* All content is redirected from nexusshield.com to here, nexushield.com is being phased out.

Background

Google Fiber is great. For just 70$/month one can get true gigabit internet, both upstream and downstream.

However, the router (Google dubbed Network Box), is, to put it lightly, not good. The few features it has only seem to work half the time. There is no bridge mode on the unit; there is no way to turn off DHCP, and no DMZ functionality. I originally posted a guide directing users how to bypass all the controls Google has put into place to prevent a customer from using their own router. The previous guide required a managed switch that was ~70$ and a high-end consumer router, or a good pfSense/linux router machine, view the original guide here. Ever since then I have been looking for ways to improve this situation in terms of making it more accessible money-wise and knowledge-wise.

Enter Ubiquiti’s Edgerouter lineup of products, these are feature-rich enterprise-grade routers that have a very reasonable cost. Ubiquiti’s EdgeOS is based on debian linux and therefore highly customizable. With even the lowest end Edgerouter, which should run you under 100$, you will be able to get rid of the need for a middleman switch and make use of the full 1Gbp/s download/upload.

 

Important Notes

The attached script will setup Interface 1 as WAN, Interface 0 as LAN (192.168.2.1/24) and no touch any other interfaces.

The attached script will need to be run as root on your Edgerouter.

You will want to modify at least line 101 on the script to change it to your domain name.

You may also want to modify like 104 to your timezone, if you don’t live in Provo.

Packages do NOT survive system upgrades, if you upgrade to 1.6+ in the future you will have to apt-get the vlan package again, or run the script again.

If you do not have TV service you do not need to run the second script.

Before running the attached script you should upgrade your Edgerouter to version 1.5/1.6! Follow this guide for assistance upgrading your edgerouter.

 

 

Hardware

Buy an edgerouter: here

Preparation

You will need a SSH client: Putty

Plug your edgerouter into power.

Plug an Ethernet cable into eth0 of the edgerouter, and the other side of the cable into your computer.

Plug another Ethernet cable into eth1, and plug the other side of that cable into the Fiber Jack.

Set your computer’s ip address to 192.168.1.2, so we can communicate with the edgerouter.

SSH should be enabled by default, open putty and type 192.168.1.1 into the “Hostname or IP address” field and click open.

Click Yes to continue with the SSH connection.

Scripts

Edge-Setup-Interfacesv2

EdgeRouter-TVScript6

Running the script

You should get a login prompt, the default username and password will both be “ubnt”.

Type in “sudo su” to switch users to the root user.

Simply copy the script content off of this blog and right clicking in the putty window should paste it.

You should see the script running and configuring your router.

If you have TV Services through google repeat the above steps with the TV script.

Other things you might want to do

Change the default password for the ubnt user. This is done with the following command:

set system login user youruser authentication plaintext-password PASSWORD

Set your computer’s ip address back to DHCP.

If you do not have the technical skills to implement this yourself, you can contact an IT support provider, like https://netswat.com.