Our network "works"; however, I would like to hear from you experts on how I can clean things up and improve data transfer speeds as transferring 2-50GB's in a day is not uncommon.

The main issue is that some machines are connected to a comcast supplied modem/router combo unit (SMC Networks Business IP Gateway) and others are connected to a Cisco Linksys E4200 router (which is connected to the SMC Networks box). We basically have more CPU's than physical ports of either unit alone unit but enough ports across both units.

With the networks current operation some laptops are connected wirelessly to the Linksys and physically to the SMC; Physically connected Ip's are 10.1 and wireless are 192.168. For some reason laptops connected like this choose to transfer data wirelessly instead of through ethernet cable. Also some machines don't always see other machines on the network. We remote desktop into machines quite a bit and sometimes experience routing / port forwarding issues from all the different IP forms and forwarding rules.

A big mess; I know! I'm the Mechanical Engineer of a start-up company that's been doing the networking and everyone is happy things "work" but now I'm looking to understand this a bit better and find some direction to clean this all up.

Is it possible for linksys router to operate as 10.1 and assign 10.1 IPs to connected machines so all computers on the network are of the same 10.1?
Is it possible to set a connection use priority for machines physically connected and wirelessly connected to use physical connection? I could just NOT connect wirelessly but then machines plugged into SMC can't access other wireless or physically plugged in machines of the linksys.

Any thoughts or general direction would be appreciated.

Next thing i'm going to try is to set the linksys to static IP with 10.1.10 (to follow comcast IP). Then i guess i would make sure the linksys final ip digits assigned would be outside of the comcast assignments so there is no confusion / double IP's (which probably wouldn't happen anyway?). I feel like this alone is not enough to clean this all up; but i'll give it a try until i hear from anyone!


Thanks!

Are you able to purchase additional equipment ?

If so, I'd do the following things.

Place the comcast router into bridged mode. Connect this to the Linksys via the WAN port.

Use the Linksys to dhcp serve 10.1.x.x addresses, and to handle your internet connection.

Purchase a cheap switch, perhaps an 8/16 port unit, connect this to the Linksys via a Lan port.

For units that are connected via wireless and a physical port, open the TCP/IP connection properties of the physical NIC and turn off automatic metric, set this metric to 1. Do the same for the wireless NIC and set it to something above 10. More detailed instructions are here : http://www.ezlan.net/metrics.html

Assuming you can NOT purchase additional equipment, then disable DHCP on the linksys, have the comcast do all the dhcp work. You may notice some slowness in the network, this is due to the comcast doing all the heavy lifting.

Good luck, report back and let us know how you go.

it's generally not a secure idea to have laptops connected to wireless and wired at the same time,
you can fix this by using local route statements on the laptop, but this may break when the laptop
goes off network. other option is to only allow either wired or wireless connections.

basically what I am saying, if your wireless network gets compromised, your wired network gets compromised.
not good.

_________________
"If you're good at anticipating the human mind. It leaves nothing to chance."
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