A tale of 2 routers....and 1 internet connection....

[chocbrucemousse]

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, and all because i have a problem. I have 2 routers, and i was wondering how i ought to set them up to allow my network to act like a single workgroup, instead of 2 seperate ones, and still maintain my internet connection to both.

I do not know why this doesn't work, but I'll give you a rundown. If I plug between a non-wan plug and a non-wan plug on my routers, the computers are hunkey dory and act like they're on the same workgroup, except those computers on the router which does not connect directly to the internet through a WAN port do NOT get the internet.

However, if I plug the WAN plug of the router without the internet connection into the router with the internet connection (non-WAN plug), I get the internet, but I do not get all of the computers on the same workgroup.

The two routers I have are the SMC-7004BR and the linksys WRT54G. (if that helps any....) I would appreciate it very much if you didn't refer me to previous articles here...I was wondering if you would be so kind to suggest the appropriate configuration for my network =)

~Bruce

 

[RedFox1]

Interesting... in the scenario when the computers on the second router (acting as a switch) don't seem to have internet access, are they able to get the DHCP info from the first router? Can you ping the first router?

-Russ

 

[chocbrucemousse]

Right now i have the network set up so all computers have internet access. The Local IP addresses of the routers are as follows:
The SMC router is: 192.168.85.117, and this is connected to the internet.
The Linksys router is: 192.168.85.116.

I cannot ping the SMC with the current configuration, I get a request timed out error.

 

[chocbrucemousse]

After a little while working i have come to a solution for this problem. Here are the steps you need to solve it:
Plug the routers togetherin a Non-Wan to Non-Wan Fashion. Setup a computer on the router with internet access for IC broadband sharing. Set up the computers on the router without internet access to get internet access from any computer on the internet plugged in router (easy since youre in the same workgroup.) Reboot the computers. Everything should be fine. The way that this works is as follows. when you plug router to router, using the non-wan plugs, they see each other as computers (i believe). Since this is the case, one router just asks the other just like another computer on the network for internet, and the internet wired router provides it. This also allows all of the computers to be on the same workgroup at the same time. *phew* is this what you would have done? I wanted to get a single router....but none had what I wanted, 5 ports to plug into.

~Bruce

 

[qbkatran]

Hi Bruce, I have a similar case and I need your input to see what you think.. I had an SMC7004BR that I used prior to the wireles time with a print server. I then bought an D-link 713P to experience wireless, but the router did not perform in my house so recently I used a Siemens Powerline Wireless router 2524 and it works for me. The problem is the new router does not a print server. Now that I have 2 extra router one of them have a print server, it seems silly for me to go out and purchase a print server. Do you think I can use the print server on the extra router like you describe. I don't know that you mean my configure IC broadband?

Is there any other way to share the printer. I don't mind to have one PC turn on all the time so the kids can share printer except that I got an different IP anytime I boot and my kids would not know how to reconfig the mapping of the printer. Thanks very much.

 

[yak8998]

you shouldn't need to worry about IPs with the printer's PC. The windows (DNS?) name will always be the same, that is what they will use

\\computer1\printer1 - i believe

 

[yoda291]

Originally posted by: chocbrucemousse
After a little while working i have come to a solution for this problem. Here are the steps you need to solve it:
Plug the routers togetherin a Non-Wan to Non-Wan Fashion. Setup a computer on the router with internet access for IC broadband sharing. Set up the computers on the router without internet access to get internet access from any computer on the internet plugged in router (easy since youre in the same workgroup.) Reboot the computers. Everything should be fine. The way that this works is as follows. when you plug router to router, using the non-wan plugs, they see each other as computers (i believe). Since this is the case, one router just asks the other just like another computer on the network for internet, and the internet wired router provides it. This also allows all of the computers to be on the same workgroup at the same time. *phew* is this what you would have done? I wanted to get a single router....but none had what I wanted, 5 ports to plug into.

~Bruce

You could have gotten a plain old vanilla switch instead of a second router I think and solved your problem.

What I was wondering is if you shut down all those services like DHCP on the second router and if you can ping your "gateway" router and if the machines connected to the second router were receiving the proper default path information.

 

[azev]

here's a link to your problem solver:

Tomshardware

Good luck