Connection to 2 networks? I need networking expert help...

[aakast42]

Let me give yall my situation: I live in an apartment complex. I get my internet service via a cable modem which is connected to a 4 port 10/100 wireless a/b/g router (running dd-wrt as the OS, if that matters). I have two computers and a slingbox connected via wires to this router (I have the wireless router in case I get a laptop or my girlfriend is over with hers).

Anyway, so I have a nice solid, wired, home network. All is great, right? Well, almost. See my cable provider caps all uploads to a pathetic 40KB/s (You can tell there's something funny going on b/c when I initially begin uploads, it's about 4x faster and after about 45seconds gets cut down to almost exactly 44KB/s... If I unplug and hard reset my modem, the speeds last a little longer b/c my ip has changed but still it only takes about 2 minutes to get cut down. I've run speedtests that show my connection "could" be much faster than 44KB/s).

So in addition to the LAN port on one of the PCs, there is also a wireless card. It normally remains dormant or disabled. I was getting annoyed with the slow upload to an FTP site and decided to see what kind of wireless networks were unprotected in my building (there's enough apartments that someone was bound to not be computer savvy enough to secure their network). Sure enough, I found great signal to someone's network with DSL. I disabled my LAN connection and connected to it and can get a little more than 86KB/s upload from their service. I located their routers ip and tried all the default passwords but they were smart enough to at least change that (I just wanted to temporarily open a port to try something).

So now my question. Can I have the PC with both the LAN port and the wireless card connected to both my home network and to this other wireless network at the same time? I ask b/c I often transfer parts of videos, as they finish encoding, to the other computer (over my wired network) so that I can start uploading to the FTP from the other PC while my main one is still processing the remaining parts of the video (no, this isn't any copyrighted video or anything).

Is there a way to set up the secondary PC (the one with 2 network connections) to where it uses the wireless connection for internet access but remains on my local network via the wired LAN? When I have both network connections active it seems to always use my wired LAN for file sharing and internet (while it maintains the connection to the wireless network, it doesn't seem to use it for anything). Is this is a DHCP issue where it needs to take an ip from one network or the other but not both? If it isn't possible to use the wireless for internet and still remain on my windows file sharing network, is there a way, other than simply temporarily disabling my wired connection, that I can tell the computer to use one connection or the other for it's internet gateway (as in, telling it to get it's ip from the wireless instead of the home lan and vice versa)?

It's just a pain to constantly disable/enable the connections and it prevents me from transferring files while the PC is uploading to the FTP using the wireless network. Just a side note, if I have my LAN disabled and am currently using the wireless network for internet, as soon as I enable the LAN port it seems to take over the DHCP duties and the PC reverts to using my crappy ass (for uploading anyways) cable connection.

Not sure if this is the kind of crowd to flame me for using someone else's unprotected wireless but I do try to be "courteous" about my bandwidth "borrowing" by only uploading via that network between around 12am to sunrise, so that they won't be bothered by any slow down.

Sorry about this anthology-sized post, I just can't seem to find any answers by searching. Hope I was clear in my explanation of the setup. cheers.

 

[Jay_2]

Not sure if this is the kind of crowd to flame me for using someone else's unprotected wireless but I do try to be "courteous" about my bandwidth "borrowing" by only uploading via that network between around 12am to sunrise, so that they won't be bothered by any slow down.
.

What you are doing is connecting to some one elses network and using their bandwith. Its not legal and for you its not safe.

I know a person who left their network open and watched every packet for stupid people who put FTP passwords etc.

 

[RoBo]

You need to change the default gateway.

But what you are doing is illegal and immoral.

 

[aakast42]

I had a feeling this might be the reaction. All I can say is that it's a small temporary solution until I get out of my contract with the cable co. Oh well, thanks for all the moral lecturing and the pseudo legal advice.

 

[RoBo]

If you actually read my post and did 30mins of Googling then you would easily find the answer.

Suit yourself.

 

[kumquat]

It won't work, and, even if it did, it would be wrong to do so.

 

[axan]

moral and legal issues aside it will work, simply take out the default gateway from you wired connection settings, this way any internet traffic will go over the wireless connection and any local traffic will use the wired network. Oh and it's important that your wired and wireless ips are in different subnet. so if your wireless ip is 192.168.1.x use something like 10.10.10.x for your home network, the ips don't really matter as long as they are in different subnets.

 

[xphil3]

I had a feeling this might be the reaction. All I can say is that it's a small temporary solution until I get out of my contract with the cable co. Oh well, thanks for all the moral lecturing and the pseudo legal advice.

You're a complete idiot. You're not borrowing anything, you're stealing bandwidth that you're cheap ass should pay for. Perhaps a phone call to your cable company to get yourself a business account is what you should be doing.

Edit: there are more robust ways to do what you are asking besides manually setting a default gateway, but I don't agree with what you're doing.