How to go between routers on a LAN

Plebeian · Post by **Plebeian** » Sun Jan 04, 2004 11:52 am

All right, let's see who here is smart.

Not sure if it's actually possible or not, but here goes anyway.

I've got two IPs at home, so I've got two routers hooked up to a switch, which is hooked up to the cable modem. I'd like to be able to locally go between the routers, without having to go through the modem (384kbps upload cap isn't very friendly when trying to access files across the network).

The routers are Linksys BEFSX41s, and I have a VPN tunnel between the two, so I can access each side's computers. Only problem is that it looks like it's going outside through the modem and then back in, which is way too slow.

Anyone have any idea of whether it would be possible to get the routers to talk directly through the switch instead of over the internet? I would think it might be possible somehow since they are connected by the switch, but the necessary settings may not be supported by the routers or by my configuration.

AceCombat · Post by **AceCombat** » Sun Jan 04, 2004 12:19 pm

im just throwing this out there, have you tried linking the two computers locally through just one router. probably not the answer but a good suggestion.

or if its possible link the two puters through the routers bypassing the switch

Krom · Post by **Krom** » Sun Jan 04, 2004 12:54 pm

Just connect one router to the other one through a uplink port or a crossover cable if you dont have uplink. Set the one connected to the cable modem to use the device IP 192.168.1.1 and the other one to use 192.168.1.2 then disable DHCP on the second router. Windows networking should work just fine over the two of them, the second router should simply function as a switch.

There is not really any good reason to use two IPs on one cable modem when you have a router, you will still only get the same line speed as one before.

-Krom

Plebeian · Post by **Plebeian** » Sun Jan 04, 2004 7:02 pm

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>Originally posted by Krom:
There is not really any good reason to use two IPs on one cable modem when you have a router, you will still only get the same line speed as one before.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

The reason for the two IPs is to resolve IP conflicts when both computers are being used (online game, has issues when two clients are connected on the same IP).

It's possible to connect the second computer to the first's router (and that's how I'm currently doing it), just hoped that there was a better way to retain the two IPs while not necessitating cable switches when I wanted to do file transfers.

Krom · Post by **Krom** » Sun Jan 04, 2004 8:09 pm

Still, connecting the two linksys routers together via the switch uplink should work, even if you still have them both connected to the cable modem via a switch. Just tell the computer you want to go through router 2 to use the default gateway 192.168.1.2 and the other computer goes through 192.168.1.1

Online games can handle more then one player per IP, just connect using a diffrent port on each of the computers.

-Krom

Bonz · Post by **Bonz** » Sun Jan 04, 2004 8:12 pm

Well when I first read your post I thought you were talking about having 2 WAN IPs as I think Krom was thinking also, But I'm now realizing you were talking about 2 LAN IPs(FYI you can't have 2 computers on the same addy). You really only need one of those linksys routers to do the job, enable dhcp on all computers and you should be all set. This is the default IP addy for the linksys router 192.168.1.1,you can log in under that address. Unless you have more computers than what your post is saying I would take out the switch and the 1 linksys router. Doesn't make much sense having all that for two computers imo.
edit: Krom beat my post

Mobius · Post by **Mobius** » Sun Jan 04, 2004 8:28 pm

Krom - wouldn't you need Port Forwarding (as well) to do that?

Plebeian · Post by **Plebeian** » Sun Jan 04, 2004 10:55 pm

Actually, I am talking about two WAN IPs (one router is given one IP by the modem, the other a second, and then within the routers is normal NAT addresses).

I do have more computers hooked up, but for this scenario, the only ones that really matter are the two I mentioned.

The setup is something like this:

Comp#1 - Router#1 - Switch - Modem
Comp#2 - Router#2 /

As mentioned, Router#1 and Router#2 are given different IPs so the two computers that require different WAN IPs have them. (The game in question doesn't really support LAN play, and doesn't support port modification. It sort of worked with the same WAN IP, but we'd get dropped randomly.)

Connecting from Comp#1 to Comp#2 currently traverses the whole network, but if possible, I'd like for it to bypass the modem and just loop through the switch. Again, not something I'd necessarily expect to be able to do, but at first glance, I'd think it would be possible (at least in theory).

Krom · Post by **Krom** » Sun Jan 04, 2004 11:27 pm

Best way to do it IMO:
<PRE>
Computer#1 Computer#2
| |
| |
Router#1--<uplink>--Router#2
(WAN) (WAN)
\ /
\______Switch_____/
|
Cable Modem
</PRE>

This way windows networking traffic stays inside the LAN, rather then going out to the WAN (which is only 10 Mbit), you get full switched 100 MBit through that. Its about the only good way to do two IPs with routers, and still not the greatest network setup.

The best way to do two IPs is to drop the routers completely and just connect the two PCs together directly through the switch that is connected to the cable modem. Of course you lose the port stealthing and hardware firewall abilitys of the router but its still better. If all else fails, a linux computer with three LAN cards would probably do the job.

-Krom

Vander · Post by **Vander** » Sun Jan 04, 2004 11:39 pm

Something worth a try, put both routers on one network. Disable DHCP on the second router. Router 1 internal IP = 192.168.0.1 and router 2 internal IP = 192.168.0.2. Then configure the machines you want going out of router 2 with static IP's, and 192.168.0.2 as the gateway.

Tricord · Post by **Tricord** » Mon Jan 05, 2004 4:49 am

Vander has the easiest solution.
If you're a bit of a tech head, you could sell the routers on ebay, buy an old (~200MHz) machine and have some spare cash, put in three NICs and installing a linux distro.
From there, you can define which packets have to be routed over which interface, thereby effectively assigning individual computers to one of both internet IP's.

But the most easy thing to do would, in my opinion, be Vanders solution. Just give everyone a fixed IP, disable all DHCP servers, and configure clients either with gateway 1 or gateway 2 as you see fit. If you want to switch from router, just change the number in your TCP/IP settings and voila!

BUBBALOU · Post by **BUBBALOU** » Mon Jan 05, 2004 5:42 am

Before we go any further.......

I just find it silly that the major issue has not been addressed here! WHY DO YOU HAVE 2 MODEMS and 2 ROUTERS. (need more details than provided)

cause if you are going to all this trouble for just one game as in port fowarding can resolve(this is no problem)a single linksys can handle it!

The way I would go if it was a no choice situation is add a second NIC card to the second computer that would obptain IP automatically from the 1st computers network and be part of that workgroup.. while having it's own IP and internet connection through the first card (just unbind file and pritner sharing on the stack for the first card) just remember when you add the second nic you might have to go back and reconfigure the primary NIC..

WarAdvocat · Post by **WarAdvocat** » Mon Jan 05, 2004 9:25 am

Just out of curiosity what game(s) are you having trouble with? I bought my Linksys BEFSR41 specifically because it is gaming friendly, and I've VERY rarely had any issues since I put it in, with the exception of certain programs that don't like working through NAT (such as...ahem...older versions of Kali).

With the current firmware (full uPNP support) I haven't seen any conflicts whatsoever, in games as varied as anything from Descent 1 to Star Wars Galaxies to Need for Speed Underground to Blizzard.Net games.

Plebeian · Post by **Plebeian** » Mon Jan 05, 2004 9:53 am

The problem I'm sure is on the server side, as it's an alpha-stage MMORPG, so of course not everything will be working: Whispers in Akarra (http://www.akarra.net). Usually things seems to work just fine, but at the current stage, multiple clients behind NAT just don't seem to be liked by the server code. It'll work fine, then all of a sudden, both clients will be disconnected. Seems like some people have been able to do it just fine on a LAN, so it's probably just some slightly "off" code, and because of our network setup or ISP or something, we're just happening to hit the problem. (My guess is that it's a timeout issue, though checking the server logs shows that sometimes there was a recent "pong" packet sent back to the server's "ping" request -- no, it's not PING in the normal sense, but the server occasionally will make sure that a client is still around, and if not, it'll sever that connection.)

I tried playing around with port forwarding and the like, based on the ports that seemed to be getting used, but it didn't end up helping. So we decided to give up for the time being and just try adding a second IP.

With everything else (other games, IM, pretty much everything else), I can work just fine with the firewall fully up and no ports open, it's just this one, and it seems to be NAT-related, pretty much. I could be wrong, and maybe there's more to try to get it to recognize the two individual connections, but when I'd tried previously, I hadn't been able to get any change in behavior.

Tricord · Post by **Tricord** » Mon Jan 05, 2004 11:11 am

It's not NAT related, otherwise you wouldn't be able to play because though you have only one game client per IP address, it still gets NAT'ed by the router. It must be that the game server doesn't like you accessing twice from the same IP, for other reasons than NAT. If you were to run two clients from the same machine without NAT, you'd have the same problem.

Krom · Post by **Krom** » Mon Jan 05, 2004 11:43 am

Everyone is missing the point, its not the internet access thats casuing him problems, its slow windows file transfers. Yes he needs to change the IP of one of the routers to 192.168.1.2 and disable DHCP on both of them, but that still wont solve his slow file transfer problems. Stacking the two linksys switches together will.

Plebeian · Post by **Plebeian** » Mon Jan 05, 2004 2:31 pm

Well, for now it's patched up something like what Krom posted (connecting the two routers, and set up the addresses on the same subnet), and download speeds over wireless improved from 95 minutes to 63 minutes (still slow for some reason, but still 33% better), but the true test was using a wired connect to the second router (disconnect the cable from the AP and use it on the laptop) went from that same 95 minutes to around 4 minutes.

Next, I need to look at what's up with my transfer over wireless. Downloads usually come through great, but here, file transfers suck. Oh well, at least I'm getting closer, and I only have to unplug one end of a cable in order to connect near the routers, if I do need something transferred quickly. Hopefully I can track down what the bottleneck is in those wireless transfers, and get that speed down to 5-10 minutes, as well. Wireless is slow, but not that slow!

(The wireless situation isn't the best in my house, as the computer room and living room have the fireplace between them, and signals just don't seem to want to travel through that at all. Had to hack together a setup using a power-line AP. Our next place will definitely be wired for Ethernet so even if a central AP won't work, one can be hooked up to the wall. If we're here long enough, I may get tired of it and try to add Ethernet drops....)