[SOLVED] Configuring a router to work with a Viasat modem/router

[luggw1]

I recently signed up for Viasat satellite internet as my ISP and am using their modem /router to provide network services in my home. However, I'm finding their router to be rather deficient in some areas, so I'd like to disable the router portion of their device and reinstall my Linksys EA7500 router. I've attempted this, but had no luck getting it to work. To do it, here are the steps I followed:

1. I set the Viasat router IP to a value different than the standard router IP.
2. I disabled all wifi access.
3. I disabled the DHCP server.
4. I did a factory reset on the Linksys router.
5. I logged in to the Linksys router and checked its IP and all looked well.
6. I connected it to the Viasat modem and restarted everything in order - modem first followed by the router.
7. I logged into the Linksys router and it showed no internet connection.
8. I checked the router's IP and it had changed to a completely different address in the form 10.xxx.xxx.xxx where it was formerly 192.xxx.xxx.xxx, similar to the modem setting.
9. After several attempts to get the router IP to change to the correct address, I gave up and restored the Viasat router to it's original settings.

So, can anyone tell me what I'm doing wrong and what the correct steps are to get this to work? Please understand I am a networking neophyte - I know just enough to get myself into trouble.

Thanks
Bill Lugg

 

[bill001g]

What is your problem with the ISP router. Does it not have some function or are you just concerned about the wifi. From what I can tell it is pretty standard router that would compare with other routers have a 1750 number so it should perform pretty well.

If you can get it into modem only mode the ISP network should assign a IP to the linksys wan. This might be a 10.x.x.x ip depending on how they configure it. The ISP may though have some restriction and only allow their router.

So if for some reason you just do not like the wifi you can disable the ISP router wifi and then use your linksys as a AP. You are in effect replacing the radios in the ISP router. You might not see a huge difference many ISP devices are now as good as many standard routers.

 

[luggw1]

What is your problem with the ISP router. Does it not have some function or are you just concerned about the wifi. From what I can tell it is pretty standard router that would compare with other routers have a 1750 number so it should perform pretty well.

If you can get it into modem only mode the ISP network should assign a IP to the linksys wan. This might be a 10.x.x.x ip depending on how they configure it. The ISP may though have some restriction and only allow their router.

So if for some reason you just do not like the wifi you can disable the ISP router wifi and then use your linksys as a AP. You are in effect replacing the radios in the ISP router. You might not see a huge difference many ISP devices are now as good as many standard routers.

I'm having a couple of issues with the ISP router. First, I find the wifi range to be poor compared to the Linksys router. If that was the only problem, I could augment it with a range extender.

The larger problem requires a little background. I run mostly Linux Mint machines and use a Raspberry Pi for my media center. Mint provides a tool called Warpinator (don't laugh) for file sharing among the machines on the network. It worked fine using the Linksys router, but now only works among those machines that are wired via ethernet. Also, I used to be able to communicate by host name with my media server via ssh (which is also connected by ethernet), but now I can't. Needless to say, I can only ping any device on the network by IP also. As best I can tell from several google searches is that most routers run an embedded version of Linux and run an application called dnsmasq, which serves as an internal DNS service, but it appears the ISP router does not and this is causing the problem I'm describing.

Regarding your other comments, I think I understand what you're saying and as I stated in my initial post, I believe I did disable the wifi radios, but the problem is that the Linksys router can't connect to the Internet, so it becomes pretty much useless.

HTH
Bill Lugg

 

[bill001g]

OK that is easier than some peoples needs. You can just do it the lazy way. Plug your linksys wan port into lan port on the ISP router. You might have to change the IP range the your linksys uses because the lan and wan IP can not be the same subnet. This has to work because the ISP router thinks your linksys is just another pc and gives it a ip address.

You are running router behind router but the only people that have issues with this are people doing port forwarding for servers. You likely should turn off the wifi on the ISP router just so nobody attempt to connect.

Maybe a quick thing to check is see if there is a option called wireless isolation set on the ISP wifi router radios. This limits what wifi devices can talk to.

Not sure about the DNS many things like microsoft are using a broadcast protocol to find other machines. It does a similar function to DNS but it is not actually dns.

 

[luggw1]

OK that is easier than some peoples needs. You can just do it the lazy way. Plug your linksys wan port into lan port on the ISP router. You might have to change the IP range the your linksys uses because the lan and wan IP can not be the same subnet. This has to work because the ISP router thinks your linksys is just another pc and gives it a ip address.

So, then you're saying don't disable DHCP on the ISP router, right? if yes, which device will be issuing IPs to clients?

I'll give this a try and see what happens.

Thanks
Bill Lugg

 

[gggplaya]

Viasat sucks, you should sign up for STARLINK asap!!! https://www.starlink.com/ They should be fully up and running next year, but so far people in beta love the service.

I would sign up now to get on the waitlist. The problem is they can only make 5,000 satellite client systems per month and there are like 100,000 people on the wait list.

Starlink difers from Viasat and Hughesnet in that the latter 2 services have just a few satelites like 25,000 miles from the earth. This allows them to have just a few satellites which can cover all of the United States. Starlink is called LEO(Low Earth Orbit) which means the satelites are only about 340miles from earth. This allows them to have much lower latency and much higher bandwidth. Very comparable to normal internet services. But at only 340 miles, they need hundreds of satellites to cover the united states and thousands to cover the globe.

 

[bill001g]

So, then you're saying don't disable DHCP on the ISP router, right? if yes, which device will be issuing IPs to clients?

I'll give this a try and see what happens.

Thanks
Bill Lugg

Your linksys does all the work. Pretend the ISP router is outside your house and you get your internet via a ethernet cable. The linksys does not care what is connected upstream it thinks it is the only router in your house.