Looking to replace old router

[pantomime horse]

Helping a very small business out. Their old router (over 10 years old Netgear wireless G) has no real features regarding wireless capabilities. They have a new router (Netgear WNDR4500) that offers greater speed, bandwidth, & has guest wireless network features. The wireless will only be used for the customers. The business computers (there are 5 of them) all access the router via cabling through a switch. The old router created static IP entries for the devices on the network.

So, can I just setup the new router to use all of the same settings? IP, DNS, etc? And then clone the mac of the old router to avoid potential issues? I know that I would need to reboot the modem, the router, and the computers.

The other option is to use the new router as an access point. I had tried using a LAN to LAN connection, but although I could get a valid IP, I could never access the internet. It's as if the ports are blocked. Should I try connecting one of the old router's LAN ports to the new router's WAN port? I did not setup their network and I am hoping that I can just replace the original router and then setup the wireless guest network for customers.

Thanks in advance.

 

[bill001g]

Your plan to just replace the router and copy the config as well as you can is the best option. You would not have to reboot everything but that would help. The only reason you could not completely and transparently replace the router without doing something to the PC is the mac address of the gateway on the inside network will change. I don't think there is any option to clone that like there is on the outside. You could clear the ARP table in the PC rather than reboot if you wish. You likely could just unplug the cables from the switch for a few seconds and the PC will clear everything related to IP and start from the start.

 

[pantomime horse]

Your plan to just replace the router and copy the config as well as you can is the best option. You would not have to reboot everything but that would help. The only reason you could not completely and transparently replace the router without doing something to the PC is the mac address of the gateway on the inside network will change. I don't think there is any option to clone that like there is on the outside. You could clear the ARP table in the PC rather than reboot if you wish. You likely could just unplug the cables from the switch for a few seconds and the PC will clear everything related to IP and start from the start.

Thanks. I am going to try this next week. If this doesn't work for some reason, replacing the old router would be fine, too, correct? I'm assuming so, but since I didn't set their network up I have no information on it. So I'm flying blind. Thank you for your assistance.


Looks like it worked. The PCs all updated without rebooting. Thanks.