Help with small home network?

D

DarkDubzs

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jan 3, 2014
Messages
354
So this Thursday me and my family are moving from our current small, temporary(-ish) home to another temporary place for a couple months, then we will finally get our new big real home *knocks on wood*. The thing is, its gonna be the secondary guest home of my Aunt and Uncles home. They have internet, but i want to route it to where we will be too. I dont know what ISP they have or what they got going on hardware wise, but i am thinking i will have to buy a router soon and what i will do is this:
Connect an Ethernet cable from their modem/router to our router and hardwire our pc to our router and our mobile devices can connect to the wifi of our router. I want our wifi to be at least password protected; and secure all the traffic coming from our router too, if thats possible.

So is this possible? What tweaks do i have to do, or what can i do to achieve this goal? I have attached a diagram of what i think the layout would look like, but thats just what i think it will be like. Also, what router would you guys recommend i get? I dont want to flash it or modify it at all like with custom software or whatever. Please help me out, and Thanks so much!

Here is the link to the image if you guys cant see it. http://i.imgur.com/kITVcJc.jpg

 
Last edited:
DarkDubzs said:
So this Thursday me and my family are moving from our current small, temporary(-ish) home to another temporary place for a couple months, then we will finally get our new big real home *knocks on wood*. The thing is, its gonna be the secondary guest home of my Aunt and Uncles home. They have internet, but i want to route it to where we will be too. I dont know what ISP they have or what they got going on hardware wise, but i am thinking i will have to buy a router soon and what i will do is this:
Connect an Ethernet cable from their modem/router to our router and hardwire our pc to our router and our mobile devices can connect to the wifi of our router. I want our wifi to be at least password protected; and secure all the traffic coming from our router too, if thats possible.

So is this possible? What tweaks do i have to do, or what can i do to achieve this goal? I have attached a diagram of what i think the layout would look like, but thats just what i think it will be like. Also, what router would you guys recommend i get? I dont want to flash it or modify it at all like with custom software or whatever. Please help me out, and Thanks so much!

temp%20home%20internet%20layout.jpg
Click to expand...

cant see your pic....but
Do they have a wireless router as well? or are they connected directly to the modem. im certain that they are only provisioned 1 ip address, so adding a Router to their existing setup would eliminate their internet connection. Best thing to do is pickup some router that can create a vlan, such as the cisco wrvs4400 and you can segregate the two networks entirely. their may be some cheaper options that do the same thing... i think routerOS on microtek routers will allow you to do this, and disable inter-vlan routeing

edit so now i see your pic, if they have some sort of DSL modem/Router your screwed imo, better off to get your own separate internet like a 4g hotspot from verizon or TWC or something.
 
Ins0mnyteq said:
cant see your pic....but
Do they have a wireless router as well? or are they connected directly to the modem. im certain that they are only provisioned 1 ip address, so adding a Router to their existing setup would eliminate their internet connection. Best thing to do is pickup some router that can create a vlan, such as the cisco wrvs4400 and you can segregate the two networks entirely. their may be some cheaper options that do the same thing... i think routerOS on microtek routers will allow you to do this, and disable inter-vlan routeing

edit so now i see your pic, if they have some sort of DSL modem/Router your screwed imo, better off to get your own separate internet like a 4g hotspot from verizon or TWC or something.
Click to expand...

I really dont know what they have for their internet hardware. Im pretty sure they have the standard ISP issued router and modem all-in-one thing, because we have that same kind of two in one thing and we have ATT Uverse, but idk what they have or what ISP they have.

What if they just have a separate modem and have their own router connected from the modem? In that case, could i connect our own router to their modem?

Idk, i just want to see if something like this idea is possible..
 
What you're asking is possible, you're going to have to check up on the specifics though and apply it to your own case.
 
So just in case, ill buy a router from like my local Microcenter or wherever. Which do you guys recommend? Needs to have wifi too. If I dont know what to do when we get there, my cousin (in law?) is an IT tech so he should know what to do. But yeah, recommendations too please?
 
It's pretty easy actually, and I've done this several times before. You just make the IP address of your router one of the client addresses from their router. For example if their router is 192.168.1.1 you just use 192.168.1.2 for your router's IP address, or something similar.

You will likely have to figure out what IP address ranges and settings their router is using, by either checking with them, and/or accessing the setup on their router.

There are a million choices when it comes to routers. If you don't get any great suggestions here I would start reading reviews and buy the highest rater router in your price range. I'm partial to Linksys/Cisco or Netgear, depending on the model, but there are several other brands to consider.
 
timta2 said:
It's pretty easy actually, and I've done this several times before. You just make the IP address of your router one of the client addresses from their router. For example if their router is 192.168.1.1 you just use 192.168.1.2 for your router's IP address, or something similar.

You will likely have to figure out what IP address ranges and settings their router is using, by either checking with them, and/or accessing the setup on their router.

There are a million choices when it comes to routers. If you don't get any great suggestions here I would start reading reviews and buy the highest rater router in your price range. I'm partial to Linksys/Cisco or Netgear, depending on the model, but there are several other brands to consider.
Click to expand...

how would this secure the traffic from the other network? unless i misunderstood, this was one of his requirements?
 
Just plug a cable from their LAN port into your WAN port and set it to DHCP...it'll work just fine. All you have to make sure of is that your LAN IP address range isn't the same as their LAN IP address range.

Then your network will be protected from their network by your router's firewall. Their network, and the internet will be reachable by you, and you can setup whatever WiFi stuff you want just like it was your own.

However, in zero cases will you be able to protect your traffic from being SEEN by their network if it's going to the internet. You're passing through their network one way or another. But unless they're tech savvy I wouldn't really worry about it.
 
What is the distance between the two buildings, I personally would run fiber to avoid having a copper wire running from building to building outside (lightning).
 
With their thin plastic casing, ordinary Ethernet cables will deteriorate quickly when exposed to the elements. For best results, outdoor Ethernet cables should be placed in a conduit and then buried under the ground about 15-20cm (6-8 inches) even then, ordinary CAT5 cable is not designed for outdoor uses temperatures and humidity will shorten the useful lifetime of such an outdoor network.

Special exterior or direct burial CAT5 cables should be used for outdoor runs instead of ordinary CAT5. Direct burial CAT5 costs more, but it is designed specifically for outdoor use. Exterior-grade Ethernet cables are waterproof and thus do not require conduit.

Both ordinary and direct burial CAT5 cables attract lighting strikes to some degree. Simply burying a cable underground does not lessen its affinity for lightning. CAT5 surge protectors should be installed as part of outdoor Ethernet networks to guard against lightning strikes.


http://www.amazon.com/Aurum-Cables-Outdoor-waterproof-Ethernet/dp/B00DC7J4NC/ref=pd_cp_pc_0
 
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Lots of good advice so far. Set your router to give visibly different IP addresses from the main router. It will likely give out IP addresses in the range 192.168.0.0/16 so change yours to give out addresses in the ranges 172.16.0.0/12 or 10.0.0.0/8. This will make fault-finding much easier.
 
MysticRyuujin said:
Just plug a cable from their LAN port into your WAN port and set it to DHCP...it'll work just fine. All you have to make sure of is that your LAN IP address range isn't the same as their LAN IP address range.Then your network will be protected from their network by your router's firewall. Their network, and the internet will be reachable by you, and you can setup whatever WiFi stuff you want just like it was your own.However, in zero cases will you be able to protect your traffic from being SEEN by their network if it's going to the internet. You're passing through their network one way or another. But unless they're tech savvy I wouldn't really worry about it.
Click to expand...

So, let me use this pic as a reference.
image02.jpg

I would plug the cable into one of the 4 LAN ports on their router, then connect it to OUR routers single WAN port? That easy? How do i set it to DHCP? Sorry, im a total noob to networking... How do i make sure my LAN IP isnt the same as theirs or whatever? I dont really care about how secure it will be, just as long as they cant our internet usage history like browser history or what were doing online.

Cardinals said:
What is the distance between the two buildings, I personally would run fiber to avoid having a copper wire running from building to building outside (lightning).
Click to expand...

I would say... maybe? ... 50 feet or so would be from their router to where our router would be. Im not really worried about lightning, we live in Southern California and the most we ever get are rainstorms, we never get lightning down here where we live, but in fact, we will be getting heavy rain this weekend, so the cable will need to be waterproof :/

canna said:
With their thin plastic casing, ordinary Ethernet cables will deteriorate quickly when exposed to the elements. For best results, outdoor Ethernet cables should be placed in a conduit and then buried under the ground about 15-20cm (6-8 inches) even then, ordinary CAT5 cable is not designed for outdoor uses temperatures and humidity will shorten the useful lifetime of such an outdoor network.
Special exterior or direct burial CAT5 cables should be used for outdoor runs instead of ordinary CAT5. Direct burial CAT5 costs more, but it is designed specifically for outdoor use. Exterior-grade Ethernet cables are waterproof and thus do not require conduit.
Both ordinary and direct burial CAT5 cables attract lighting strikes to some degree. Simply burying a cable underground does not lessen its affinity for lightning. CAT5 surge protectors should be installed as part of outdoor Ethernet networks to guard against lightning strikes.
http://www.amazon.com/Aurum-Cables-Outdoor-waterproof-Ethernet/dp/B00DC7J4NC/ref=pd_cp_pc_0
Click to expand...

Wow, the cable is a lot cheaper than i had seen, i was looking online and i saw 100 feet of outdoor CAT 5e cable for like $400! Wtf. But yeah, were only gonna be there for at most (hopefully not though) 4 months, but all we get is rain and it is gonna start raining again this week down here in SoCal, so it would need to be waterproof. I dont think we will be burying the cable, there is grass between the houses and not gonna rip it apart. Can we get waterproof cable in stores anywhere like Best buy, target, microcenter, frys, home depot, etc.?

Quartz-1 said:
Lots of good advice so far. Set your router to give visibly different IP addresses from the main router. It will likely give out IP addresses in the range 192.168.0.0/16 so change yours to give out addresses in the ranges 172.16.0.0/12 or 10.0.0.0/8. This will make fault-finding much easier.
Click to expand...

I have no idea how to do that, lol. Again, im a complete noob to networking. Crash course on how to do this?


P.S. everyone, in another thread on Toms Hardware, somebody said to make my router become an AP, how do i do this? Any benefits or disadvantages to doing this?
 
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DarkDubzs said:
I have no idea how to do that, lol. Again, im a complete noob to networking. Crash course on how to do this?
Click to expand...

In your router's settings there will typically be an option to select the range. The exact location and flavour text vary massively between routers.
 
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