How can a bridge 2 networks? (Cable and DSL)

J

JucyTEC

Limp Gawd
Joined
Aug 23, 2002
Messages
228
Ok at my work we have a Business DSL line that is connected to a 12 Port router which interacts with a 24 port switch.

Outer office they have a Cable connection which is connected to only 3 computers using a 4 Port router. I want to know how I can setup a connection between the two networks so that the outer office can print/share/access the computers in the back offices.

The outer office router has 4 LAN ports + 2.4 b/g and has VPN capabilities.

Thanks in advance.
 
Wait, are these are offices in the SAME PHSYICAL building or are they SEPERATE entities? If so, then your only choice is to do VPN. If your in the same building, that changes thing. A network layout would help to better understand this.
 
Can you run a piece of cat5 out to the outer location. If so then just punch one of the networks into the other, however you want to do it. For instance, cat5 from 24 port switch to one of the lan ports on the router. One of the connections will need to be MDI/MDX. If not then you'll need to use a X-over cable.

Once you take care of that just make sure both networks are on the same IP segment, obviously with unique IP addresses. You could just turn DHCP off on both however what will probably work better is to at least set up the smaller network on static IP's. Gateway would be the one router for the one network, say area A, and the other area (B) would have the gateway for the other router. reading this I am probably making it sound complicated. Frankly it is not. I could diagram it alot better but I suck at ascii art on forums. others might could describe that scenario better. I could create a visio if you want to email me.
 
This is assuming there like right next door or in the same building, but if there across town, there gonna have to setup a VPN network.

Throw me a freaking bone here, im the boss.......need the info.......
 
The outer office router has 4 LAN ports + 2.4 b/g and has VPN capabilities.
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Meaning what? There is an existing VPN server on the network or they use a VPN client to tunnel in elsewhere. If you have a VPN server in place then you already have a method in place to join the two networks.
 
IceWind said:
This is assuming there like right next door or in the same building, but if there across town, there gonna have to setup a VPN network
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Not really though that would probably be the better solution.

I want to know how I can setup a connection between the two networks so that the outer office can print/share/access the computers in the back offices.
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Between that and the outer office comment it's assumed these locations are in fairly close proximity.

JucyTec, there is a limitation to an ethernet run so I will need to know approximately how far the locations are away from each other. I scribbled a visio diagram real quick if you want to take a look at it just email me.
 
Sorry about the vague explanation...

Its very close to each other. Meaning less then 50 ft.
 
Ok, that begs the question, do you need for them to have seperate ISP's for internet or could you use just one if you joined them together? Im trying to formulate a plan here
 
Yea, we actually reaquire 2 different lines...


Only because:

The cable service around here does NOT offer a static IP.

So we were going to use Verizon DSL BUT... Because of this building that we are in, the DSL line some times will NOT let us connect HTTPS connections. We had some people at verizon come test the lines, but "this whole building is too old," they practically gave up, we used the filters and everything they can't seem to pin point the origin of the problem.

Anyways... Just want the 4 port router to see the 24 port switch which is connected to a 8 port router... And still use seperate ISP's.
 
Uhhh, so how the hell are you getting the DSL connection to the other office if the wiring is that bad? Im a little confused

K, without actually seing your place its tough for me to determine exactly HOW to wire it, but if you need to use both connections, then you either have to set all the machines to the same subnet and have them point to the corresponding router IP

Or if you have a domain setup, you will have to get them to join the same domain and setup rights and privledges.
 
Are these routers little SOHO routers, as in Linksys or D-Link? Or are they true routers. I ask because that will affect your connection between them. If they are SOHO's then they have switches built into them and you will have to make sure both offices are using the same subnet. If they are pure routers then you can connect the two routers directly to each other and give that connection it's own subnet, like 192.168.1.0/30.

Oh, and regardless of the type of router, you're going to need to make sure each set of systems have the correct default gateway in place.
 
I see your point,

I just started working here as a technical consultant, nothing big, just fixing up computers...

This company mainly does Ecommerce Web applications, anyways the whole place was a mess when i got here, i actually rewired a lot of things because they were just way too long. i cut at least a few hundred feet of wires... it was very messy.

Hope this helps...

I'll include a diagram below.

network.jpg
 
Also, i'm not that good with networks, so... SOHO and other things don't make too much sense to me. If its not too much trouble a nice walk through would be extremely helpful...

Thanks in advance.
 
Jucy, got your PM. I am at home now but I'll boot the work laptop up here in a bit and send you a diagram I made with visio. It's not that difficult a problem but you will have to run a cat5 cable from either the switch or router's switch from one location to the other router's switch.

SOHO is an acronm for Small Office Home Office.
 
Ok, here we go. The Linksys is a SOHO router. SOHO = Small Office, Home Office. It's basically a very dumb router and a switch combined into one unit. Routers connect networks, switches connect hosts (computers, servers, etc). A router cannot have the same network outside two ports, it wouldn't know where to send traffic.

If there was a way that you could simply use one internet connection then this would be much easier. You would normally only have one router connected to a network.

The outer and inner office will need to have the same subnet, in this case I believe its 192.168.1.0 with a subnet mask of 255.255.255.0 as thats the only setup the Linksys is capable of seeing. I am not familiar with the Netgear. What IP's do those systems use?

You can run a crossover from the linksys to the switch (remember, the linksys has a switch built in, so you are connecting two like devices, thus the need for the crossover) no problem as long as everyone is on the same subnet. By default the linksys doesn't use a routing protocol, so we should be fine.

My stumbling block is that you want some systems to go out one interface for the internet and other systems to use another interface for the internet. I *believe* that if you set the inner office's default gateways for that router, and the outer office's default gateways for its router then you should be fine, but this is really a funky setup.
 
You may not need a X-over. The ports may be auto MDI/MDX and they'll cross themselves but it's something you'd want to check first. Since your talking about a 50 foot run you wanna check first. I wouldn't recommend making your own if your not comfortable with crimping cat5.

As far as the setup, you will have to have both networks on the same subnet as I mentioned in my first post but it isn't that odd. You will probably have to change the segment on one of the routers. Perhaps Linksys won't let you change the IP. That would be odd. Most budget routers will. At least the one's I've used but check your manual.

If the Linksys router is 192.168.1.1 then the Netgear would need to be 192.168.1.2 or something along those lines. The gateways would just go to whatever router you want them to go to. in setting this up they could frankly go to one if you actually wanted them to and you could cut out one of your broadband connections. If you really wanted to do that then frankly you wouldn't need the second router. You could do it with a simple switch. Anyway, I'll try to detail that in the email with the visio.

Oh, you might want to go ahead and download visio viewer 2003. It's a free download and will allow you to look at the diagram. Just google it. Should be the first hit if you use Visio Viewer 2003 download.
 
I said it was odd because I've never seen a network that had two routers on the same subnet with hosts on that subnet. I've never seen that type of setup and would think it's something to be avoided with the potential for routing loops. Not in this case because the routers aren't connected any other way, but you get what I mean. He can change the routers IP, just not the subnet. So if the netgear defaults to something other than the 192.168.1.0/24 that Linksys does, he's screwed.
 
Or he could change the network ID on that one if it allows it and many do or he could go buy another linksys for 30 bucks or whatever. Always options and in this case, pretty cheap ones. Since it's only 3 nodes at the second location I'd probably just put them on the larger network and run a switch. Just depends on the bandwidth requirements. No routing hop issues in the scenario as I see it. Just different gateways if he stays with the two router conception. Non internet traffic will all be local to the now larger LAN. Hardest thing in this situation is probably going to be the cabling.
 
Indeed. I think the smartest thing to do is to convince them to go with just one ISP and eliminate the second router all together.
 
Shadowspawn said:
Indeed. I think the smartest thing to do is to convince them to go with just one ISP and eliminate the second router all together.
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Concur. Tell them you'll be saving money, managment always love to hear that phrase :p
 
Sounds like a clueless set of ISP's on your hands there as well. The single ISP option may be more than any of them are ready to try to tackle.

As said above, make sure they're all on a single subnet, 192.168.1.x. If the Linksys router is 192.168.1.1 and so is the Netgear, make the Netgear 192.168.1.100. Manually enter the IP, gateway and DNS of each machine, setting the gateway for everyone that needs the cable (netgear, right?) to use 192.168.1.100, set everyone needing DSL to 192.168.1.1, and DNS as whatever is given with the corresponding connection.

Make a Cat5 run between the two, and you're done.
 
You might want to look into a dual-wan router, something like a Xincom 502 from http://www.xincom.com

This would let all the computers share both connections and give you the ability to port map, etc the stuff coming from the static IP connection to the appropriate servers on your lan.

That way, all the lan would be the same network and sharing printers, etc under Windows would be no problem.

You'll have to do some programming on the dual-wan router to keep the stuff functioning as it does today, but it doesn't sound like that should be too big of a deal. You'd also be removing the Linksys routers and since they are in different locations, you might need a wire run from one internet feed location to the other since you have to hook both internet feeds to the WAN ports of the dual-wan router. And you'd have to cable between the existing switches, etc to make one big network.

I think this would be simpler in the long run. Note that Xincom has dual-wan routers with VPN capabilities if you need that.
 
Thanks to all who helped me out... you guys rock, i'll try each one on Monday, thanks for all the tips and suggestions.
 
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