sundance-communications.com/forum Forums VOIP Phones & IP PBX Networking Cascading Routers

I have a D-link DI-624 wireless router (4 hard wired ports included)and had my network all running fine. I run a desktop as my main home computer, a laptop that I use when I work from home. I also have 2 other computer that connect in, one runs a web server and the other a UT server. My internet is provided by Verizon FIOS (Fiber) via PPPoE. Recently I had their FIOS tv service added which required a D-link 4 port router with custom firmware installed. The WAN input must be plugged into this router as this provdies my channel guide and video on demand features via ethernet over coax. If I use the wan port on any other router my TV feauters do not work. I need to cascade my wireless router off of the custom D-link router and still have internet access as well as network access among the other 4 computers. One of the 4 ports on the custom D-link must plug into the a box that provides the conversion of ethernet of coax. That leaves me 3 ports for 4 computers. I have and SMC router I can use if needed. I have tried multiple connections but cannot get everything to work correctly. Any help is appreciated.

If I understand correctly, you are attempting to install your existing router behind the custom router for FIOS.

Can't you just use an Ethernet 10/100 switch or hub to provide ports for the downstream devices? I have a similar setup in my home and don't have any problems, just one port on the router feeds into a 16 port switch and everything works fine.

If you are looking to keep wireless Ethernet, they do make devices that connect to a wired port and converts it to a wireless access point. I am not a pro on this stuff at all, but it can be done.

Getting an inexpensive hub will do the trick.

The way I have it now is the verizon hub is set at IP 192.168.2.1 In order to get internet to the other devices I needed to plug ports 1 and 2 in to the wan ports of my other 2 routers. The other two routers are at ip 192.168.0.1 and 192.168.123.254 In this set up I have internet to all computers connected to any router. I cannot however access computers on different routers. I have a 3COM super stack II but that only provides 10Mb ethernet and I transfer a lot of large files as part of my work duties. Is there a way I can get all all of the computers to be able to 'see' each other across routers? I have tried chaning the IP on my two routers to be on the same subnet (192.168.2.x)as the verizon router but killed my internet and I still couldn't see across the routers. As you can tell I am not a network genius! Thanks

You can actually use your Wireless Router as a hub/access point. Just turn off DHCP off (on the old router) and use a patch cord to connect one of the 4 ports (NOT the WAN port) to the newer router - you might have to use a crossover cable if the ports don't autosense polarity.

Just to summarize:

Plug your internet connection into the WAN port of the "Custom Dlink". Patch the LAN side of the Custom Dlink into the LAN side of the 624 Dlink and make sure DHCP is turned off on the 624 Dlink. You should then have 6 ports to plug your PC's and the cable converter into as well as wireless connectivity.

This is the way Verizon originally had it hooked up. It worked for a while but then only the wireless portion of my router worked for internet?!
I also had troubles port forwarding and such. Verizon block port 80 so I have to use a redirect and port forwarding to 8081, but I couln't get that to work correctly.
I will try your setup recommendations and see what I can come up with. Thanks

Not sure any of what follows will help. If I may ask a couple of questions, why has Verizon blocked port 80, this seems very odd on the surface as that is the default port address for all of todays web browsers ? Why did you select 8081 over 8080, is this a Sun Micro System platform you are working with ? Have you installed a new firewall or made any updates to the OS that may have changed things with out your knowledge ?
I may be of some help to you sorting this out, I just need to get a better picture in my mind what you are doing and what equipment and what operating system you are working with. If you have not already be sure that all the machines are talking to each other in the same workgroup ie: MSHOME, you may want to get just one thing at a time working then add equipment one at a time and build up to what you want.
Below are some links to sites that may or may not be of some help with the port forwarding issues:

https://www.iana.org/assignments/port-numbers
https://www.linklogger.com/TCP80.htm

Hope some of this may help...........

I had my web server(with port forwarding/redirect on 8081), UT server, and my FTP server running correctly before verizon installed my FIOS tv service. I was running it all through my wireless router. They black port 80 becuase of the code red virus that came a few years back on port 80. I just picked 8081 arbitrarily. They also change my IP often, somethimes twice a day, sometimes 5 times in an hour. Now that they installed this custom router my WAN side has to run through this router for my TV service to work. This is only a 4 port router and one of them ports has to connect to a box that converts the signal to IP over coax for my channel lineup and video on demand services. I have attempted to move this elsewhere but it interrupts my TV service as all of my set top boxes have an IP address that only seem to work when getting it from this router with the WAN plugged into it. From the custom verizon router (D-Link 4 port) I ran to my D-Link 624 (4 port w/ wireless) All of my compters run on the same workgroup (DARTRAN) less my work laptop which uses a domain. I do not need to necessarily network this in with the others. I also have and SMC barricade (7004 BR)and a 3COM super Stacker II (only runs at 10Mb)I can hook it up the way I have described above and can get internet to all computers but I cannot 'see' across the routers. The webserver computer hosts my personal website, as well as redirected downloads for my UT server, it also has my MP3's on there as I have 2 laptops upstairs we use just as jukeboxes and link back to the webserver wirelessly for the MP3 (they are old laptops with limited storage space)
I'll check out the links and try the other suggesstions this weekend. Thanks

Ok bro try this

Before you begin, do not connect your routers together already, as some settings may conflict and render your routers unaccessible. Keep them apart for now and connect to them seperately to configure them.

Step 2: Primary Router Setup
Your primary router should be the only one (ideally) handling the following: firewall rules, filtering, port forwarding, logging, and DHCP. Like I said, the primary router is going to do a lot of the grunt work. There isn't much setup involved, but one important thing is to have the primary router to be the one issuing DHCP. It's best to have DHCP enabled on the primary router for simplistic management. If your secondary router was your main router, transfer any configurations that can be used and compatible on the primary router (e.g. ISP configurations, port forwarding, filters, etc...).

One final step: Pick a single block of IP address range for your internal network (especially if each routers used different IP blocks) to use. For example, BEFSR41 uses 192.168.1.xxx, D-624 uses 192.168.0.xxx. They need to be on the same first through third octets (192 is the first, 168 is the second, third is the one with either a 1 or 0 in my example). So I had to either pick a 0 or a 1. I opted to go with a 1, so I used 192.168.1.xxx range. This is important for simplifying your file sharing and making computers' resources accessible to others on your internal network to be easily managed. So with that IP block range, you need to modify your primary router's LAN IP address (the IP that you use to connect to the router on your internal network). Usually, the primary router's IP would be the number 1 on the network, so it'll be 192.168.1.1, which is what I'll set mine to.

If you don't pick a common IP block, you're only asking for trouble if you later on want to share files and resources. So use a common IP block range to simplify things and save yourself some headache. That's all for configuring your primary router.

Step 3: Secondary Router Setup
Your secondary router should have most of its primary router functions disabled (e.g. DHCP, ISP configurations, port forwarding, etc...). Filtering on the other hand, if you have a wireless router like me, and use MAC filtering for the wireless portion to block unwanted eavesdroppers, leave it on. But make sure that you add the primary router's LAN MAC address (found somewhere on your primary router's configuration screen). This is to make sure that the primary router can communicate fully with your secondary router without being blocked partially. If you have a wired router, filtering should be disabled and should be handled on your primary router. Now to the important parts.

At your WAN configuration screen (the part where you would set it to ISP settings to allow the router to pull an IP address), set your WAN setting to "static IP address" and enter in the following settings:

IP Address: 127.0.0.1
Subnet Mask: 255.0.0.0
ISP Gateway Address: 127.0.0.2
Primary DNS Address: 127.0.0.3
Secondary DNS Address (usually optional): 127.0.0.4

If you guessed it, configuring the WAN settings above is so that you can make the WAN as useless as possible, as it basically has no use in your crusade to cascading routers. The router will think that its main communication will be through the WAN port, so you must render it as useless as you can. With the above settings, it will render it useless and safely make the WAN request less acknowledgments of an Internet connection (which technically your secondary router shouldn't be directly connected to, its your primary router that is suppose to).

Now, for your LAN configuration screen, you need to give your secondary router's LAN IP address to connect to (the IP that you use to connect to the router on your internal network). Continuing on with my example, my secondary router's IP address would be 192.168.1.2, an increment up from my primary router's IP address (192.168.1.1). 192.168.1.2 will now be the address to connect to your secondary router.

Now for the physical setting. Run a CAT5 (or whatever cable you're using) from a LAN port from your secondary router over to the primary router's LAN port. Do not use your secondary router's WAN port. There are other ways of running the cable from secondary to primary router: secondary's uplink port to primary's LAN port; secondary's LAN port to primary's uplink port. They all work the same if secondary LAN port to primary LAN port won't work (e.g. router doesn't have ability to autodetect cable's usage).

Your secondary router has basically transformed from a router to a switch (or access point). For more than two routers, repeat the same steps above, except to give your router's IP address one IP address increment higher from the secondary router (e.g. 192.168.1.3).

Step 4: You're Done
That's all to it. You're finished. Enjoy your cascaded routers.