Network configuration help!

Meatball · 6 Dec 2015 at 15:58

I'm trying to set-up my parent's network in their new house which compromises of:

1) Netgear Aircard AC785 3G/4G router in DC113A dock

2) TP-Link AC1900 P5 Touch gigabit router

Essentially I want the Netgear to act solely as the modem / internet source and the TP-Link to perform all routing functionality and wireless etc. I just cannot seem to get them to cascade properly!

I've tried the following configuration:
Netgear's IP address: 192.168.0.1
Turned off the DHCP server, IP passthrough and DMZ.

TP-Link IP address: 192.168.1.1
DHCP server pool as 192.168.1.2-254

The ethernet cable goes from the single Netgear gigabit port to the WAN port of the TP-Link.

It doesn't seem to like it! I can't access the Netgear's web interface when connected to the TP-Link. I tried moving the ethernet cable to one of the TP-Links LAN ports instead, but this made no difference.

What am I doing wrong?

Steveocee · 6 Dec 2015 at 18:49

What is it you specifically want feature-wise from the Touch?

It seems an arduous exercise double NAT'ting and going through this if it's only the wireless capablity.

If it was myself I'd do the following;
TP-Link:192.168.0.1 >Internet/PPP/Dialup/Whatever, DHCP 192.168.0.51-200, NAT, Firewall
Touch:192.168.0.2 > Wireless AP

It depends what you want it to do.

busbyuk · 6 Dec 2015 at 21:14

Your Netgear and TP-Link are on different networks. The connecting ports should have reach ability to each other and so be on the same subnet. This is assuming you are using a /24 on those 192.168.x.x addresses?

Meatball · 6 Dec 2015 at 23:05

Steveocee said:
What is it you specifically want feature-wise from the Touch?

It seems an arduous exercise double NAT'ting and going through this if it's only the wireless capablity.

If it was myself I'd do the following;
TP-Link:192.168.0.1 >Internet/PPP/Dialup/Whatever, DHCP 192.168.0.51-200, NAT, Firewall
Touch:192.168.0.2 > Wireless AP

It depends what you want it to do.

The Netgear has very limited Wi-Fi range and is only Wireless N, where as the TP-Link is Wireless AC and has far superior Wi-Fi coverage.

I want the Netgear to serve WAN functionality and the TP-Link to handle routing and wireless functionality. I suppose I could make it a lot easier and stick the TP-Link in access point mode and connect it to the Netgear that way?

Bluecube · 6 Dec 2015 at 23:34

As was mentioned above, the Netgear is on a different network. Change the IP address to 192.168.1.1 and the TPLink device to 192.168.1.2 and see what happens.

Meatball · 7 Dec 2015 at 01:17

Bluecube said:
As was mentioned above, the Netgear is on a different network. Change the IP address to 192.168.1.1 and the TPLink device to 192.168.1.2 and see what happens.

This appears to work, kind of. With the Netgear set as 192.168.1.1 and TP-Link set to 192.168.1.2 I can access both web interfaces but no devices can detect the WAN connection through the Netgear

. The Netgear is connected to a LAN port on the TP-Link.

would enabling IP pass through mode work? I'm assuming this will allow the Netgear to share the network assigned IP address with all the connected devices?

leigh_boy · 7 Dec 2015 at 08:49

Meatball said:
This appears to work, kind of. With the Netgear set as 192.168.1.1 and TP-Link set to 192.168.1.2 I can access both web interfaces but no devices can detect the WAN connection through the Netgear . The Netgear is connected to a LAN port on the TP-Link.

would enabling IP pass through mode work? I'm assuming this will allow the Netgear to share the network assigned IP address with all the connected devices?

This is a very bad setup, if you do ip pass through this is for giving an internally device the extrnal ip but this will not work unless you have done the same from the first router what you want to do is possible but its not easy to talk you through and you are also double / tripple natting so not good at all.

Meatball · 7 Dec 2015 at 11:24

Hmm, maybe this won't be as easy as I was guessing

. Would it be easier to stick the TP-Link in access point mode keep the Netgear for all functionality?

lamboman · 7 Dec 2015 at 11:34

Meatball said:
Hmm, maybe this won't be as easy as I was guessing . Would it be easier to stick the TP-Link in access point mode keep the Netgear for all functionality?

Unless you have a specific reason to, to be honest I'd just stick with keeping the TP-Link as an access point.

The biggest issue is that bridging is implemented in different ways in many consumer routers, making it an utter pain to configure. It's usually just not worth the hassle.

leigh_boy · 7 Dec 2015 at 11:54

so what you want to do is
dmz / pass through (aka bridge) to the router you actually want to use and then do your port forwards.

Meatball · 11 Dec 2015 at 18:16

So this only seems to work when I leave things default, although I'm sure it's not an optimal set-up:
Netgear AC785S+DC113a: 192.168.1.1 conected to the TP-Link wan. The TP-Link sets its IP as 192.168.0.1 and the connection type as Dynamic IP. With this the TP-Link has set the Internet settings as:
IP: 192.168.1.61
Sub: 255.255.255.0
Gateway and Prinary DNS: 192.168.1.1

The DHCP server on the TP-Link is set as:
192.168.0.100-199 with a default gateway as 192.168.0.1

So it's double NATing as far as I understand? The Internet connection drops as soon as I turn the Netgear's DHCP off.