Printer on different gateway...

[Travveh]

My setup is described in the attached image.

So the idea here is I set the printer up on the wireless so that I can print off it. It all works great, so long as I'm hooked up to the Belkin router and not the switch. So I need to be hooked up to the router to use the printer, and I need to be hooked up to the switch to stream to my PS3. Also any computer hooked up to the d-link can't access the printer... Is there any way I can get both?

Thanks...
~Travis

[Travveh]

I think I figured this out, just from reading around random threads... Wanna confirm this first before I mess with my network though.

Take the Belkin router, turn off DHCP, assign it an IP outside of the D-Link's DHCP server, and change it to just a Wireless AccessPoint for the printer and laptops... And that'd be by taking a cable from the switch to one of the LAN ports on the back of the router?

Correct me if any detail is wrong, or feel free to add... I wanna get this right the first time...

~Travveh

[johnwill]

Yep, that's basically it. Here's the complete post I drop here regularly.



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

[Travveh]

So, I did everything, all worked great except I had no internet connection on this computer. Restored the wireless router to factory defaults because it wouldn't even let me log into it... The worked great as an AP, everything connected without a hitch. With my computer hooked up to the switch however, it wouldn't give me an internet connection. I was connected to the network fine, but no internet connection. Had to reset the router and plug into it to get a connection again. There any possible reason, 'cause I can't think of any...
Won't let me disable/renable the NIC either because "It is not possible to disable the connection at this time. This connection may be using one or more protocols that do not support Plug-and-Play, or it may have been initialized by another user or the system account." Said that when it was set up the way it is now, and with the wireless just as the access point.

The DHCP server of the main D-Link router is 192.168.0.100-120, btw...

[johnwill]

Hmm... I can't imagine what's going on there. Reset it and get it all working wirelessly first.

1. Enter the configuration and change the base address to 192.168.0.254 (outside the range of the main router's DHCP server pool). Apply the changes, which will require a restart of the router after the application of the changes..
2. At this point, you'll have to login again to the router at the new base address. You will also not have Internet Access until we finish, but you don't need it to configure the router.
3. Disable the DHCP on the wireless router's LAN interface.
4. Power down the wireless router.
5. Change the connection from the WAN to the LAN interface.
6. Leave the WAN port unconnected.
7. Power up the wireless router.
8. At this point, it should then pick up the DHCP server on the main system and allow wired and wireless connections.

I've done this in dozens of cases, it's always worked fine for me.

Note that you should also be able to access the wireless router's setup pages using the new base address of 192.168.0.254.