Internal routing on home network

[jpcw]

Apologies in advance for the length of the following. I have perhaps a rather strange setup which involves two routers and a wireless network. The situation is this: I have a combined ADSL modem and wireless router unit for internet connection. This is also the DHCP server and firewall. Wireless clients can connect to this for internet access, including a couple of laptops. A wireless AP unit operating in AP client mode connects into a second wired router on the WAN port, with a PC connected onto the LAN switch side. The reason for this setup is that I wanted to be able to use Wake on Lan to remotely wake up the PC and then connect to it with VNC, but the existing ADSL router will not allow broadcasts to the LAN (necessary for WoL to work). Therefore, the second router which does allow broadcasts acts as a relay from the ADSL router to broadcast the magic packet to wake the PC. To do this, I have assigned the network between the ADSL router and the wired router's WAN port on one [class C] subnet (192.168.0.x, subnet mask 255.255.255.0) and then assigned a different subnet on the wired router's LAN side (192.168.1.x, mask 255.255.255.0), in order for the routers port forwarding to work to broadcast the magic packet. Now, this all works well, and all ports are opened on the wired router so that it doesn't really act as a firewall. I can remotely power up the PC and access it across the internet through a SSH tunnel. However, this only seems to work with NAT turned on on the wired router. What I now want to do is to reinstate the windows network that I had previously before introducing the wired router so that the laptops and the PC can see each other and share resources/printer etc. Obviosuly, the main issue is that the PC is on a different subnet, but I can't seem to configure the wired router to allow traffic inbound from the outer subnet (though the PC can see devices on the outer subnet). I am presuming this is to do with the NAT, but when I switch NAT off, the whole thing fails - the laptops still can't see the PC through windows networking and the remote control breaks down. Now, I do have a second NIC in the PC, but I have nowhere to connect it into on the router as there is only one WAN port. So, my question is, is there any way to get this setup to work as it is, or am I going to have to get another switch to connect the second NIC onto the outer subnet side of the wired router?

 

[jimbopalmer]

Normally, when I discuss how to make a router back into a switch, it is because the person has bought the wrong box at the store. Your router seems to be serving some function for you, and I do not know if it will serve the same function once it is only used as a switch.


Give the new router an IP address in the subnet of the old router, but ideally outside the DHCP range of the old router. Disable DHCP server in the new router, then connect to the new router using LAN ports, not WAN ports.

Since I am not sure how you are getting WOL packets out of the second router, that technique may not help you at all.


I tried to remain child-like, all I acheived was childish.

 

[jpcw]

Thanks for the suggestion - but I tried this first off, with the same thought. Unfortunately, I need the port forwarding to send the magic packet to the broadcast address i.e. packet comes in from router 1, sent to ip address of router 2, router 2 then relays that to broadcast address 192.168.1.255. In switch mode, it can't do that because the port forwarding only operates between the WAN and LAN interfaces (the LAN switching is entirely unmanaged). If my main router could have port forwarded to the broadcast address, none of this would have been necessary, but rather than fork out for a replacement device, I bought a cheap 2nd hand Linksys router to fulfill the WoL function, but seem to have caused a whole different set of problems!!! I'm thinking the second NIC/cheap switch option might be my only course of action, but I want to be sure there isn't a workaround first.

 

[jimbopalmer]

And you can't just switch the old router out as it also the modem, can you turn off it's router function and use the 'new' router as the router for all?

I tried to remain child-like, all I acheived was childish.

 

[jpcw]

No, the router is permanently on as is the firewall, so can't be used as a modem only (plus it controls the wireless network).