two router home network

[davidsnedden]

Hi, I am trying to resetup a two router network that I had running, I have wireless high speed internet coming into one house on my property, and i am trying to get it to a second house. I had it running before with one wireless router in the first house ( a belin router i think), I then buried a cat5 cable about 200 ft to the second house, where I connected a second wireless router ( A dlink) to the cable. I connected the cable to the #1 lan port on the first router, and the wan port on the second router. This worked great until the radio for the internet was struck by lightning, at which point neither router worked. I replaced both routers with dlink routers, and now it does not work. I was wondering if anybody could tell me how to set this up with two new routers and could recommend which two routers to buy, as ive returned to two cheap dlink routers that i purchased.
Thanks, Dave.

[simpswr]

and welcome to the Forum

One alternative is to use a Switch rather than a router in the second house. . .

[NeilF]

turn off DHCP on the second router. Best way is One Router and one Switch as alreasy stated though

[johnwill]

Connecting two (or more) SOHO broadband routers together.

Note: The "primary" router can be an actual router, a software gateway like Microsoft Internet Connection Sharing, or a server connection that has the capability to supply more than one IP address using DHCP server capability. No changes are made to the primary "router" configuration.

Configure the IP address of the secondary router(s) to be in the same subnet as the primary router, but out of the range of the DHCP server in the primary router. For instance DHCP server addresses 192.168.0.2 through 192.168.0.100, I'd assign the secondary router 192.168.0.254 as it's IP address, 192.168.0.253 for another router, etc.

Note: Do this first, as you will have to reboot the computer to connect to the router again for the remaining changes.

Disable the DHCP server in the secondary router.

Setup the wireless section just the way you would if it was the primary router, channels, encryption, etc.

Connect from the primary router's LAN port to one of the LAN ports on the secondary router. If there is no uplink port and neither of the routers have auto-sensing ports, use a cross-over cable. Leave the WAN port unconnected!

This procedure bypasses the routing function (NAT layer) and configures the router as a switch (or wireless access point for wireless routers).

For reference, here's a link to a Typical example config using a Netgear router

[davidsnedden]

Hi, thanks for the answers. First would I be able to maintain a wireless network in the second house if i used a switch, and would it make more sense to use a wireless access point instead of a second router, and if so would i just connect it to a lan port on the first router? And also would I be able to make it a password secured network with a wireless access point? I dont want the neighbours to get free internet after all.
Thanks, Dave.

[clyde123]

A switch will not usually have wireless function, so you'd need either (1) switch + wireless access point, or (2) wireless router, in the second house. But definitely disable DHCP in the second router (if you're going that way).
Johnwill's post tells you how to do it.
If I understand your next question right, yes the ethernet cable would be coming from a Lan port on first router, and feeding whatever setup you make in the second house.
And you would definitely want to setup encryption (password protected access) on whatever method of wireless you choose, whether it's another router or a wireless access point.