how to turn a router into a hub

[thadon]

i have a linksys router and i need to turn it into a hub.
anyone know how to do this?

 

[gsiener]

Basically, you want to turn off dhcp, and any other server type activities.

 

[Need4Speed]

well, since its already a switch, assuming you have the 4 port version...there is nothing u need to do except plug in the machines. and turn off dhcp if you already have a dhcp server on the system or you are assigning ips manually

 

[Lord Evermore]

You also need to assign the LAN port an IP other than the normal one. If your network uses 192.168.1.x, the router should not be 192.168.1.1 which it would be if you were using it as a gateway, otherwise you'd have a conflict. It doesn't matter what IP you use, as long as it's not one from whatever range your computers may use (if you have another router doing DHCP serving, it probably uses 100 through 254 so you'd use something under 100); it doesn't even matter if the IP you give it is in the same network block, though you wouldn't be able to access it, not that there should be any need to.

 

[thadon]

hey thanks for the responses
i tried turning of dhcp, but it still acts as a router.

could you maybe explain it more thoroughly, and tell me where all the options are?

 

[dawks]

what do you mean it still acts as a router?

are you wanting it setup so that a packet that is sent to one computer goes to all computers connected to that network? (that would be the only reason you'd want you router to be a hub..)

Unless you just want to do filesharing between the systems on the network, in which case, your router is already more then capable.

 

[Lord Evermore]

A dsl/cable router works by having a WAN port that "routes" packets to the LAN side with the switch ports. (Even though the switch is integrated in the device, as far as network layout is concerned, the router has a single LAN port with an IP address which is plugged into a "port" on the switch. So you can imagine the switch as being a separate device.)

The switch acts as a switch no matter what the rest of the router is doing. If the computers plugged into the switch ports communicate with each other (or with another router or switch plugged into one of the switch ports), the traffic doesn't ever pass to the WAN port of the router, or even to the LAN "port" of the router since a switch only sends traffic to the port with the destination computer on it. The router could be configured to do anything at all with the traffic -- port forwarding, DMZ, routing, filtering -- and it would have no effect on the traffic on the switch.

You cannot use the WAN port to connect the router to your network to make it a "switch". The WAN port is a single Ethernet port used to bridge your network with another network (in this case, the DSL or cable network via the modem). If you want to make use of the 4 port switch, you can only use the 4 LAN ports. If you need to connect it to another router that is providing your Internet access, then either you need to plug one of the LAN ports into the uplink port of the other router, or you need to use a crossover cable to connect it to a regular port on the other router.

 

[thadon]

well i just want to turn my router into a plain switch. nothing more nothing less. i still need the wan so i can get internet access, and i will have computers connected to the switch to use dhcp to get new ip addresses.

 

[eklass]

in simplest forms, a router is simply a switch that runs dhcp. if you turn off that dhcp, it's a switch... viola!

any other services are extra type things that aren't required for it to be a router

you say you want the computers to get automatically get ip addresses, which means you need a dhcp server running.. which the router does... which means you really need a router, not a switch

 

[thorin]

Originally posted by: thadon
well i just want to turn my router into a plain switch. nothing more nothing less. i still need the wan so i can get internet access, and i will have computers connected to the switch to use dhcp to get new ip addresses.

Dude I'm really really sorry but it REALLY REALLY sounds like you have NFC what you're talking about.

You want to turn DHCP off so that your router is basically just acting as a switch (or at least you think you mean switch but still aren't sure since you started out saying hub) but you still want to have it connected (via wan) so you have internet access and you still want the other comps to get ips via DHCP (which you want to turn off).

Perhaps you should just decide what your end goal is and tell us the number of systems and the model of router you have and we'll let ya know how best to accomplish what you want in the end.....

Thorin

 

[Lord Evermore]

I think he wants to use the router as a switch, connecting all his machines directly to his ISP without the router performing any router functions. Like if he connected a cable modem to a switch with all his machines, so they each got their own IP from the provider.

To do this you just need to connect your cable or DSL modem to one of the LAN switch ports, instead of to the WAN port. You'll probably need to use a crossover cable for this. That will leave you with three available ports for your computers to plug into.

You'll also need to disable DHCP in the router configuration, and assign the LAN side some random IP address like 192.168.53.63 so that it will not try to process any of the traffic from your computers or your ISP.

You can't configure the router to make the WAN port just pass the traffic straight to the integrated switch, which is why you just connect the cable/dsl modem directly to the switch. The WAN port is bypassed completely.