Connecting 2 networks, 2 gateways

[zx7king]

Hello,

I have searched and found threads with different versions of what I am trying to do but I cannot find one that is exactly the same. If it exists, I apologize.

My neighbors and I want to cross backup our data. It is quite easy to run a cat5 cable so this does not have to be wireless. We both have our own internet connections.. this is NOT to share internet connectivity. They have uverse and I have TWC.

The uverse router does not allow static routes to be set. I have a wrt54g as my main router and have an old BEFSR81 i was hoping to use to do this. There is one server on their side I would like to see from my network and one on my side they need to see. We want two networks that go out of their respective gateways. I tried what i have listed below and cannot get it to work.

neighbor uverse (gateway) - 10.0.0.130 mask 255.255.255.128
connected to (LAN port)
my BEFSR81 10.0.0.135 mask 255.255.255.128
connected to (LAN port)
my wrt54g (gateway) 10.0.0.1 mask 255.255.255.128

I was hoping this would keep our subnets separate while still allowing connectivity between the two networks.

Thoughts?

Thanks in advance...
Charles

 

[Emerald]

an easy way would be to add a second network card into both servers and assign them a Static IP.

IP: 192.168.1.xxx
Mask: 255.255.255.0
Gateway: NONE

not sure if the Workgroup name needs to be the same.

then connect the two servers via a Crossover network cable. make sure it is a crossover cable and the two computer should be able to see each others files

another option would be a VPN using Hamachi from LogMeIn.com which is free for personal use.

 

[eibgrad]

I agree w/ Emerald, the easy way to do this is w/ Hamachi (and awesome and underutilized solution, imo). And it’s pretty easy to setup and use. The downside, of course, is that you’re consuming internet bandwidth, and limited in download speed by your neighbor’s upload speed (which might be a puny 768KB as it is w/ my cable). So these may be issues, esp. if your ISP imposes caps.

If want to take the other approach and run wire between your homes, then as Emerald says, the easiest approach is to install ethernet adapters between two machines and essentially create a second network. Of course, it will need to use a subnet different from both of your current subnets. And it’s very unlikely you’ll need a crossover cable since most modern equipment uses auto-sensing to keep the wiring configured properly. You’d have to have some pretty old equipment before that became an issue, and even then, if at least ONE of the network adapters is auto-sensing, that’s sufficient. I just don’t want you needlessly buying crossover cable (which I’m sure they’ll charge a premium for, LOL) if you don’t need it (even if you did, it would probably be cheaper to get a new network adapter w/ auto-sensing!).

Now if you’re trying to do this by connecting your respective routers together, that’s tricky because that means they would effectively be sharing the same switch, and that leads to problem w/ DHCP. There’s no guarantee which DHCP server would respond first. And thus you *might* find yourself configured for the other’s network and using the other’s gateway!

If you want to run wire between you, and would rather not dedicate two machines for this purpose as described above, then I would suggest getting two cheap routers (don’t even need wireless if that saves you some money, probably not, and you might decide to use wireless in the future anyway) and create a wired bridge between your two networks as follows:

[local network A]<-- wire -->(lan)[router A](wan)<-- wire -->(wan)[router B](lan)<-- wire -->[local network B]

IOW, you’re just creating an entry point into your local network the same way you both currently have entry points into your respective local networks from the ISP. It just a closed system between you and the neighbor. The nice part is that now you can control what is and isn’t accessible, the same way you control what is and isn’t accessible over your primary router from the internet. And if you’d like to keep it wide open, no problem, just bring the firewall down completely.

The only thing you’ll need to do is define a common subnet on the WAN side of each router and define static IPs (e.g., 10.0.0.1 and 10.0.0.2). Then when you want to access resources on the other network, you’ll refer to the 10.0.0.x network and the appropriate port, w/ appropriate port forwarding, of course. You’ll need to either define static routes on your clients, or if the primary router supports it, on the router so the 10.0.0.x network can be located. And if the routers support disabling of NAT, then you can addresses the other networks devices directly, without the need for port forwarding. Lots of ways to configure this.

 

[zx7king]

Thank you both very much. I was not aware that Hamachi was free for personal use. I downloaded to both machines and got a network going within minutes. I can see the XP machine from win 7 but not the other direction. Figure something with Win 7 i need to figure out.. searching around for that now. The xp machine cannot ping or browse the win 7 machine but they are both green on the net. I have it set as a "home" network. At first it showed as a public network on the win 7 machine and i changed it. Thoughts?

Once i get this working.. his is by far the easiest solution.. thanks again !

Charles

 

[eibgrad]

On Win7, be sure to treat the Hamachi network as private (or home, can't remember the language), not public, so the system won't prevent access into the Win7 network. You don't have this problem w/ XP because XP never had the notion of private/home vs. public networks.

 

[theholmboy]

If you want to run wire between you, and would rather not dedicate two machines for this purpose as described above, then I would suggest getting two cheap routers and create a wired bridge between your two networks as follows:

[local network A]<-- wire -->(lan)[router A](wan)<-- wire -->(wan)[router B](lan)<-- wire -->[local network B]

IOW, you’re just creating an entry point into your local network the same way you both currently have entry points into your respective local networks from the ISP. It just a closed system between you and the neighbor. The nice part is that now you can control what is and isn’t accessible, the same way you control what is and isn’t accessible over your primary router from the internet. And if you’d like to keep it wide open, no problem, just bring the firewall down completely.

The only thing you’ll need to do is define a common subnet on the WAN side of each router and define static IPs (e.g., 10.0.0.1 and 10.0.0.2). Then when you want to access resources on the other network, you’ll refer to the 10.0.0.x network and the appropriate port, w/ appropriate port forwarding, of course. You’ll need to either define static routes on your clients, or if the primary router supports it, on the router so the 10.0.0.x network can be located. And if the routers support disabling of NAT, then you can addresses the other networks devices directly, without the need for port forwarding. Lots of ways to configure this.

eibgrad - I have a very similar situation and I am intrigued by what you describe. I have extra routers that are not too old and this is an option I would like to set up. I have a few questions, but because the post is 2 years old, I wasn't sure if an answer would be forthcoming. I can fully detail and diagram the network... Are you still answering questions? I googled the subject, but I am probably not using the right terminology and could not find answers that applied to my situation. Thanks!
RHH