Hi,

I did do some networking about 12 years ago so I have some basic knowledge, but I am far from being an expert so for the purposes of any replies to this plea for help, please assume that I know nothing.

I currently have two separate networks at home one from a Draytek router and connected to a satellite internet connection, the other from a standard BT Home Hub v3 and connected to my telephone landline.

The Draytek network is used for home-based office work and is connected to two wireless printers, two NAS drives and a selection of laptops/ipads etc (about 6 in all)

The BT network is used by the kids for leisure stuff and is connected wirelessly to a couple of different laptops.

The reason for the separation is that we are in a very rural part of Wales and get really poor landline internet connection speeds (0.5M), hence the satellite connection (18M). The problem with the satellite is that it is useage limited, and streaming You-tube, TV etc would swallow this allowance in a few days.

Currently, the Dratek is configured as 192.168.1.1, with a DHCP range of 192.168.1.10 to 192.168.1.60. The BT Home Hub is set to it's default configuration of 192.168.1.254, with a DHCP range of 192.168.1.64 to 192.168.1.253. The printers and NAS drives are on static IPs in the Draytek range and all the computers receive dynamic addresses when they joint whichever network they are on. Both routers are on 255.255.255.0 subnet masks.

What I would like to do is allow sharing of the printers and NAS drives without allowing the kids network to have access to the satellite broadband link. I have access to a bunch of other kit, most usefully three old Linksys routers (not 801.11/n compatible but otherwise ok) that I could use as additional switches/bridges etc if needs be.

Can someone please let me know what the addressing needs to be to get this working as I can't figure it out?

Many TIA

Dave

Well, connect everything together in one network, and let the routers hand out IP addresses, like you have now. You will have to change one of the router's IP addresses so they don't have 192.168.1.1 both. The second at .2 will work fine.
Problem is you have to be sure the right device gets an IP and gateway from the right router.
Do you have a Cisco switch somewhere? Even if it's an 8-port, but it has to be managed. I know it's a strange question, but DHCP Snooping would help at that.

And if not, are you willing to do a static IP address everywhere, or for the devices that require satellite connection at least? That way, you can manually set the default gateway for your office devices to the satellite router, while the home router hands out IP's for everything else towards the landline. You'll have to disable DHCP Server on the satellite router then.

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Reggle,

Thanks for the reply - I hadn't realised that I could have two routers on the same network (did say you have to assume I know nothing!).

I'm going to try your solution but with a slight variation - I'm going to assign the "home" laptops (the ones the kids use on the slow connection) with static addresses as well as the printers and NAS drives. The reason for this is that both the wife and I also connect laptops provided by our clients to our "work" network (the satellite connection), and I can't assign static addresses to these machines.

If I understand correctly, I will need to turn off DHCP on the "home" router then and set the static IP machines to this router as their gateway?

As a matter of interest, could I use one of the old Linksys routers as a switch? If so, what advantage would it offer and how would I then configure the network? What is DHCP Snooping? I did a quick Google but I'm not sure I understand it properly - is it simply setting the router clients to specific IP/MAC addresses (which even I understand ).

To be honest, if the network works just by putting the kids' machines on static addresses, then I'm happy with that.

Thanks for the help!

Static or not for the sattelite connection shouldn't matter for a VPN, but if you prefer it that way, it's possible.

You understand correctly

I don't recommend using the Linksys as a switch. it will work if you use only the WAN ports, and again disable DHCP server (give it another IP in the same subnet, 192.168.1.3 for example). It will work but usually at a low throughput. Now if you have a cheap switch still lying around somewhere, that would be better.
DHCP Snooping would prevent the DHCP negotiations from one router reaching the other side of the network. That way you could let both on automatic addresses, in the same network, but still allow separation. It would be a more creative solution, that is all.

That should work, yes. Just double-check everything: everything in the same subnet, no overlapping DHCP scopes, not even with the static addresses, proper gateway addresses.

No problem!

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