wan to lan connection help

andrewjs18

Honorable
Aug 19, 2013
5
0
10,510
Hi folks,

First post here and I'm in need of help with getting my wan to lan connection to work correctly.

I set up a test server environment within my LAN and want to segment that traffic away from my normal LAN environment so that any changes made within my testing LAN does not affect my normal LAN.

To do this, I'm using two routers: the one that verizon supplied to me (actiontec MI424WR-GEN3I) for my normal LAN and then a linksys wrt54g flashed with tomato firmware for my test LAN.

I followed this guide. while it partially works, it doesn't fully work as it should - at least not for me.

Here's my LAN subnet and subnet masks;

Normal LAN:
192.168.1.X
255.255.255.0

Test LAN:
192.168.2.X
255.255.255.0

I assigned a static IP on my 1.X subnet for the router: 192.168.1.35. I also set up a static route from the 1.X network to the 2.X network.

With the set up mentioned in the guide linked above, the 2nd network works, but there's several things I'm unable to do.

1: I'm unable to ping from my 1.X network to my 2.X network, but I am able to ping from the 2.X network to my 1.X network.

2: when I change the routing mode on my 2.X network from gateway to router, it'll allow me to ping devices on my 2.X network from within the 1.X network, but only devices with a static IP, like the router and my server...I'm unable to ping 2 other devices that are assigned IPs from the DHCP server. further, when I set the mode from gateway to router, I'm no longer able to reach the internet from within my 2.X network until I switch the routing method back to gateway. I had thought setting a static route would of fixed this. from my understanding, the only way to turn off NAT on my 2.X network is to change the routing method from gateway to router.

What am I doing wrong? I'm guessing it's something silly in the actiontec router that needs to be changed.

Here are a few screenshots of my configs from within the actiontec router;

static IP set for my 2nd router:

vUOPp61.jpg


static route:

IGx8myq.jpg


advanced filtering input/output options:

as2AMQs.jpg


fNY1cXW.jpg


network objects I had set up to make the filtering easier:

u52GVvB.jpg
 
Solution
Your second configuration is the way you want to try to make work. In general it SHOULD have worked better. I am going to bet all your problems are in the verizon router. As I am sure you know by now what your average home user calls a router is really a gateway and is missing many of the features of a true router.

So It is unclear why traffic would not work for the DHCP assigned addresses. I am going to guess the verizon router is not actually routing the traffic but is do a ARP and expecting your other router to respond with a proxy arp request. I would try in the end PC themselves to put in ROUTE commands to send the data for the second network directly to your second router rather than routing it up via the verizon router...
Your second configuration is the way you want to try to make work. In general it SHOULD have worked better. I am going to bet all your problems are in the verizon router. As I am sure you know by now what your average home user calls a router is really a gateway and is missing many of the features of a true router.

So It is unclear why traffic would not work for the DHCP assigned addresses. I am going to guess the verizon router is not actually routing the traffic but is do a ARP and expecting your other router to respond with a proxy arp request. I would try in the end PC themselves to put in ROUTE commands to send the data for the second network directly to your second router rather than routing it up via the verizon router.

The no access to the internet I have seen before on some "gateways". They in general only NAT ip that are in the subnet for their lan address. Even though they act like they support routing since you can put in static routes they are extremely limited.

Be nice if you could load third party firmware on the verizon box wouldn't it. I suspect you are going to have to run both your networks though the linksys device to make this work. Both problems I suspect are limitation within the verizon device...not sure if there are any option to fix this or not.
 
Solution

andrewjs18

Honorable
Aug 19, 2013
5
0
10,510
yeah, I have no idea what's going on.

this should NOT be this hard, but with a residential 'router', it is...

sigh.

I added a static route in my 2nd router to go to my 1st router but that didn't help any.