Connecting two networks together

Paul11 · 19 Jun 2009 at 23:01

i am trying to connect two seperate networks together. i have two computers and two different phone lines.

pc1 connected on broadband line 1
pc2 connected on broadband line 2

i would like to plug router 1 in to router 2 so pc1 can share files across the local network to pc2

is this possible ?

ian|Squared² · 19 Jun 2009 at 23:05

ive wondered if i could do something similar and never found out

BUMP

wij · 19 Jun 2009 at 23:11

Any reason why you have a separate connection for each machine?

Personally I'd just spend some money on a decent load balancing router (DrayTek 2900 series for instance) and connect both your ADSL lines to that, and then both PC's into the router - both can load balance / specific route across both internet connections and both are able to share files nice and easily.

You could also put a 2nd network card in each machine and then just give each one a static IP address with no gateway and use that to share files across.

timefalls · 19 Jun 2009 at 23:12

sounds fine to me. ensure that the routers do not have adresses in the same subnet, and connect them together. If you use windows, make sure they are set to the same workgroup and they should be visible to each other.

Paul11 · 19 Jun 2009 at 23:13

wij said:
Any reason why you have a separate connection for each machine?

Personally I'd just spend some money on a decent load balancing router (DrayTek 2900 series for instance) and connect both your ADSL lines to that, and then both PC's into the router - both can load balance / specific route across both internet connections and both are able to share files nice and easily.

You could also put a 2nd network card in each machine and then just give each one a static IP address with no gateway and use that to share files across.

I have thought about this, but for the moment i just want to have each pc doing its own thing but still manage to share files ...

ill consider the load balancing thing later.....

funnily enough one line syncs at 12mb and the other at 18mb .. both bt lines /both on same provider

would load balancing be noticablly better? and is it the best option for sending large files or am i best just to leave one pc uploading away ?

timefalls said:
sounds fine to me. ensure that the routers do not have adresses in the same subnet, and connect them together. If you use windows, make sure they are set to the same workgroup and they should be visible to each other.

do you mean the subnet mask should be different ?

timefalls · 19 Jun 2009 at 23:22

yes just change one. if they are both in the same addressable space eg. both within 192.168.2.x, then they won't be seen.

go for it and report back!

EDIT: if you only have 2 machines on your network, you could configure them to use static IPs, instead of dynamic ones, and then you could put them on the same subnet (in theory)

Paul11 · 19 Jun 2009 at 23:28

timefalls said:
yes just change one. if they are both in the same addressable space eg. both within 192.168.2.x, then they won't be seen.

go for it and report back!

EDIT: if you only have 2 machines on your network, you could configure them to use static IPs, instead of dynamic ones, and then you could put them on the same subnet (in theory)

my subnet is 255.255.248.0 (both routers)

one is 192.168.0.1 the other is 192.168.1.254

edit:
on the 192.168.0.1 in basic adsl settings the subnet is 255.255.248.0 but if i click on lan ip setup it is 255.255.255.0

timefalls · 19 Jun 2009 at 23:40

-how are the two networks connected together?

i have two networks connected together in my house via homeplug adapters. i plugged the WAN port on router 2 into a free LAN port on router 1. thiis gives all my devices around the house internet access, as well as being visible to each other. i'll post my settings, they may give you some clues:

network 1:

IP:192.168.0.1
Subnet Mask: 255.255.255.0

all equipment on this router get addresses between 192.168.0.1/255

network 2

IP:192.168.2.1
Subnet Mask:255.255.255.0

all equipment on this router get addresses between 192.168.2.1/255

router 1 must not be able to dole out addresses that can be given out by router 2, and vice-versa.

wij · 20 Jun 2009 at 00:00

Why on earth you'd do it like that and introduce a double-nat setup for the stuff on the second router is questionable.

Why not just get a switch, or at least just disable the DHCP server in the 2nd router, give it an ip in the same subnet as the first one (i.e. 192.168.0.2 /24) and connect the powerline adapter to one if its switch ports.

timefalls · 20 Jun 2009 at 00:14

wij said:
Why on earth you'd do it like that and introduce a double-nat setup for the stuff on the second router is questionable.

i don't mean to be rude, but i couldn't make sense of what you said here.

the reason i segmented my network in this fashion was easy. I have a fileserver on my network, and several PCs in the house, plus 2 games consoles, and an internet radio. If i was to have all these things running at once on one network, throughput would be very poor, as i only have the capacity for 100Mbps (12.5MB/s). all of this would be easily taken up for example if somebody was streaming a HD video to the HTPC whilst a backup was going on. plus, gaming performance would suck!

i could have bought a equipment that could support higher speeds, but that costs £££ and i needed a solution that worked and only cost ££.

by splitting the network in two, and having all the high-bandwidth stuff (file server, HTPC) on one network, and all the stuff which requires low-latency on another (skype PC, internet radio, gaming PCs and games consoles) i get decent performance and its cheap!

Paul11 · 20 Jun 2009 at 07:21

timefalls said:
-how are the two networks connected together?

i have two networks connected together in my house via homeplug adapters. i plugged the WAN port on router 2 into a free LAN port on router 1. thiis gives all my devices around the house internet access, as well as being visible to each other. i'll post my settings, they may give you some clues:

network 1:

IP:192.168.0.1
Subnet Mask: 255.255.255.0

all equipment on this router get addresses between 192.168.0.1/255

network 2

IP:192.168.2.1
Subnet Mask:255.255.255.0

all equipment on this router get addresses between 192.168.2.1/255

router 1 must not be able to dole out addresses that can be given out by router 2, and vice-versa.

thanks, i have just connected router 1 to a hub (which is connected to router 2) its the only way as router 2 is far away from router 1

ill have a play around with the settings a bit later when i get back..

thanks for the pointers.