Connecting Two Routers via Switch

[barbaric_viking]

I live in a large university campus housing so all IT infrastructure is provided and managed by the campus network team. I have gigabit access to the internet, campus resources and the campus network.

The house also has network ports in every room (RJ54) that all go to a switch which is in a locked room outside the house. We can use any device or router we want as long as it doesnt interefere with the campus network. All traffic is monitored. Any device can be plugged into any port and it gets a 10.x.x.x. IP and is part of the network.

The house is big and one normal router cannot provide wireless access everywhere, so I have to put up two routers in opposite ends (upstairs, downstairs).

The main router (linksys ea6300) has chromecast, a raspbi, and a USB drive that I use as network storage.

The secondary router (tplink 1042) is upstairs and I have hooked up an access point for wifi access (the router's own wifi is shit). Dont really need this router, only need the Access Point.

I am using same wifi settings on both networks so my phones dont hang on to the weak wifi when I move between the house. This is not the ideal solution as the IP changes when i move but its not a big deal.

both routers are plugged in through WAN port so neighbours cannot access my network. But this has created two different networks that cannot talk to each other.

I want this to be one network so all my devices can communicate. Sometimes i want to stream something on chromecast while my laptop is on the other network.

I can turn off DHCP and plug both routers in LAN ports, and hence let each device get a 10.x.x.x. IP, but then anyone in campus can access the network. I cannot run a cable between both routers to cascade them. Using the Access Point on repeat mode to extend wifi is not a good idea cz it affects the speed/latency (i am on a gigabit network)

A physical link does exist as both routers are hooked to the same switch and get IP from the same DHCP server. Can i somehow tunnel another link through the switch?

Attaching a snapshot. EDIT
I just want Router B devices to talk to Router A.

 

[bill001g]

It appears you have a good grasp of the difference between running the devices as AP and running them as routers. If you had control of the central switch you could use vlan tags to accomplish this.

Other than that you have the same issue as someone who asks how do I share things in other peoples houses over the internet. Pretty much you have to build a vpn. In your case you could simple GRE with no encryption if you really wanted to. Problem is your routers would need to support it.

This still has some limitations since the 2 lans are really different subnets. This means some programs that only run on the same subnet will not work. It does work for anything where you can put in the ip address of what you want to connect to.

 

[bill001g]

As a different idea you might be able to just route the traffic. Again you would need more than just a consumer router but if they had third party firmware it would likely work.

Say router A has 10.1.2.3 and router B has 10.1.2.4. You should be able to configure the routers to see that if traffic has a destination IP of the other network (ie 192.168.x.x) you route it directly to the the 10.1.2.x ip of the other router You would let all other traffic that say going to go to the internet have the IP natted to the corresponding 10 ip address.

Since your router talk at the mac level and pass directly between the switch ports your traffic will never pass the main router....unlike a internet connection.