Question Connecting 2 Routers together

technomike

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Sep 15, 2006
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Hi,

I’m having a massive issue setting up my home network with an additional router. Basically my ISP (SKY UK) requires me to use their router for internet access, but I wish to use a WiFi 6 router for extra performance. The routers work fine together normally, but the additional router I have (TP-Link Archer AX5400), has additional features that I want to take advantage of, such as USB drive sharing via FTP, and a VPN server capability, but I want to access these over the internet obviously.

The issue that I’m having is, I can't get the Archer to get internet access. I have tried using the secondary router in both LAN-LAN & LAN-WAN configurations with the ISP router, but still seem to be having no luck. In the LAN-WAN config, the Archer isn’t receiving the public IP address, only the ISP router internal IP address for the internet access, and then for the LAN-LAN, the archer doesn't even think its connected to the internet at all. How do I change this, as , but is there something I am missing? I feel as if it is something so simple that I'm missing here haha!!

Preferably after all this is fixed, I will be connecting all clients to the Archer, and using the ISP router solely for internet access, as if it were a modem.

Would greatly appreciate the help
 
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"In the LAN-WAN config, the Archer isn’t receiving the public IP address, only the ISP router internal IP"
The only device that can get the external public IP is the Sky router, the internal IP's are ROUTED out to you public IP. Unless your Sky device can be put in modem or bridge mode you cant change this. Can your own routers be put in "AP" mode?
 
You pretty much can't fix this completely if the ISP requires their box. As mentioned above can you place the sky device in bridge mode.

The next best alternative is to use the DMZ option that hopefully the sky box has. This would forward all the ports from the actual public IP to the private IP you are using on your new router. This should allow most remote access stuff to work except for some things like vpn based on some forms of IPSEC which you seldom see used anywhere but business.
 
nested setup should work fine. just turn off the wifi on the isp one and only plug your archer into it. LAN ISP -> WAN archer

Your second router could be blocking private ips -> wan. it's more likely that you have conflicting CIDR ranges. change the CIDR on the archer to 192.168.2.1/24. if you already have static ip assignments then change the ISP one instead.
 

technomike

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Sep 15, 2006
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Thanks for reply guys, really appreciate it. Trying to better my networking knowledge here haha. Right so I had to put this aside due to family issues so finally able to look at it again. I've basically give up on it because I can't seem to find a way to make it work because of my ISP router being so locked down. There is no AP mode, bridge mode or anything like that. It does have the facility to set a DMZ server but even that won't save for some reason.

I've also setup a home server, looking at using it for some personal cloud storage and AdGuard DNS etc but now I'll have to keep that on the ISP router in order to access it remotely etc

This is a nightmare all because of the ISP supplied routers....