I have two broadband connections at home- obviously on two separate lines.

I got really fed up with the kids gaming online and slowing the broadband to a crawl, so when I was offered 16mb broadband with sky for £10 a month I signed up.

At the moment, my pc sits on one network alone. It runs wireless for my laptop but the adsl connection to sky can be a little flaky and drops out quite a bit, so I need to be able to log in to this router to check and connect every so often (weeks, not minutes!). I have the soundbridge media server connected to this network also.

The other network connects to adsl via a linksys router, which has a real solid connection, but the wireless can be a little unpredictable / unreliable. The printer is hooked up to this network- my pc connects to the printer via usb.

Is there any way in which my pc can bridge both networks so I can control both routers via their IP addresses or will the dhcp cause everything to go wierd?

Thanks....

Simon

 

This was discussed before xmas:

https://www.scoobynet.com/computer-r...an-router.html

Let us know if you have any q's about it.

J

 

Thanks J, will have a read

 

Ok, read that, so the way forward is a dual wan router rather than a second lan card in my pc?

 

Just read the other thread, seems like there are some complex options.

Not sure if its also an option to have an old system run a Windows server OS, have two modems (two lans cards) and just bridge the connections. Maybe thats just too simple to work?

 

RRH - From what I understand. You want to manage both LAN's instead of combining the two Internet connections. If yes, then you don't need a load balancer.

All you need to do is connect both routers via an Ethernet cable. If the routers aren't in the same room then you can use Homeplug technology.

SKY Router
Keep DHCP on
IP Address 192.168.0.1

Linksys Router
DHCP off
IP Address 192.168.0.2

Kids Computers, Soundbridge etc on DHCP

Your PC on static IP address using the Linksys gateway.

The above would then allow you to have both LAN's merged together for simple management

 

So effectively cascade the routers, which sit right next to each other.

Everything on the network will get an IP from the sky router with the dhcp.

The route to internet, however, is dictated by which router it connects to.

Do I have that right?

Thanks, again, for all the help guys

 

You nearly got it right

Yep, cascade them.

If the SKY router is the only router dishing out addresses via DHCP. Then the devices on DHCP that are connected to either router will go out via the SKY. This is because the DHCP details will have the SKY as the gateway out to the Internet even if the DHCP device is connected to the Linksys.

To have the devices go out via the Linksys. You need to manually assign their IP addresses pointing to gateway 192.168.0.2 (Linksys) based on my example above.

 

Ok, I think I've got that- if I manually assign it it will connect through the router it's connected to and ignore the dhcp server and its route to internet?

sorry to sound such a ********. sadly, I'm used to it

 

yup

if you go to start>run>cmd and type ipconfig it will tell you which IP address your computer is routing through.

 

If you manually assign the address then you dictate which Internet gateway to use i.e. 192.168.0.2 (Linksys) for example.

If your are on DHCP then you are controlled by which Internet you go out on by the details within the DHCP settings on the router dishing out the DHCP.

For example. One of your computers is connected to the Linksys router and is DHCP enabled. The computer will make a request for IP information. As the Linksys would have DHCP off it will ignore the request. The DHCP will then traverse down the Ethernet cable to the SKY enabled DHCP router which will see the request and process the with it's IP details as the gateway out to the Internet.