Connecting two networks with separate IP ranges. 1

[gryknight9]

I currently have two networks and need four computers on one network to be able to see a server on the other network.

The primary network is 172.16.1.0/255.255.0.0 Computers are static ip addressed. The 4 computers I need to talk to the server with are on this network.

Secondary network is 169.254.0.0/255.255.0.0 Yes, the network exists, but the way it was designed is that each computer 'fails to find a network and creates its own private IP address'. The server I need to connect to is on this network.

I have one computer (WinXP Home) that has 2 network adapters which are connected to both of these networks. It can see all computers on the 172.16.1 network and the computers on the 169.254.0.0 network.

I have tried the 'bridge connections' feature in WinXP but would not see either network afterwards.

Do I need to get a router -or- switch to communicate between these two networks?

Thanks for any recommendations

 

[franklin97355]

You could do it in hardware or visit

http://www.linuxrouter.org

for an idea.

 

[FaiTHLeSS]

Secondary network is 169.254.0.0/255.255.0.0 Yes, the network exists, but the way it was designed is that each computer 'fails to find a network and creates its own private IP address'. The server I need to connect to is on this network.

^^ This is happening because you either dont have a DHCP server on your network or the workstations are failing to contact the DHCP server on your network.

Either assign static IPs to the workstations with the same IP range as the other ones or setup some sort of DHCP server.

 

[gryknight9]

I was finally able to talk my users into letting me stop the one network from default creation of private ip addresses (the 169.254 network) and I'll be statically addressing all of those computers. (Yes, DHCP is easy, and I've used it before, but due to office politics/fear of unknown) the users don't want to go that route. /sigh

Anyway, to recap: I was able to fix the problem by changing the IP Addresses of the 169.254 addresses to the 172.16 addresses and then I used the 1 shared computers two network adapter connections to create a software bridge (Bridge Connection via Windows XP).

So far everything has worked fine. Thanks all for the assistance!