[FAQ] Using two routers together/ Extending Wi-Fi

NobleBenj

I finally managed to get 30m of cable from the office to my house.  I then connected an old wireless router and to my absolute amazement it work straight off.
Basically I have connected a cat6 cable from the last free port of my Fritzbox(office) and plugged it in to an old linksy wireless router(house) My Phone, notebook and iPad all connected without even being asked!  As I always felt this type of thing was beyond me, I was not looking forward to setting it up, thank god i didn't have to.

However, while everything is working great, i don't believe the new linksy network(secondary) has a password, I have tried to get to the admin screen but nothing seems to work.  How can i secure the network before half the village starts using it?

mickevh

You could do worse than work through the intructions in post #1.

if you've "just plugged things in and it worked" you could be suffering from all sorts of IP addressing conflicts, firewall in the wrong place and DHCP issues which could bite you in the future (for example "device X was working yesterday, but today there's no Internet connection.")

Fat_Tony

I ended up getting a wifi extender on amazon for about £30

Im not sure how good it would be for gaming or heavy use but to just add wifi for my iPhone in my office it's worked a treat so far.

meansizzler

why not connect router two wan port to router one lan port and turns off dhcp on router two, no need to manually assign IP to router two as dhcp server on router one will do that automatically..

I have this setup

modem -(wan) time capsule (lan) - (wan) airport xtreme (lan) - wifi access point

dhcp turned off on airport xtreme (bridged mode)

all three wifi networks use different ssid, although don't see why they could not use same one

mickevh

I don't know the details of the equipment.  The "usual" reasons for not doing what you've suggested are...

A routers job is to "route" between distinct networks. It effectively "joins" networks together.

Connecting as you've suggested creates two LAN's in your infrastructure (incidently, two separate IP subnets (address) ranges would be required.)

Routing is a computationally more complex process than "switching" so traffic between devices on each LAN will be a bit slower routed than switched.

Thence, SOHO routers usually implement a firewall/NAT between their WAN and LAN ports. So devices on your "time capsule" LAN wouldn't be able to "see" devices in the "airport" LAN. Also there would be a routing issue in the time capsule as it would need something called a "static route" to find the airport LAN. (Some SOHO routers won't let you define static routes.)

Thence, with the same SSID you'd have problems when roaming as your clients would have to grab a new IP address every time they roamed, which is a bit ugly and time consuming.

As I say, I don't know your kit, but I'd suspect that setting the airport in to "bridged" mode has effectively turned off all the routing, firewall, NAT, etc. etc. and turned the "WAN" port into another "LAN" port essentially making it into a 4 port switch and Wifi combi, which is what we advocate above.

It should be easy enough to tell: If you examine the IP address, subnet mask and default gateway of some devices connected to both your time capsule and airport networks, we can tell whether they are participating in a single LAN or separate ones.

meansizzler

Devices on time capsule can see devices  in airport and vice versa, i prefer two seperate networks, 5ghz on time capsule, 2.4ghz on airport, I don't roam

meansizzler

I was looking at 10GBASE-T, i.e using twisted pair copper cable with rj-45 connectors not the fibre stuff

mickevh

No bad thing.

However, in LAN/IP terms, you don't have "separate networks" (IP subnets,) if everything is participating in the same IP network, (which rather supports my "guess" that you've turned the airport "WAN" port into a "LAN" port by setting airport into "bridged" mode - it sounds like you've basically turned off all the NAT/routing/firewall functions in the airport.)

Using both 2.4GHz and 5GHz hasn't created "separated" networks any more than having multiple devices each using their own ethernet cables has "separated" the devices into multiple "networks." Everything is still all in one big LAN, albeit with distinct (separate) layer 1/2 "collision domains" as it's know in the jargon (one @ 2.4 GHz and one at 5GHz.)

Dual band/dual radio wifi AP's (or routers) achieve the same thing using one box instead of the two you are using.

uzi123

Hey guys hopefully you wise folk can help me once more.

I changed from O2 to BT infinity today and my seamless roaming doesn't work anymore. My second "router" is an edimax access point which I had duplicating the exact same details of my O2 box.

I've tried doing this with the bt home hub but it just doesn't work. I've changed what I believe to be the relevant settings. However when I go from my bedroom (edimax) to the living room (homehub) my connection just drops on my iPhone/iPad. I can see the homehub but I get told that I am unable to connect? The gateway is the same on the O2 box and homehub (192.168.1.258) so I'm not exactly sure what's wrong.

Appreciate any help.

Ps I'm a bit of a noob!

mickevh

Post up the Wifi settings of both devices (except the passphrase.) We need to see SSID, "security" setting (WPA/WPA2/WEP/etc.) "encryption" type if available (probably one of TKIP/AES/CCMP,) and wifi bands (ABGN etc.)