Uverse TV + TWC Internet = DHCP nightmare

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immamac

Reputable
Jun 19, 2014
2
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4,510
I'll try to be brief and thorough with my problem.

I have Uverse for TV and Time Warner for internet (uverse made a very compelling offer for TV when I cancelled internet and Time warner is the only one that offers 300Mbps in my area)
The situation:

I have a guest house that I've run ethernet to. Only 1 line.

I have the NVG589 Gateway we will call Uverse and the Arris Touchstone DG1670 Gateway we will call TWC.

I have 2 switches, simple layer 2 unmanaged switches (dlinks)

I have 2 Wireless AP that are used for the separate networks.

1 MikroTik 951 acting as a Wireless AP has its own DHCP server to keep guests off my subnet, and works flawlessly when set to static IP.

1 Wireless AP is the Uverse provided one for wireless boxes. Can't change settings etc.

So, how everything is connected: (* are used to preserve formatting)

Uverse --------switch------------TWC + wifi clients
****|*********|
****|*********|
IPTV Box*******|
**************|
**************|
Uverse WAP--switch -----------MikroTik 951 + wifi clients (never has a problem)
*****|
*****|
Wireless IPTV


The Problem:
Everything will work fine in the guest house with the MikroTik pulling a static IP from an assigned gateway on 10.10.0.1
Uverse WAP does not have the ability to assign static or gateway, depending on which DHCP server feels like assigning it will either get a 10.10.0.0 or a 192.168.0.0 IP Address, TV won't work on the 10.10 for obvious reasons.

IPTV Box that is WIRED to Uverse has same issue, sometimes pulls from 10.10, no ability to have statics.

Wifi Clients on the TWC are sometimes assigned IP's on the 10.10 and sometimes on the 192.168

So basically there are very few scenarios where I get all devices working correctly unless I unplug the TWC then plug it back in because the Uverse needs to be the main DHCP because the uverse boxes are "dumb" and only know how to pull via DHCP.

Anyone have a solution that isn't unplug the TWC from the switch any time a new device is connected to the TWC router?

Thanks,

immamac
 
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Someone Somewhere

Someone Somewhere

Titan
Sep 23, 2012
22,291
8
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It's implied that the 192.168.0.0/24 is the Uverse box which you want TV boxes on, and the 10.10.0.0 is the TWC box which you want everything else on (ignoring the mikrotik). Is this correct?

Here's how I'd do it. Disable the DHCP on both the U-Verse and TWC routers, and set up your own DHCP server, which lets you assign IPs across subnets. You can probably do this on the Mikrotik if you put it on the WAN. Static the Mikrotik.

Set the defaults in the DHCP server to be the standard settings TWC would give out - 10.10.0.0/24, 10.10.0.1 as the gateway and DNS.

For the TV boxes, you set a statically assigned address in the server, so that they're in 192.168.0.0/24 and get the U-Verse DNS and gateway.
 
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abailey

abailey

Distinguished
Mar 23, 2014
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You really need to get some layer 2 managed switches so you can use VLAN's. Running multiple subnets on the same VLAN is a nightmare. You can get some decent layer2 managed switches for not to much. At my house I use TP-link's smart switches. They are a very good value for the money.
 
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B

bill001g

Titan
Aug 9, 2012
28,319
2,754
125,640
Your diagram is tough to really tell but I suspect from your symptoms you just have everything all connected together on one big network.

DHCP is a broadcast protocol and the machine just screams someone give me a IP. What happens is both DHCP servers receive this and both actually assign a IP. The end device can then select which it wants to use....most times it will always use the first it receives. It then confirms this with the corresponding DHCP server and the other since it was no acknowledged release the address it reserved. This leads to random address assignments.

You really can't fix this, it is fundamental to how DHCP works. You are in effect running 2 vlans by over lapping them rather than using managed switch to keep them separate.

The only way to really fix this is to use a custom DHCP server. Most consumer routers can not accomplish this. You might be able to use a DD-WRT router. Otherwise you use software on some PC you leave running all the time. So you first turn off both DHCP servers. You now go into you new DHCP server and put in static dhcp assignments for the devices that need to use say the 10.10 network. You would then assign dynamic ip to any other device that needs to use the 192.168 network. You will also have to assign a secondary IP address on the DHCP server so that it can get the confirmation to the requests on either network.

You really should look into a different design overlapped networks tends to get lots of strange issues.
 
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I

immamac

Reputable
Jun 19, 2014
2
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4,510


So, this is what I WANTED to do. Unfortunately at least the AT&T Gateway will not let me disable DHCP.

I think I could get TWC to, but that's not really the problem. After the uverse boxes pull their IP it doesn't seem to refresh for quite some time.

What do you think about putting ipv6 DHCP on the TWC and leaving IPv4 on the Uverse
 
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