Setting up a network with 2 subnets

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Hey I also found this thread through Google.

Here's my situation / setup. It works great sometimes but crashes and burns at other times. If anybody has suggestions or advice would be much appreciated.

1. Uverse Wifi router/modem (POS but I can't change it) has the DHCP server. Most of the time everything works ok connected and any issues it has I blame AT&T for. (House)

2. iMac connected wirelessly to uverse sharing connection to a Linksys N router. Sometimes works but much of the time I can't get a correct IP address. I would like for this to be a separate DHCP server if possible. (Church)

3. Wireless Linksys bridge connected to the iMac's shared router. This bridge is connected to another router and would just like it to get the DHCP from the Linksys router. This has worked a couple of times but hasn't connected all summer. (School)

This is all for a house, church and school. Right now my biggest issue is getting the second router to do anything after going through the mac. I've just installed Tomato and I have high hopes for it.

Thanks in advance
 


I know this is old, but it is relevent to what im trying to achieve.
My Only goal is to provide a network of communication where i have 255+ ip based devices

My questions here are:
WHERE do you set the subnet to 255.255.0.0? On the routers? On the Machines?
Can I simply configure a router or server to use the following range:
192.168.0.1-192.168.1.255 with a subnet of 255.255.0.0

I dont have the ability to have both routers branch off different ways. Everything on this network has to eventually run through 1 switch as it uses a fiber connection to feed the entire infrastructure with individual switchs at each stop along the connection.
 
router has to have an ipadress in the net for example 192.168.1.254 with this adress you tell him also the subnetmask 255.255.255.0 , the clients have the range in this net from 192.168.1.1 - 192.168.1.253 with gateway: 192.168.1.254 , because 192.168.1.254 is the router, the 192.168.1.0 is the net and 192.168.1.255 is the broadcast adress, so the three are reserved in this setup.
You need to configure the adress and subnet on each device on this network.

Hope this helps
 



Use three routers. The first router (192.168.1.1 with DHCP on) connect to the ISP's modem to the wan port. Then connect router 2 (192.168.2.1 with DHCP on) and router three (192.168.3.1 with DHCP on) to router one using the wan port on router 2 and 3 to the lan ports on router 1. Everyone has internet. Users on router 2 and 3 can't see each other. Hang a printer off router one and you can share with all three routers.

dlc
 
Thanks to everyone for keeping this great post going. It has proved to be invaluable to our company as we provide surveillance cameras to residential homes, and since the cameras are opened up to a lot of people like neighbors, insurance agents, enforcement officials, block watch members, etc, it is important for us to be able to create a subnet even if the resident only had one computer. great thread.... thanks
 
My problem seems to dance around the others just enough I can't get my head around it. The main problem is.. of course.. U-verse and the ATT 2-Wire modem that's the only one that you can use. IT'S problem is you can't disable DHCP.
Currently running all computers (home & small home business) from it on 1 subnet. I'm setting up a Server 2011 off a 2nd router (because server 2011 has to be a DCHP provider and as far as I can tell you can't set it up otherwise, so I need 2 subnets) for the work computer so I can use Exchange among other things. I want to have both subnets see each other so I can transfer files between home computers and the "work" computers if necessary.
The 2-Wire address on the LAN is 192.168.2.254 serving *.2.1 thru 253 and the 2nd router at 192.168.1.1 serving *.1.2 thru 254. Several of the computers are wireless laptops connecting thru the 2-Wire on the home side, which I want to keep (router 2 is not wireless), with the work computers running off the server (DHCP, firewall, etc disabled on that router) but that can not have a static IP because of the way the 2-Wire works (no static IP's thru the DMZ) so has to get it's address via DHCP off the 2-Wire, which renews addresses daily. I'm not sure exactly what to assign to each router and their hosts. Everything has internet connection right now; all I want to do is find out how to make them see each other on the LAN without adding more equipment, or buying another router #2 that's wireless and running everything off that. I'd rather keep them separate using the equipment I have.
This should be easy to do, since ATT sends the same 2-Wire to business customers but I haven't found anything real specific online. The ATT forums address people trying to do the opposite, which seems to be happening anyway since the 2 subnets don't see each other at all. Neither pings the other. Maybe I need special subnet masks? I don't understand that part. The 2-Wire's 255.255.0.0 and the other is 255.255.255.0 currently (Server 2011 won't allow both having the same one). I'm also nut sure what to set the 2 gateways at. I've tried both without good result. I don't want to buy a stack of expensive books from Amazon just to find what I need somewhere amongst them. This is about as far as I want to take networking..... I'm not setting up a corporate empire. Any help from a kind soul appreciated!
Sorry if all this sounds ignorant... it probably is. Uncharted waters...
-- network noob
 
Hello, I am using DD-WRT on my primary router, with both public and private WLAN subnets. Both subnets can access the internet, and neither subnet can access the other, which is how I want it to work. My question is this: Can I add a 2nd DD-WRT enabled wireless router to act as a repeater bridge for BOTH subnets. I want to extend the range of both the private and public WLANS. Anyone try this before?

JMMazza53
 


Hi Horrabin,

I'm not sure I understand perfectly, but I have set-up two separate subnets (192.168.1.2-253 and 192.168.199.2-253) on the same router using dd-wrt software. Both subnets can access the internet through the same modem. Look for instructions on the internet on how to change your ATT modem/router combo into a dumb modem. Once you do that, you will want to get a router that supports dd-wrt firmware using the Broadcom chipset. To the best of my knowledge, the Broadcom based wireless routers can break apart the LAN ports in the switch, so that you could put 2 of the ports on one subnet and the other two on the 2nd subnet, providing you're using dd-wrt software. Until I modified the firewall so that no traffic would travel between the subnets, I was able to ping from one subnet to the other. In my case, the one subnet included all the LAN ports on the router with WLAN, and the other subnet was WLAN only. The Broadcom chipset would allow you to have LAN and WLAN on both subnets. You can then just add network switches to the two subnets on the router to expand your wired LAN's as needed. Info on the specifics of doing this can be found on the dd-wrt website. Did this make any sense to you?
 



I'm assuming you need router #2 to be on the DMZ so there's no way you can give it a static WAN IP. First, DO NOT disable the firewall on router #2 if you're going to put it on the DMZ. Secondly, does it necessarily have to be on the DMZ or can you just pinhole the ports you need accessible from the outside? Will the firewall config allow you to forward ports based on IP address or only hostname (IIRC it's only via hostname). If there's no way to give router #2 a static IP address on the WAN interface then I'm afraid there's no way for it to act as a gateway to 192.168.1.0 for hosts on 192.168.2.0 (or is it 192.168.0.0 -- you sure 255.255.0.0 is the mask for the LAN side on the 2Wire?).

One possibility is to have another router or PC with 2 NICs connected to the LAN ports on both routers so that it can route traffic from the 2Wire LAN to router #2 LAN. You would have to make the third router the default gateway to 2Wire clients or add a static route for 192.168.1.0 using the third router as the gateway.

Another way it could work is if you are able to resolve the 192.168.2.x IP address of router #2 by hostname and then have a job running on all of your clients to update their routing tables for 192.168.2.0 with the new gateway address anytime there is a change. Royal PITA.

At that point it's proabably too messy to consider over just getting a wireless router to replace router #2, especially if you are unable to reconfigure the default gateway address for DHCP on the 2Wire -- then you would have to configure all of your 2Wire clients with static IP addresses.
 
This has been a most interesting thread and I have a similar situation, but cannot get 2 routers to talk to each other.

My situation is that we have a gamers setup at a home and the ADSL router is only has 10/100 ports. We have a second router in a section where we have a LAN Games setup and has (also ADSL router) gigabit lan connections and N wireless. This second router does not have a WAN port, but we do still want to be able to connect to the Internet as many of the games today do require this.

I tried to connect the ADSL router via a long ethernet cable to the "games" router, but everything, including the other side of the network seems to go all haywire.

In order to get the benefit of the faster network speed, we currently just disconnect the ADSL router and connect the "Games" router, however we then lose the Internet.

We do have the hardware and we don't want to spend more money on things, so if it is possible to do this, that would be great.

I am not all that familiar with setting up things like DMZ's and subnets, so any help would be greatly appreciated.

I know this is an old thread, but this is about as close to anything similar I have found to my situation.

Thanks
Hans
 
I have a similar problem I made some graphics to explain what I am trying to do and what I am facing.
I have a DSL modem with 2 routers attached. I can connect to both routers wirelessly. However, Router #1 is the primary router I connect to; it provides a direct connection to the internet and sites I connect to see what my IP address is. I have custom firmware installed in Router #2 and am permanently using OpenVPN in Router #2 which hides my real IP address from sites I visit. I use Router #2 for downloading torrents.
I have network attached storage running Transmission plugged into Router #2

My problem is that I cannot figure out how to map a network drive from my laptop connected to Router #1 to the network attached storage connected to Router #2. I think the solution involves using the static routing feature in my DSL modem, but I don't know what to type. I have typed many different things into the static routing menu but it either fails and is rejected by the router, or otherwise it does not accomplish the intended task. Please help! any ideas?

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Thank you, Pajamas. You said what I was thinking. It bothers me when someone asks how to do something just to have people tell them he shouldn't.

I am in a growing business which has used up most of the 255 IPs available. I want to split out the VoIP traffic (phones), data traffic/KVM traffic and put the ILO addresses on their own subnet. I did a Google search on making a new subnet and wound up here. But, instead of finding an answer, I find people telling the asker to not do what he is trying to do.

Anyway, I hope more people understand what we are saying. It seems that others below have provided some great information. We just had to weed through the garbage answers to get to the good stuff.

 
You need to add a route to tell your PC how to get to the network attached device since it is on another network. You can add it in your router (add a route to 192.168.2.0 with a subnet mask of 255.255.255.0) or you can simply add the route to your pc by doing the following:

Start -> Run -> Type "cmd" and hit enter -> type "route add 192.168.2.0 mask 255.255.255.0 -p" (adding -p will make the route permanent, otherwise you will need to add this route every time you restart your PC)

 


not true at all. the reason you would set up two subnets is for security protection. if you want to divide your network and not let the computers from one side see and talk to the computers on the other. if you have a server room and don't want anyone to see or access those computer but also have a side of your network where people can see and talk to one another at their desk.

just because you don't have 255 computers doesn't mean you don't have a reason for subnetting
 
I have multiple devices that I have laying around and am interested in seeing what I can build with them.

I have:
Windows Server 2003 r2
(2) wireless N gigibit routers (NETGEAR WNDR3700 v1(Multiple SSIDs), Asus RT-AC68U)
(1) linksys wrt54g router with ddwrt on it
(2) Netgear 5 port gigibit switches
(1) Trednet 8 port gigibit switch
(2) DLink switches 10/100
(1) 4TB NAS

I want one router (ASUS) to come directly off cable modem(easy) and then one subnet with just a regular network (family, friends), and another (FUN one 🙂). I really would like to have a 2nd subnet (run by server 2003 DHCP) with one wifi/wired network that is secure, no way (viruses/malware/...) can access rest of network, and an another wifi/wired network (still run from server 2003(gets DHCP from server 2003)) that can access everything. I dont know if this is all possible but i feel its probable.

I need help visualizing the network diagram and IP/Subnet settings 🙂

If there is anything else that is cool and interesting that you can think of that i can do, please let me know

Thanks in advance
 


I have asked for a virtualization subforum to help people like this.

First thing, stop thinking of it as physical hardware. We want virtual hardware!

If you setup a server (2008 or 2012) with hyper-V, you can connect both PHYSICAL switches to your "server." That gives you redundancy. Both switches then can directly connect to your router. that's your physical network.

Switches will need static IPs and default gateway info (which would be your router).

On your virtualization server, that's where you can really start creating a bunch of virtual switches (vswitch) and virtual nics (vnics) to expand out your virtual network with subnets, etc.
 


I am little confused still. Does WIN server 2003, have virtualization standard, as i am trying not to spend that much money (or any at all 🙂) and i do have access to win server 2008/2012, but i believe my current hardware is too outdated (i believe p4 h/t, non x64, i think my board is an Intel entry server board SE7221BA1-E). I know you dont know my exact case, but can you go a little more in depth? This sounds like tons of fun. Can you provide some great sites to help with this, or give me some keywords to search for?

Ohh Boy...let the fun begin 🙂

 
TechNet.microsoft.com Just search for Hyper-V 2012

Win2k3 doesn't have virtualization. If you want it, you'll have to go to at least Win2k8, but I would highly recommend Win2k12.

Take this concept:

You have a single server with 2 NICs in it. With Windows, you can Team the NIC (Use both as one essentially). From there, within Hyper-V virtual networking, you can create a virtual switch. From there, your hosted VMs (guests) can each get a virtual NIC (or more). You can put QoS (Quality of service) on the NICs to mandate how much bandwidth they get over your physical network Team. All this is done within Windows, never having to touch a physical network switch. Also, you can vLAN tag traffic that leaves the Windows host out to your network if you had a network port that was trunked for vLans.
There is a ton more on virtual networking alone within Windows, such as cloud hosting and separation of data like Windows Azure. (If you have Win2k12, you can create your own Azure type cloud.).
 



Hey riser,

Thank you for the reply. That all sounds amazingly interesting. I would love to put server 2012 even 2008 on my box but I think it's too outdated and I can't afford to buy/build a new machine. It's a P4 ht socket 775,with an entry server board which I looked up and it only supports p4 not core2_ as I have a core 2 quad q8200 lying around. Trust me if I had the ability to install a newer version of win server I would in a heartbeat, but I don't think I can. I understand I can't use all the features you listed in win server 2003,but what can I do with the equipment/software I have.


Thanks,
Steve
 
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