CMS Author MikeRivers Posted August 22, 2014 CMS Author Share Posted August 22, 2014 This has nothing to do with music or recording, but eveybody has some sort of network these days, so I expect that one or two of you know more about the workings of the hardware than I do. I can make it work when I use it like it's supposed to be used, but I'm trying to commint unnatural acts here. I have a pile of routers, switches, and hubs. I have a friend who now has three computers and would like them all to be able to use her (via TV cable) internet connection without swapping cables. She isn't ready to think about network file sharing yet, just wants to get her old computer off dial-up and her new laptop plugged in. The box she got that goes between the TV cable and the computer world has only one RJ45 connector on it and I was going to offer her something from my junk pile that would allow sharing that connection. I know the difference between a hub and a switch, and that a router is a whole other flavor of animal. But I was hoping to find a way to use one of these wireless routers that I have left over from my old Interenet connections as, in essence, a switch with a WiFi port. Seems like it should be possible. I have a setup for my studio where I have an Ethernet cable going from one port of the Verizon FiOS router back to the studio room. There, it's connected to a 5-port switch to which I've connected the three studio computers and the Mackie HDR24/96 (it has an Ethernet port and FTP server). Everyone can talk to everyone else on the LAN, and everything can access the Internet excpet the HDR because I don't want it to. But when I tried the same setup with a router, connecting the WAN port to my primary router (and, yes, I changed the router's IP address from the world standard 192.168.1.1 to 192.168.1.2 so they won't collide), nothing works. Thinking there might be something magic about the port that connects to the outside world, I connected the line from the primary router to one of the four "LAN" ports on the router and most of the time, the computers connected to the other three ports get assigned IP addresses and can get out on the 'net, but sometimes it's cranky. But the WiFi connection doesn't work at all. A computer can connect to the WiFi port but it never gets an IP address assignment. So what's making it not work? I was thinking that perhaps both routers were trying to assign an IP addres to the computers connected to the "slave" router so I disabled DHCP on that one and then nothing worked. This is as much as I know and I haven't been able to phrase the question so that I got a useful response from a search engine, just lots of videos showing what I already know. Any ideas? Maybe these ISP-supplied routers, even though they have a standard (in this case D-Link) model number they only talk to the outside world through Verizon since that's who supplied them? I do have a non-ISP-supplied router but that's still over at her place, not doing anything useful. She's been too dithered lately to call her ISP (Comcast, I think) and ask how to get it working, though I suspect that they'd just offer to sell her a new one that works. Maybe that's the answer, but will all the off-the-shelf routers that Micro Center sells in a week, people must be hooking them up to their "cable box" and using them with multiple computers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members philboking Posted August 22, 2014 Members Share Posted August 22, 2014 You might need to set a DNS address in the WiFi router. It could also be that the WiFi channel is already being used by a neighbor; try setting it to a channel number at least 2 counts away from the active channels in your (her) area. There are utilities you can download that will tell you what channels are busy. Generally, it takes a lot of trial and error to get this stuff to work... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members onelife Posted August 22, 2014 Members Share Posted August 22, 2014 Put the second router on its own network 192.168.2.x and plug its "magic port" into a port on the first router. If everything is setup to get its IP address via DHCP it should work. The second router should also be setup as a DHCP server (default condition) and be sure the subnet mask is 255.255.255.0 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members WRGKMC Posted August 22, 2014 Members Share Posted August 22, 2014 What model wireless is it. I had this issue with a Linksys router when changing computers. I not only had to setup the drivers from the install disk I had to go in and reset permissions for that computer to use that wireless. Most have a built in firewall that has to be navigated. In my case I had to go on line and download a file that let me access the thing properly. I believe you need to know the access code and there might be a default code like admin if you haven't changed it. You can also reset the unit to defaults but you really want to read this info as per the manual for your particular wireless. Once you've set the wireless code and password up you should be able to store that within the driver GUI on the computer and it acts as a secure firewall so every jackass in the neighborhood cant piggyback the signal or hack your computer. Each are different so I cant give you specific instructions but I'll bet dollars for donuts the answer lies there someplace. Start with the wireless manual setup and you should be OK. You may also need to check the cable providers site to see what's needed to have the wireless navigate the converter box. I'm surprised the Cable provider doesn't include free wireless. I went from Comcast to AT&T and both they provide free wireless. In both cases there's a separate modem for internet. The TV controller/HD recorder doesn't allow any internet connections directly through it. Maybe that's part of your issue. I just don't know what gear you may be using. When I tried to use the Linksys with AT&T I wasn't able to get the Linksys to connect through their built in firewall because they already had a wireless assigned. There was some kind of port you had top set up but I wound up giving up trying after awhile and just used theirs. I figured I'd keep the Linksys in case I switch providers. I have to rotate providers every so often to keep the cost down so I may wind up using it again. By then I'll have to relearn how to connect it properly again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CMS Author MikeRivers Posted August 22, 2014 Author CMS Author Share Posted August 22, 2014 The Linksys is a BEFW1184. I actually got it working as an access point (though I'm not exactly sure how), including the WiFi, from some info I found on the web when trying different search terms. This article said that DHCP in the "outboard" router should be turned off (which I'm pretty sure I tried). That makes sense since that way the DHCP host in the "main" router assigns all the IP addresses, including those for the devices connected to the "outboard router. I wonder if the "cable box" at my friend's house has a rea DHCP server or if, since it has only one port and doesn't expect anything to conflict with it, just assigns one address. I didn't try connecting the WAN port of the outboard router to a port on the main router since it never worked before. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CMS Author MikeRivers Posted August 22, 2014 Author CMS Author Share Posted August 22, 2014 Put the second router on its own network 192.168.2.x and plug its "magic port" into a port on the first router. If everything is setup to get its IP address via DHCP it should work. The main router's address is the popular default 192.168.1.1 and I've been using 192.168.1.2 for the outboard router. Apparentlky it's important to have the outboard router be outside the DHCP range (which I have set as .20-50. That way, it'll use a static address and say put. The second router should also be setup as a DHCP server (default condition) and be sure the subnet mask is 255.255.255.0 That initially made sense to me, but I think that's why it was flaky and didn't work every time I made a new connection. Sometimes whatever I was connecting got an address from the "near" router, and sometimes from the "far" router. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members onelife Posted August 22, 2014 Members Share Posted August 22, 2014 How does something attached to the second router know the way out? In other words, what is the default gateway? Do you understand how the subnet mask divides the IP address into a network address and a node address? If the near router was setup as a DHCP server then I don't know why the nodes would get there IP from the far router unless the gateway or subnet mask was not set properly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CMS Author MikeRivers Posted August 23, 2014 Author CMS Author Share Posted August 23, 2014 How does something attached to the second router know the way out? In other words, what is the default gateway? It's the same as that of the primary router, 192.168.1.1, which is not the same as the IP address of the secondary router, which is 192.168.1.2. Do you understand how the subnet mask divides the IP address into a network address and a node address? Not really. Every setup I've ever seen has had it as 255.255.255.0, but then I've only been exposed to the setup of small home networks, which this is (still). If the near router was setup as a DHCP server then I don't know why the nodes would get there IP from the far router unless the gateway or subnet mask was not set properly. You''re losing me here, but what I last described appears to work, though I haven't torture-tested it yet and I'm not likely to do so. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members onelife Posted August 24, 2014 Members Share Posted August 24, 2014 If it works the way you have it setup then that's great. FYI, the subnet mask is a binary number made up of a group of 1s followed by a group of 0s. 255 is the decimal representation of the binary number 11111111. The numbers in the IP address that line up with the 1s in the subnet mask represent the network number and the numbers in the IP address that correspond to the 0s in the mask are the node number. In the case of a computer on a private network with an IP address of 192.168.1.2 and a mask of 255.255.255.0 the network address is 192.168.1 and the node address on that network is 2 If you set your second router up as a DHCP server with an IP address of 192.168.2.1 it would be on it's own IP network of 192.168.2 the subnet mask would remain the same at 255.255.255.0 and the default gateway for that network would be the address of the router (192.168.2.1) The computers on an IP network know how to find other computers on the same network but when it has to look for something outside of its own network it does not know where to look so it sends the request to the default gateway. The router for the second network is also connected to the first network and must know the gateway for the first. It should get this along with an IP address from the DHCP server for the first network. If you put the IP address in manually instead of using DHCP then you must also put in the default gateway manually. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CMS Author MikeRivers Posted August 24, 2014 Author CMS Author Share Posted August 24, 2014 In the case of a computer on a private network with an IP address of 192.168.1.2 and a mask of 255.255.255.0 the network address is 192.168.1 and the node address on that network is 2 If you set your second router up as a DHCP server with an IP address of 192.168.2.1 it would be on it's own IP network of 192.168.2 the subnet mask would remain the same at 255.255.255.0 and the default gateway for that network would be the address of the router (192.168.2.1) Is there a reason to prefer one setup over the other? In my case? It seems that as I have it set up, there's one network with one DHCP server assigning IP addresses. This seems to make more sense to me than having two separate networks, particularly since for the most part, I just let Windows do the network setup. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members onelife Posted August 25, 2014 Members Share Posted August 25, 2014 Is there a reason to prefer one setup over the other? In my case? It seems that as I have it set up, there's one network with one DHCP server assigning IP addresses. This seems to make more sense to me than having two separate networks, particularly since for the most part, I just let Windows do the network setup. You are right in keeping it simple and if it works then it's definitely the preferred way. The main reason for my detailed post was simply to be informative. In the OP, you seemed to be looking for answers that provided a bit of insight as well as a solution. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CMS Author MikeRivers Posted August 25, 2014 Author CMS Author Share Posted August 25, 2014 You are right in keeping it simple and if it works then it's definitely the preferred way. The main reason for my detailed post was simply to be informative. In the OP, you seemed to be looking for answers that provided a bit of insight as well as a solution. And I appreciate that. I now know a little more than I did when I started this project, and that's just about right. Thanks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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