Two LANs, two WANs

I own the house just around the corner from my parents.

For a bit of fun I want to join the two LANs together while keeping both WANs separate.

Current setup in my house:
- Sky Hub acting as modem
- ASUS N66U acting as router (running Asuswrt-Merlin)

Current setup in my parents house:
- BT Home Hub 5 acting as modem and router

Between the houses we have 3 neighbours, so while hard wiring is out of the question we do have line of sight. What I'd like to do is spend £150 on a pair of Ubiquiti Nanobeam M5's to create a point to point link between our houses.

The end product I'd like to achieve is having the ability to transfer and share files like a LAN between the two houses but both use our own WAN connections for internet.

Additionally I don't want to have to assign static address/gateway configurations to each computer or device on either network and just have it work seamlessly as possible (i.e. keep all configuration on the routers/switches)

So, how do I go about this? Can I keep the DHCP for each LAN local? Would I need another router/switch with specific configuration options? I'm taken by the Ubiquiti kit but don't want to spend money unnecessarily.

More complete network diagram: http://imgur.com/a/83nYF

Thoughts and suggestions appreciated!

I think I've figured it out in my head...

Think I need a 3rd router to place between the two "edge" routers (the Asus and the BTHH). I call this new router the "bridging" router.

If my house is setup with range 192.168.1.1/24 and my dads house is setup with IP range 192.168.2.1/24 then whenever the edge routers broadcast the query for the other range it should be picked up by the bridging router.

If I can set up static routes on the bridging router it should be able to pass them over to the other LAN.

One limitation would be I wouldn't be able to use network names, but I don't at the moment anyway.

Does this seem right?

Wouldn't a simple VPN between sites be the easiest option?

Internet is 5Mb ADSL at both ends. Thus the desire for a faster link.

Prophet said:

Wouldn't a simple VPN between sites be the easiest option?

Click to expand...

I was going to say he same but thought it may of been a trick question

So my network knowledge is competent from the consumer side of things but by no means amazing when it comes to enterprise options.

As far as file sharing goes, obviously that's something we do already. Between online cloud storage services we can share pictures and things, but our 5Mbps connection makes it fairly crippling when I want to simply fire over the odd video taken on my iPhone.

So, yes, I could setup a VPN but that would a) not resolve the bandwidth issue and b) not have any added flexibility we don't get from Dropbox already.

In an ideal world I hope the solution will allow my dad to use Plex to view my home Plex server so we don't even have to transfer videos ahead of time.

I appreciate it's very much a first world problem, but like I said, it's a bit of fun and when the costs are going to be split between my father and myself I don't mind punting £100 at it to make it work.

Ninja edit: Although... I suppose technically a VPN doesn't have to be over a WAN connection... but the connection between the networks has to happen at the infrastructure level so that any device can make the connection to any other device... soooo technically it could be done with a 3rd router that supports running as a VPN server on my dads side... maybe...

You don't need another router, a layer 3 switch between the two networks will do the job.

Thinking about it a £50 Ubiquiti Edge Router X could do the job, put it in 5 port switch mode and then create VLAN's and the ERX will be able to route between them.

A quick google suggests that could be a winner.

If I understand correctly a layer 3 switch would have the same routing functionality as any normal "router" but I'd avoid paying for the additional extras - like firewall, dhcp server, WiFi even on a consumer model.

I take it I'd still need the same sort of static routing to get everything to talk correctly?

Could you recommend a cheap layer 3 switch to do the job?

EDIT: Hum... looks like despite being "cut down" routers a layer 3 switch is likely to cost much more than a simple router I could flash with dd-wrt for the same effect simply because I'm into buying enterprise grade kit.

RoyMi6 said:

In an ideal world I hope the solution will allow my dad to use Plex to view my home Plex server so we don't even have to transfer videos ahead of time.

Click to expand...

Plex runs perfectly fine over the internet connection you have. I can run 5 streams on my 15MB upload speed so one for your dad over the internet is no problem.

You could have that running for free in a few minutes.

I appreciate the input Prophet but there's no work around for this that can rely on my internet connection.

Prior to living here my old connection was 150Mb Virgin, I had everything setup like anyone else on high speed broadband and I could share effortlessly with my father.

I've been a Plex pass subscriber for many years and even contributed towards development of the ATV2 hack back in the day, I'm more than versed on its capabilities.

But this is what I'm having to put up with now (I know I said 5Mb, but that's more like an optimitic best case scenario that I once got, best upload I've seen is 0.8Mb)


No amount of telling me what's possible will make it possible. The fact is that if he streams anything from my network at the moment not only does it barely work, but it cripples my home internet connection as no requests can be sent out.

I've lived with workarounds for a year and we have the disposable income to try something different.

EDIT: In fact, I should say the situation that started this whole train of thought was my dads internet is intermittent at best. He's retired so having consistent access to my media would be a bonus.

RoyMi6 said:

No amount of telling me what's possible will make it possible. The fact is that if he streams anything from my network at the moment not only does it barely work, but it cripples my home internet connection as no requests can be sent out.

Click to expand...

You supply incorrect information then shoot my suggestion down, when it's based on what you've directly stated. Very cool!

Interest withdrawn.

If all your kit runs windows I'd have to try a homegroup with a folder shared between the two properties and see what happens.

Could it be so simple?

Wouldn't all of the machine in the homegroup need to be on the same subnet (not 100% sure, but I'd expect so)? As the OP wants to keep both internet connections and isn't prepared to set the gateway manually they'll need to be two separate subnets.

As the OP has described things there would need to be static routes setup to route the traffic between the two subnets. Unfortunately I believe this would need to be done on the gateway routers and they probably aren't capable.

Doing this with a single internet connection, or with some manual gateway settings, would be easy.

You'd need a pair of wireless radios as specced and a router at each end - like an EdgeRouter-X or Mikrotik equivalent. You'd need to use this router as your default gateway if you didn't want to / couldn't add static routes to each client device or couldn't put custom routes into your existing routers (99% sure you won't be able to do that).

You'd also need to bridge your existing internet connections or get pure ADSL modems. Could be tricky with Sky as an ISP.

Double NAT happening already so the OP can obviously live with it.

If it was me I'd run everything as a single subnet and live with the manual device configuration required to spread the connected devices between the two gateways.

If you're really against any manual setup then configure the DHCP servers on both routers to serve IPs on the same subnet but in different ranges.

So for your folks PC *should* get a response from their BT home hub before it gets a response from your Asus router given the higher latency of the hop over the ubquity kit. And your PC should get a faster response your Asus kit. You should route out of your ASDL connection that they should route out of theirs.

Not sure if it'll work with cheapo BT / Asus routers tho.

Homegroup does only work over one subnet, but it also requires the underlying network infrastructure to be setup correctly. If homegroup did sit above the network layer and was able to communicate it would possibly be a fudge too far as it's likely other value added services (like local Plex) wouldn't work.

To be fair I think most people would be against manual setup of every device on their home network? Apart from having to configure anyone's phone that wants to use my WiFi a quick google shows many IOT things can't be assigned static IP addresses and would mean devices that need DHCP, like my Echo Dot, would stop working.

Keeping things on the same subnet with different ranges is something I had considered when brainstorming this.

I'll actually get a chance to test this tonight as I'm getting a spare BTHH off a friend today.

I'm planning on setting up my ASUS "ROUTER1" DHCP range 192.168.1.2-120 with a subnet mask for 255.255.255.0.

Then BTHH "ROUTER2" DHCP range of 192.168.1.121-254 with the same subnet mask.

In turn I hope that the broadcasting used by the router will be sent out on all ports when it picks up IP address it doesn't recognized as directly attached but within it's DHCP subnet range.

Sorry, I should also say I don't have any double NATing issues at the moment. I've copied and pasted the details from the Asus router to the Sky modem in the diagram. DHCP is disabled on the modem. Sky Hub IP is 192.168.0.1 and the Asus router WAP IP is 192.168.0.250.

Could you just add a NAS and attach both networks to it?

If your location wasn't Wales I would swear you were someone in my office trolling me...

Just literally had this conversation. Current storage server already has two NICs (from a past project) but I'm only using one. Might actually be the route I take in practice.