Cascading routers and using USB port on slave

[burnsy180]

Hi there,

So I have 2 x Netgear D6000 Wifi Modem/Routers cascaded LAN to LAN. Main router is connected to fibre modem and sitting in the garage at the front of the house. Slave is at the other end of the house connected to the main via ethernet and acting as an access point. The idea is to have seamless wifi coverage throughout the house, and have several wired connections to the slave router as well to keep speeds up.
Main and slave are set up as 192.168.1.1 and 1.2 respectively. DHCP is disabled on the slave, and main DHCP range starts from 1.3.

Everything seems to be working pretty well up to this point however I have a few issues I need to iron out and can't seem to find a solution.

Although I can get internet access through the slave router, it doesn't itself detect that it has internet access. I'm not quite sure how to set up the router to look for internet via the other router. I'm not sure if this even needs to be fixed but if it doesn't think it has internet it cannot check for firmware updates or share to online ftp servers etc.

This mat be related to the above problems, but when I connect a USB drive to my slave router I can't access it by a DLNA server. It registers in the routers setup page, but can't find it anywhere else. Also in comparison to the main router, the slave's settings ADVANCED -> USB STORAGE, doesn't show "Media Server" where the main router does.

I think I've got everything almost sorted, just these few things have got me stumped.

Any help or suggestions would be appreciated.

Cheers

 

[RealBeast]

They are really not cascaded, as in LAN to WAN connection -- LAN to LAN is for connecting the second router in AP mode and the USB in AP mode won't work.

On the second router, with the LAN to LAN connection, shut off DHCP and set its gateway to the address of router 1 (the router with DHCP and the ISP connection). Give the second router a static address in the network range but not in the DHCP range of router 1. Then set router 2 wireless settings to different channels than 1.

 

[burnsy180]

They are really not cascaded, as in LAN to WAN connection -- LAN to LAN is for connecting the second router in AP mode and the USB in AP mode won't work.

On the second router, with the LAN to LAN connection, shut off DHCP and set its gateway to the address of router 1 (the router with DHCP and the ISP connection). Give the second router a static address in the network range but not in the DHCP range of router 1. Then set router 2 wireless settings to different channels than 1.

OK so I've set the second router as follows:
Does your ISP require a login? N
Internet IP: 192.168.1.2 (address of second router)
Subnet Mask: 255.255.255.0
Gateway: 192.168.1.1 (address of main router with internet access)

After this I clicked "test" and after a minute or so of loading, I got a message saying "to avoid conflicts with your ISP, your routers ip address has changed to 10.0.0.1"

Now I am unable to access the routers setup page at the new address. I've pinged the new address and am getting returns. The old address of 192.168.1.2 no longer gets replies.

Is there any way to access the router now without factory resetting it and setting it up again?
I've had this happen before when I've tried a similar setup

 

[RealBeast]

Sorry, should have mentioned this in the first post.

I see that you are trying to use two DSL modem/routers to do this. Generally, that will not work -- your second device needs to just be a simple router -- not a modem and router combination. While your setup is correct now, your hardware does not support such a function for the second device in the garage.

 

[burnsy180]

Was your internal LAN gateway 10.0.0.1 ti begin with?

What models are the two devices (main router and second router and do you have a separate modem or is it integrated with the main router, i.e. what the ISPs often call a gateway)?

You may need to reset the main router depending on what it currently has as settings, if it functions (other than with the AP "router") then you do not.

Once it is properly set up you should not need to run any tests using some router test.

No my gateway (to the main router is 192.168.1.1).
Both routers are Netgear D6000. There is a separate modem at the front end. A Huawei something.

So it goes fibre-->modem-->router-->router.

The main router is connected via PPPoE and connects perfectly fine. The second router passes through the internet connection to everything fine as well, it is just the router doesn't think it has internet, if that makes sense. The "Internet" light doesn't come on, and in its settings it says Internet is not connected, even though it is.

If this second router is just acting as an access point, is it supposed to say it has internet access?

 

[RealBeast]

The problem is that the second device will not work as an access point, you need a cheap router that does not have a built in modem to use it as an AP.

And the AP will not be overtly visible in the network, although you will see it in the main router static table.

 

[BuddhaSkoota]

The main router is connected via PPPoE and connects perfectly fine. The second router passes through the internet connection to everything fine as well, it is just the router doesn't think it has internet, if that makes sense. The "Internet" light doesn't come on, and in its settings it says Internet is not connected, even though it is.

If this second router is just acting as an access point, is it supposed to say it has internet access?

The second router is looking for Internet access through the WAN port. Since the WAN port is unused when configured as an AP, it will not "see" the Internet. You will likely need to check for and perform updates manually.

 

[burnsy180]

The problem is that the second device will not work as an access point, you need a cheap router that does not have a built in modem to use it as an AP.

And the AP will not be overtly visible in the network, although you will see it in the main router static table.

So if I exchanged my d6000's for something like this:http://www.msy.com.au/qld/ipswitch/peripherals/5143-tp-link-tl-wdr4300-wireless-n750-dual-band-gigabit-router.html , could I configure this as an access point? And if it was configured this way, can it "see" the internet, and can I utilise its usb port?

 

[RealBeast]

The problem is that the second device will not work as an access point, you need a cheap router that does not have a built in modem to use it as an AP.

And the AP will not be overtly visible in the network, although you will see it in the main router static table.

So if I exchanged my d6000's for something like this:http://www.msy.com.au/qld/ipswitch/peripherals/5143-tp-link-tl-wdr4300-wireless-n750-dual-band-gigabit-router.html , could I configure this as an access point? And if it was configured this way, can it "see" the internet, and can I utilise its usb port?

Yes, exchange the second D6000 for that and it will work fine -- I've used many of those as APs and they work well. While I have not tried it on that model, you usually cannot use the USB port on routers that are set up as APs.

The TP-Link will provide Internet access from the main modem/router (D6000) transparently -- that is all devices that are attached to the remaining 3 TP-Link LAN ports (one is used for the LAN to LAN port connection from the D6000) or its wireless radios will be assigned IP addresses by the main D6000 and will connect to the Internet.

 

[burnsy180]

The problem is that the second device will not work as an access point, you need a cheap router that does not have a built in modem to use it as an AP.

And the AP will not be overtly visible in the network, although you will see it in the main router static table.

So if I exchanged my d6000's for something like this:http://www.msy.com.au/qld/ipswitch/peripherals/5143-tp-link-tl-wdr4300-wireless-n750-dual-band-gigabit-router.html , could I configure this as an access point? And if it was configured this way, can it "see" the internet, and can I utilise its usb port?

Yes, exchange the second D6000 for that and it will work fine -- I've used many of those as APs and they work well. While I have not tried it on that model, you usually cannot use the USB port on routers that are set up as APs.

The TP-Link will provide Internet access from the main modem/router (D6000) transparently -- that is all devices that are attached to the remaining 3 TP-Link LAN ports (one is used for the LAN to LAN port connection from the D6000) or its wireless radios will be assigned IP addresses by the main D6000 and will connect to the Internet.

OK I'm just a bit confused. Currently my D6000 is doing exactly what you describe that the TP-Link would do as an access point. It provides internet access to all devices connected to it from the main router.
And if I can't use the USB port on AP's anyway, isn't my D6000 behaving exactly as an access point should?
Or is the only difference that the modem/router will look for internet via the WAN, and the router will look via LAN?
I noticed the TP-Link has a WAN port also, so if it was connected LAN to LAN, wouldn't it look for internet via that same WAN port the same as the modem/router?

 

[burnsy180]

The main router is connected via PPPoE and connects perfectly fine. The second router passes through the internet connection to everything fine as well, it is just the router doesn't think it has internet, if that makes sense. The "Internet" light doesn't come on, and in its settings it says Internet is not connected, even though it is.

If this second router is just acting as an access point, is it supposed to say it has internet access?

The second router is looking for Internet access through the WAN port. Since the WAN port is unused when configured as an AP, it will not "see" the Internet. You will likely need to check for and perform updates manually.

So all routers (whether modem/routers or standalone routers) will look for internet via their WAN port? So when any router is configured as an access point, it can't detect internet, it just passes it through?

 

[RealBeast]

Not exactly, when you configure a router as an AP you give it a gateway address of the main router and all address requests that are not connected to that AP (using a MAC address search) get passed to the gateway address (main router), which in turn passes the page request to the the outside world (Internet) since it is not an address on the LAN.

The WAN port is not the issue with an AP, as you do not use it for an AP.

 

[burnsy180]

So I ended up buying an R7000 and have it set up as an access point. Set up when pretty straight forward and the R7000 "sees" the internet connection. The USB works perfectly and wireless range is excellent. I guess RealBeast is correct about a modem/router not being able to function as an access point, at least not perfectly anyway. Cheers for your help.