2 routers, 2 networks, 1 house

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Jordangee

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May 30, 2012
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Ok, bit of a weird situation that I am looking for help on.

I am currently living in a basement suite relying on the router of those that live on the main floor. Unfortunately they need us to log into a guest network as they have a lot of secure information on their computers. This has the unfortunate side effect of forcing me to log into a guest account through a web browser every time I open my computer.

I would like to setup my own wireless router upstairs operating on its own network. From what I understand this would not be a simple as plugging it into the wall and working. Any advice on how to do this? The only steps online I have seen are not very clear.

Thanks!
 
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Ok the simpilest way to do this is to use VLANS (virtual LAN). A VLAN is a seperate network with a seperate IP subnet (so one network can be 192.168.2.XXX and the other can be 192.168.7.XXX and will not allow communication between computers on the different VLANS.
Any decent router should have the ability, or if nothing else any decent router will have the ability to be flashed to dd-wrt or tomato firmware which will for sure support it.

In reality you do not need a seperate router, you could just setup the VLAN and bridge it to the guest network that has a normal userid/password with WPA like most wifi routers use.

If you wish though you can easily use your own sperate router. You would just need to run an ethernet cord from the...
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smorizio

smorizio

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Jan 22, 2010
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what they would do is go from there cable modem to a switch. there are units that you can set up two or more networks on and can be secure. then from one port they connect there router if they need to be wireless upstairs. then from another port they put in a ap for downstairs wireless.
 
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boosted1g

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Jun 12, 2013
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Ok the simpilest way to do this is to use VLANS (virtual LAN). A VLAN is a seperate network with a seperate IP subnet (so one network can be 192.168.2.XXX and the other can be 192.168.7.XXX and will not allow communication between computers on the different VLANS.
Any decent router should have the ability, or if nothing else any decent router will have the ability to be flashed to dd-wrt or tomato firmware which will for sure support it.

In reality you do not need a seperate router, you could just setup the VLAN and bridge it to the guest network that has a normal userid/password with WPA like most wifi routers use.

If you wish though you can easily use your own sperate router. You would just need to run an ethernet cord from the primary router to your router, and have the primary router set to assign the VLAN to the specific LAN port on the primary router that your new router plugs into.

If you need to use QOS or Port Forwarding it would be better to configure your router as an access point (an access point just means it does not do addressing, it is just an extension of the main router). This way you only need to configure the primary router for the QoS, Port Forwarding etc; vs having to set it on both routers.

Sorry for the legnthy reply but there is a lot of info and a few options.
 
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Jordangee

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May 30, 2012
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Thanks for your response.
So to be clear I would plug an Ethernet cable from their modem to a product like this: http://products.ncix.com/detail/tp-link-tl-sg1005d-5-port-unmanaged-1c-34460-1230.htm
And then I would attach two routers to the switch again via ethernet. Would this require significant configuration? Or could I literally just plug the routers in (assuming they are easily configurable as is.)?
 
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boosted1g

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Jun 12, 2013
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the method smorizio mentioned is not possible unless you have paid for two seperate IP addresses from the ISP and have a modem with a built in switch.

The purpose of a home router is to take a single IP from your ISP and then create a seperate network that can then share that single IP address.

What will happen if you try to do smorizio's way is that the modem will assign the IP issued from your ISP to the first router it recognizes and the second router will be completely ignored. Due to very necessary security measures (called a NAT firewall) the second router will not be able to get an internet connection from the first router when hooked up this way.
 
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Jordangee

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May 30, 2012
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Thanks so much. This is fantastic.
Are there any clear instructions on how I go about setting up a VLAN to do this? I understand the gist of what you are saying but do not know exactly how I would go about this. It does seem that the Cisco ea3500 they are using supports VLAN which is great news.
 
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boosted1g

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I have tried seraching for instructions online for seting up a VLAN on that model of router and could not find anything (every OEM makes it a slightly differet process if it is supported at all).

I did find that unfortunatly that router was designed to not be supported by third-party firmware so no option of flashing Tomato or DD-WRT to it.

Linksys/Cisco has a live chat so you should be able to find out from them how to setup VLAN if it is possible.

Otherwise you may have too look into a different primary router. Buffalo and ASUS dual band models are nice and support the better firmware. I have a TP-LINK WDR3500 that i flahed to DD-WRT that works pretty well.
 
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