How to connect MX when you have RJ-11 for Internet Link

[SCC]

Hi Team,

I have got the Fibre to the node and due to this i have the RJ-11 uplink for the internet from my ISP. How can i connect this to the WAN port of MX64.

[MerakiDave]

That sounds like you have an RJ11 telephone handoff?  You need to have an Ethernet handoff to plug into the WAN port of the MX64.  The MX64 only has a copper port, so your ISP equipment (you have a cable modem?) should likely have an RJ45 Ethernet interface and you run a patch cord to the MX64.  Perhaps your ISP box has both, if it's delivering telephone service and Internet service I'd expect it to have an RJ11 to feed into your wired telephone system and an RJ45 to connect to your MX64.  Sorry if I misunderstood the question, but Ethernet would not be handed off via an RJ11.  

[SCC]

Yes, thats correct. The Modem will be provided by my ISP and it has the few LAN (RJ-45) ports and one RJ-11 (DSL) port where i get the Internet feed from my ISP.

So, If i will patch the cable from my ISP Modem RJ-45 LAN port to MX WAN port? will this work?

[MerakiDave · Accepted solution]

Correct, get a Cat5E/Cat6 type patch cable, which will have an RJ45 connector on both ends, and connect it from the RJ45 port on the ISP equipment into the WAN1/Internet1 port of the MX64.  If the ISP equipment is able to provide IP addressing into to your MX64 via DHCP (it most likely is) then your MX64 should get an IP, default gateway, DNS servers and be able to reach out to the cloud and come online in Dashboard.  In Meraki Dashboard, go to Security Appliance > Appliance Status, and click on the "Uplink" tab to see your WAN1 info.  

[MerakiDave]

Oh, and if there's multiple RJ45 ports on the ISP modem, it shouldn't matter which one you use, they would all be the "LAN" side of the ISP modem, which will be the WAN side of your MX64.  So depening on your ISP modem, you might see your MX64 get a 10.x.x.x address for example, not necessarily a public Internet IP address.  On your appliance status page, you'll also see the public IP address, which is where Dashboard sees your MX64 from the cloud.

[Nick]

@SCC Its worth checking if your ISP supplied modem is doing NAT if so see if you can put the ISP supplied modem into modem only mode. This will hand over the WAN IP to the MX (preventing it from warning about double NAT etc)

If the ISP box can't do that and you can get the connection details from them (assuming you receive your connection through an RJ11 initially) I can recommend the Draytek 130 for this exact setup. It converts PPPoA over to PPPoE as is plug and play

https://www.draytek.co.uk/products/business/vigor-130#overview

We use them extensively, you simply configure the PPPoE details into the MX units local page and voila!