[Hudlug] Two routers on 1 LAN

[Ben Carter]

Hi,

>Last week I talked to Paul about the physical difficulties of additional
>cat5 wiring, and we discussed the possibility of adding a second WAP to
>overcome my difficulties.  The unit that arrived today is an Acer WLAN 11g
>Broadband Router which will also give me a 4-port switch - surely
>enough :-)

>Currently the LAN goes through a similar unit in another part of the house,
>with an IP range of 192.168.0.  Paul suggested that I should configure
>this new one on a separate subnet, and since the default is 192.168.1 I
>will stick to that.  I prefer to use static IP, so I'll ignore the setup
>for DHCP.  The first setup screen once that is selected asks for

>I'm familiar with a normal router setup, but how do I tackle it here?  This
>router will not be directly attached to the Internet.  It must communicate
>with the other subnet to go outside the LAN.  Once that's done, the rest
>of the setup looks straightforward.

I'm unsure of exactly the features the acer will give you, however the 
following should help.

1 - you need to have this AP and the other AP on the same ip subnet as the 
first one, unless you have a device capable of routing between them. Most 
broadband routers have 2 interfaces to the routing process - the broadband 
link, and the local LAN. The Local LAN then has at layer 2 the 4 switch 
ports and the Wireless Interface.

2 - it seems that all your trying to do is extend your house LAN. You really 
need to have the 2nd AP wired into the LAN, or you'll need to have the 
wireless interface set to repeat to the first AP. (Not good for lots and 
lots of reasons - and the acer might not even support this)

3 - ensure both APs are using very different channels. 802.11g has channel 
overlap, so I'd suggest 1 AP on channel 1 and the other on channel 13.

4 - If you can get past the setup screen for the WAN interface and DNS, fake 
it, it's all layer 3 stuff anyway, which you won't be using. Just ensure the 
default gateway of your PCs etc.. is the true gateway.

>Then I have to work out how to bridge the two subnets.  The main unit, the
>D-Link, looks as though it can function as a bridge.  Can anyone please
>give me an outline of what I need to look for, and how to begin?  As I
>said, I lose some functionality as soon as I start work on this, so I need
>to know what I'm doing from the start.

You can't "bridge" subnet's in the IP sense, you have to route. Bridging is 
a layer 2 operation.

I have to ask - why did you buy a broadband router etc... when it won't be 
connected to a broadband line. A simple Wireless AP/bridge seems far more 
suitable?

Ben.