RouterHelp
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|  [Guide] Router Mode Setup
I decided that I wanted to write a little guide that might be useful to some people who are interested in setting up a a network with at least routers on there network by using router mode on any routers that are after the router connected to a modem. So here it goes. 
So you want to setup a network with at least two routers with the second router being in router mode and you just can't get it to work? Well I'm here to help. Basically for this, you will need two routers. One that's connected the modem of your ISP the will be the Gateway and another router that will just be a router. What you want to do is connect the two routers together. First, setup your settings on both routers the way you see fit. Make sure that the LAN IP is different on the two routers. In other words, makes sure that if the Gateway router is 192.168.1.1, make the other router configure to be 192.168.2.1 or if you wish it could be 192.168.3.1, 192.168.4.1, 192.168.5.1 or even a whole different IP class such as 10.0.0.1. Anyway after you have all this configured you want to set your second router to have it's WAN IP set static to the a IP range that is within the first routers network. So for example, say the first router has the LAN IP 192.168.1.1, then you could set it to 192.168.1.254 since that's the last usable address for the network. Make sure the first router is only set to give out addresses up to 192.168.1.253 in this case. Now what you want to do is setup this second router to operate as just a router. What you want to do is go into your Advanced Routing section of your router and change your Operating Mode to Router instead of having it on Gateway. Some routers might just have option to turn NAT on or off. If so, turn this option off instead. Now you want to link them together from LAN to WAN. That's right, connect the first routers LAN port to the WAN port of the second router via ethernet cable. Now the two networks are linked. There's only one thing left to do. You must now setup a static route on the first router to tell it how to get to your other network on the LAN side of your second router. So if the LAN IP is 192.168.2.1 you would setup a static route with the destination IP being 192.168.2.0 with a subnet mask of 255.255.255.0 along with the Default Gateway being 192.168.1.254. The Default Gateway is 192.168.1.254 because it's the WAN IP of the first router in this example. In order for requests to reach the 192.168.2.1 LAN it must go to the 192.168.1.254 router first. Just think of it as a pathway to getting there. Now try pinging a computer with a 192.168.2.x address from a computer on the 192.168.1.x network. If configured correctly you should get responses back assuming your OS firewall isn't set to block ping requests. You're all done. Files can be shared and accessed both ways along with shared printers as well from either network to the other.
Just some things to keep in mind. Routers separate broadcast domains which means that browsing by computer name across both networks is not possible even when they are part of the same workgroup. This is because computer names rely on broadcasts and since broadcasts don't route from one network to the other a broadcast for 192.168.1.1 will never reach the 192.168.2.1 network. This is not a problem if you know how to browse by IP which is as simple doing a Start>Run \\IPADDRESSHERE |
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RouterHelp
@rr.com | said by RouterHelp :
The Default Gateway is 192.168.1.254 because it's the WAN IP of the first router in this example.
Correction, it's the WAN IP of the second router. |
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BurntCricket
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clubs: | reply to RouterHelp
Okay, the $2 question ... Why would someone want to do this? |
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RouterHelp
@rr.com
| So that they can have multiple networks on the same LAN. I don't think in a business capacity, you would want to have a lot of broadcast traffic because there's over thousands of machines connected to the same LAN. I mostly wrote this to help people who have no idea what router mode actually does because I see the question come up a lot and a lot of people just think it's used to turn a router into a switch or access point when it has nothing to do with doing that at all. |
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RouterHelp
@rr.com
| reply to BurntCricket
Oh not to forget mentioning that if you take out the steps of doing the static route and you don't change the operating mode to router, you could do a double NAT setup and have the second network completely invisible to the other first network. That might be useful in some scenarios where people on one network shouldn't be able to access the other. |
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dbmaven
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3 edits | This is timely for me - because I need to set something like this up.
Let me see if I've got it right.
Router 1: DHCP from ISP
Static LAN side address of 192.168.3.1/255.255.255.0
Set LAN DHCP to serve addresses only in a small range, say 192.168.3.50 - 59
Set a static IP of 192.168.3.25 (example) for a VOIP ATA.
Router 2: Static WAN IP of 192.168.3.254 (the last available address for router 1), mask of 255.255.255.0
Question: in specifying the WAN side, do the DNS server entries need to be set ? And the DEFAULT GATEWAY should be the LAN side address of ROUTER 1?
Static LAN side address of 192.168.2.2/255.255.255.0
Serving DHCP addresses in 192.168.2.50-99, possible static IPs for connected devices in the 192.168.2.200 range.
Connect LAN port Router 1 to WAN port router 2.
Specify STATIC ROUTE in Router 1 setup
DESTINATION LAN IP - would be the LAN side of Router 2 - in my list above it would be 192.168.2.2/255.255.255.0
DEFAULT GATEWAY would be the WAN side address of Router 2 - in my list above it would be 192.168.3.254
Thanks in advance for any corrections !
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jza80
join:2005-10-29
Sacramento, CA
1 edit | reply to RouterHelp
said by RouterHelp :
So that they can have multiple networks on the same LAN. I don't think in a business capacity, you would want to have a lot of broadcast traffic because there's over thousands of machines connected to the same LAN. In a business or enterprise environment, you'd use layer 2 managed or layer 3 switches.
VLANs would be setup on a switch(es) to divide/segment the entire network into smaller networks or subnets. In the case of a layer 2 switch, the VLANs are then trunked to a router or layer 3 switch for inter-vlan routing. With a layer 3 switch, inter-vlan routing can be done on the switch as routing happens at layer 3 (network layer of OSI model).
Theres other reasons to split up a network besides broadcast traffic, but broadcast traffic is one reason. |
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jza80
join:2005-10-29
Sacramento, CA
1 edit | reply to dbmaven
said by dbmaven  :Question: in specifying the WAN side, do the DNS server entries need to be set ? And the DEFAULT GATEWAY should be the LAN side address of ROUTER 1? Specify DNS and gateway as the LAN side IP of router 1. 192.168.3.1 in your case.
quote:
Specify STATIC ROUTE in Router 1 setup
DESTINATION LAN IP - would be the LAN side of Router 2 - in my list above it would be 192.168.2.2/255.255.255.0
DEFAULT GATEWAY would be the WAN side address of Router 2 - in my list above it would be 192.168.3.254
Static routes are specified as: destination mask gateway.
For the destination, you want to use the network address not the IP address of the router. The network address for 192.168.2.2 / 255.255.255.0 is 192.168.2.0/24 (192.168.2.0 / 255.255.255.0)
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With 192.168.2.0/24 you have:
192.168.2.0 = network address
192.168.2.1 = first usable IP address
192.168.2.254 = last usable IP address
192.168.2.255 = broadcast address
Network and broadcast address are not usable.
So static route for router 1 to router 2 = 192.168.2.0 255.255.255.0 192.168.3.254 |
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dbmaven
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clubs: | Got it.
Thank you very much ! |
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RouterHelp
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 from:
dbmaven
| reply to RouterHelp
Wow, I haven't checked up in this post since a little while ago. Glad to see it's being used to someones advantage. That's what it was intended for! dbmaven, glad it was what you were looking for! If anyone has any questions please let me know. |
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RouterHelper
@rr.com
| reply to dbmaven
said by dbmaven :Question: in specifying the WAN side, do the DNS server entries need to be set ? And the DEFAULT GATEWAY should be the LAN side address of ROUTER 1? Just one. If you just want it to use whatever DNS is set on the router connected to the modem then set it to the LAN IP of the first router and it will just use those. If the DNS on the first router changes, you don't have to make any changes on the other routers DNS settings as long as the LAN IP of the first router doesn't change. You don't have to do it this way though, you could use whatever DNS you like on the routers after the first just like you can on each individual computer connected to either router. |
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dbmaven
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| As they say - timing is everything - plus a good use of the search function 
This was exactly what I was looking for.
Thanks to all for the detailed help and ideas !
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