Will this network setup work?

Message

genfive · Post by **genfive** » Sat Jul 15, 2006 2:10 am

I am facing a problem here. I have two d-link routers, DI604 and DI524. DI604 works like a charm, but it doesn't have wireless capability. DI524 on the other hand is a piece of junk which sometimes actually works. I paid some good money for both of them, so I don't want to just throw them away to get another one.

Since DI604 is more reliable, I have to use it as my front gate. Meanwhile, I'd like to have wireless capabilities for my laptop, so here is my plan. Please take a look at it and see if it will actually work:

Code: Select all

                       |===  desktop computer
Internet == [DI-604] ==
                       | === [DI=524] ==
                                        |=== laptop

However, there is a problem. the router, can only see itself as 192.168.0.1, and can only hand out IPs ranged in 192.168.0.xxx. If I use a subnet mask of 255.255.255.0, then the laptop will not be able to see the desktop. My question is, what if I use the subnet mask of 255.255.255.240, to mask out the highest 4 bits of the last byte? Then I will fix the desktop computer's IP to be 192.168.0.17, and the laptop computer's IP to be 192.168.0.3 - will they be able to see each other? thanks!

ragefan · Post by **ragefan** » Sat Jul 15, 2006 5:46 am

The way to do this is to turn off DHCP on the wireless router. Keep all your connection on the LAN side with nothing into the WAN port. This makes everything on the same side on the router and it will just act as a switch. Just keep the Gateway address on the laptop the same as the desktop's.

We do this at work with a Linksys WRT54G for the occasional laptop wireless connection, works like a charm.

airflow · Post by **airflow** » Sat Jul 15, 2006 8:04 am

It makes no sense using a netmask of 255.255.255.240, as the two IPs you were writing about are already in the same IP-network. The drawing you gave is ok, but this setup will only work if the DI-521 is bridging (not routing) between wireless and wired interface. I don't know if that is the case, perhaps you can activate it in the configuration. If yes, then just keep your old netmask 255.255.255.0, and configure the ips like you wrote in your posting. Perhaps it might be wise to look at the manufacturers homepage to look for updates for your DI-521?

greez,
airflow

genfive · Post by **genfive** » Sat Jul 15, 2006 6:40 pm

airflow wrote:It makes no sense using a netmask of 255.255.255.240, as the two IPs you were writing about are already in the same IP-network. The drawing you gave is ok, but this setup will only work if the DI-521 is bridging (not routing) between wireless and wired interface. I don't know if that is the case, perhaps you can activate it in the configuration. If yes, then just keep your old netmask 255.255.255.0, and configure the ips like you wrote in your posting. Perhaps it might be wise to look at the manufacturers homepage to look for updates for your DI-521?

greez,
airflow

Thanks, you two, for the detailed information. This really helps. I will set it up when I get home. BTW, I'd just like to point out, the D-Link homepage is no help at all, nor their customer service reps... I had so much trouble contacting them... I will move away from dlink for my future router purchases

airflow · Post by **airflow** » Sat Jul 15, 2006 7:16 pm

I will move away from dlink for my future router purchases.

I can recommend Linksys. If you have further problems, let us know here...

greez,
airflow

genfive · Post by **genfive** » Sat Jul 15, 2006 7:31 pm

airflow wrote:
I will move away from dlink for my future router purchases.
I can recommend Linksys. If you have further problems, let us know here...

greez,
airflow

Thanks! Yeah, they are a subdivision of cisco, so it should be good. Actually, I was looking at buying a WRT54G or a WRT54GL. Some review from amazon said that WRT54G has too little memory to do any good, but recommended 54GL, which has 5-star rating...

Which one should I go with?

airflow · Post by **airflow** » Sat Jul 15, 2006 7:57 pm

I don't know every model Linksys offers, but they just tend to do their things... I have experience with WAG54G V.2 and WRT54GC (a wonderful device - tiny and powerful). So I would suggest just to check the featurelist on the website. According to your question about RAM - why would you care about it? There's only one situation, where you might want to have a specific amount of memory: when you are going to delete the original firmware and use OpenWrt instead (http://openwrt.org/). If you're interested in this, I suggest you have a look at the page with supported hardware there.

greez,
airflow

genfive · Post by **genfive** » Sun Jul 16, 2006 4:39 am

airflow wrote:I don't know every model Linksys offers, but they just tend to do their things... I have experience with WAG54G V.2 and WRT54GC (a wonderful device - tiny and powerful). So I would suggest just to check the featurelist on the website. According to your question about RAM - why would you care about it? There's only one situation, where you might want to have a specific amount of memory: when you are going to delete the original firmware and use OpenWrt instead (http://openwrt.org/). If you're interested in this, I suggest you have a look at the page with supported hardware there.

greez,
airflow

Thanks for all the information - so glad we have experts like you here

No, I don't think I will ever wipe out the firmware... as a college student, my pocket is not that deep, and after all, I am still trying to resurrect the dlink DI524 instead of purchasing a new linksys...

genfive · Post by **genfive** » Thu Jul 20, 2006 3:37 pm

ragefan wrote:The way to do this is to turn off DHCP on the wireless router. Keep all your connection on the LAN side with nothing into the WAN port. This makes everything on the same side on the router and it will just act as a switch. Just keep the Gateway address on the laptop the same as the desktop's.

We do this at work with a Linksys WRT54G for the occasional laptop wireless connection, works like a charm.

Apparently this is not working for me. I am looking at my wireless connections, and its default gateway and DNS server are set to be the IP of the wireless router. Since the WAN port is not working, I can never get anything from the internet...

lkarayan · Post by **lkarayan** » Fri Jul 21, 2006 12:46 am

genfive wrote:Apparently this is not working for me. I am looking at my wireless connections, and its default gateway and DNS server are set to be the IP of the wireless router. Since the WAN port is not working, I can never get anything from the internet...

Sounds like you haven't turned off DHCP on the wireless router

airflow · Post by **airflow** » Fri Jul 21, 2006 12:01 pm

genfive wrote:
ragefan wrote:The way to do this is to turn off DHCP on the wireless router. Keep all your connection on the LAN side with nothing into the WAN port. This makes everything on the same side on the router and it will just act as a switch. Just keep the Gateway address on the laptop the same as the desktop's.

We do this at work with a Linksys WRT54G for the occasional laptop wireless connection, works like a charm.

Apparently this is not working for me. I am looking at my wireless connections, and its default gateway and DNS server are set to be the IP of the wireless router. Since the WAN port is not working, I can never get anything from the internet...

genfive, have you already found out if the wireless-router also can be turned into bridged mode (as i wrote in my first post)? Because this will decide how to proceed here. If it can be turned to bridged mode, you just turn off DHCP and everything will be fine. If not (as I'm afraid), do NOT turn off DHCP. You will need two DHCP-servers then, one for your LAN, and one for your WLAN. You will then double-nat the connections from the WLAN. It's not very nice, but the only way to do it (if the wireless-device is routing and not bridging. Wait, there's possibly also a third solution: If the Wireless-router also has a few ethernet-ports on the inside, you could also just connect those to one of the inside ports of the gateway router (and turn off DHCP on the wireless-router). Why don't you just only use the wireless-router as a gateway and everything is fine?

bye,
airflow

genfive · Post by **genfive** » Fri Jul 21, 2006 1:07 pm

thanks again for helping me. well, recall the problem is that my wireless router is a piece of junk that doesn's work well, so I cannot use it as my gateway. connecting from inside to the outside seems to be working in some sense, however, no connection can last more than 30 seconds from outside in. I think I can turn off the DHCP, but the only problem is that something wrong with the router, and every time I change some settings on the router, it freezes upon restarting. So I have to do the pull-the-plug-then-wait-for-60-second-trick... it gets tiresome after a while.

I will see if I can find more time today to get the setup to work. really appreciate the inputs from all of you.