2 networks into 1

By MankeyM0nkey
in Smart Home, Network & Security

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Apprentice

MankeyM0nkey

Posted
Posted

I've tried searcing this group for an answer but I'm not sure what to search for :) My problem is I want to create a sub network which is wired based to a wireless network, all using the same IP range. Not being an network admin myself and mostly sefl taught I'm getting myself ina a tizwaz! Any help is gratefully apprciated!

There are two locations for this network:

HOUSE - currently has a win2k server hooked up to a router (which in turn is on ADSL). THe router is also attached to a d-link wireless hub. This location services 2 machines via the wireless hub and of course the server which is hooked up to router.

CABIN - Cabin has 3 machines, another win2k server, an XP desktop and a laptop. Currently the desktop has a booster ariel to recevie the wireless hub signal, it's good and strong giving me 1.06meg a second (its a 11bx4 broadcast). The other two machines use the dinky ariel that comes as standard and the link is generaly poor compared to the boosted dekstop machine's ariel.

IPs for this location range from 192.168.0.1 to 192.168.0.20 and are DHCP'd via the server in the house.

What I want to do is to wire all the machines together in the CABIN into a network which subsquentally joins the wireless network in the HOUSE. Reason being I am using teh CABIN server as a local filestore and since the ariel is pants on that machine I thought if it was a local network to the CABIN then @ 100mbs speed would give me a lot faster access to the server.

I've got a 5port hub in the CABIn to link the 3 machines up, but how do I link the hub in the CABIN to the wireless hub in the HOUSE?

So how do I do this?

1. Do I buy a wireless repeater and plug that into the hub's uplink?

2. Can I fudge a way by having 2 network cards in the CABIN server, one to accept the signal from the boosted wireless ariel and the other to join that to the wired hub and the 2 other machines?

3. Erm, any other ideas?

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Statikk

Posted
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So the cabin and the house are in the same physical location then?? Just wanted to make sure I know exactly what you're trying to do here. If that is indeed the case then either buy a wireless bridge as mentioned above or do the dual nic thing you described in #2. Either will work well as long as the server runs while you want to be on the network.

Apprentice

MankeyM0nkey

Posted
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OK, maybe its just the Jim Beam I'm drinking tonight but I can't get #2 option to work.

Here's how I have set it up:

Wink2k Server has -

* Wireless netcard (192.168.0.10) - this to access the wireless hub, network and router in the HOUSE location.

* Wired netcard (192.168.0.11) - this is current hooked up to a wired hub for the CABIN.

Laptop has -

* Wired netcard (192.168.0.12) - this is also wired to the the CABIN hub.

I can ping between 11 and 12 as I'd expect since they're going through the wired hub, but I cannot ping 192.168.0.2 which is in the HOUSE which should go though, in this order, CABIN wink2k server -> wireless card -> HOUSE wireless hub -> HOUSE router -> HOUSE wink2k server (192.168.0.2).

But it doesn't...how do I get the machines on the CABIN network to pass their requests though the wireless link to reach the HOUSE network?

I'm missin sommin obviosu here, please enlighten me :)

Grand Master

Frank

Posted
Posted

I think (this is just a shot in the dark, and may make me look stupid, but owell) you will need to set the Gateway IP on the three PC's in the cabin to 192.168.0.11 or 192.168.0.10. I am not sure which one, or if it will even work, but it is worth a try.

Enthusiast

ChiefWahoo

Posted
Posted

I have a similar configuration (two different subnet thou). I will add the role of gateway to the win2k3 server in the cabin and have all the other workstation pointing to that server (the bridge solution should also work). The Linksys hub in the cabin has an ip or it is just a repeter?

Neowinian

oc3boi

Posted
Posted

Ideally, you'd just have a wireless bridge or an access point (in bridging mode) attached to the hub in your cabin. That provides to cleanest and most transparent setup to all of your users.

Otherwise, this is what I did: I've got a laptop in my room that's running 2003 server and has a NIC on it's dock and a wireless card in the PC card slot. Both the NIC and wireless have a static address. Well, here's what I did...

I used RIP. If you're not familiar with RIP, it's the Routing Internet Protocol and it's relatively simple to set up. Basically, I have RRAS running on both my laptop and the house server (which provides NAT, DHCP, DNS and WINS to everyone). The main network address space is 10.10.10.x. The network "behind" my laptop is 10.10.1.x. Now to provide my routing, I establish RIP on each machine using RIPv2 only and only allowing the server to listen for routes from the laptop and vice versa.

Voila, nearly transparent routing. I know there's a way to do this that's better, but this was my quickfix that has held up VERY well.

good luck!

Translation required: <oc3boi@warmpost.commercial>

Apprentice

MankeyM0nkey

Posted
  • Author
Posted

OK, I'm still stuck :( Think this might be a wiresless bridge into the hub solution. I'd hate to give up on option #2. Just to recap, here's what Ive done/tried, all on the CABIN side of things:

Two nics in win2k3 server.

Card 1 is 192.168.0.10 and is teh wireless card. This can see anything on the HOUSE network including the gateway @ 192.168.0.1, and DNS servers set to my ISP. This browses the web, does email, pings anything on the wireless set up no problem as you'd expect.

Card 2 is 192.168.0.11 and this is plugged onto the hub (no IP for the hub just a repeater). No gateway set. No DNS set. This can ping anything plugged into the hub but not on the wireless network which I was hopeing to route the traffic through so that the wired net in the CABIN seemlessly hooks up the wireless net to access in the HOUSE and the outside world.

Attempt 1: On card 2, changed gateway to card 1, 192.168.0.10. Nothing.

Attempt 2: Reversed attempt1, made Card1 point it's gateway to Card 2. Nothing.

Attempt 3: Installed DNS server and/or DCHP. Both moaned about not being able to get DNS records (forward and/or reverse). Tried various DNS settings but got me no where, probably because I was tinkering and thinking ;)

So, am I missing something obvious here link a peiece of software to route the data from one card to the other and back again? Like something simple like NAT? If so, some suggestions of free/trialware software would be handy to prove if option 2 is still viable.

- Mm0nkey.

Grand Master

Frank

Posted
Posted

Do you have ICS running on your 2k3 server? What I believe what you may have to do is set up your Win 2k3 server basically as a router. Where the 192.168.0.10 is the WAN and the 192.168.0.11 is the LAN address of the router. This is something that I have never though of doing. You may want to check out this article at technet. It is talking about creating a networking bridge with Windows 2003.

Apprentice

MankeyM0nkey

Posted
  • Author
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I'll try the ICS idea now...did get part of a solution working...dug out my old copy WinProxy 5 and it managed to set up the network in the cabin so that each of the client machines can connect to the web etc but not able to see any machines in the house...basically it was set up as if the wireless card was the external IP and the wired card to the hub as the internal one...must be close now if I can at least browse the web via the client machines...just need to work out how to see the network on the otherside.

- Mm0nkey

Apprentice

MankeyM0nkey

Posted
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Posted

An update! Got something working :) WIth WinProxy installed I can now see the HOUSE network from the cabin, ping works! However, from the HOUSE I cannot see the CABIN network...think I need to reverse the NAT??? Have 2 entries, one to point from the CABIn to the HOUSE (which works) and then one from the HOUSE that points to the CABIN?

Neowinian

oc3boi

Posted
Posted

Hey, out of curiosity, do you have Windows Server 2003 Standard Edition? Standard has this nifty lil thingy called "bridging" for your NIC's. Let's two NIC's transparently provide a single IP to two networks and allow the two networks to talk to each other.

You have a one way NAT. From a networking perspective, you have a few options. NAT is great for when you have one IP and need to connect multiple clients. The NAT implementation in ICS leaves a lot to be desired. If you're interested in learning more 'bout networking, I'd suggest turning off ICS, opening the Run prompt and typing "rrasmgmt.msc". Then configure RRAS. Use the wizard to make an "internet connection" and treat the wireless NIC as your uplink to the internet. Now you've created a VERY manageble NAT environment (to the extent that you can run DHCP and DNS independently of RRAS and therefore have an insane level of control over both services). Additionally, you could establish RIP and create two networks (I know you want only 1, but listen to me here for a second). This allows you to have a network (say 192.168.1.x) for your house and a network (192.168.2.x) for your cabin. The server in teh cabin and your PDC in your house would create the routes and keep the network afloat. It's rather simple.

IDEALLY though, you'd have a bridge. A bridge is a simple joining of two networks. It'd be like have two big Cisco switches, each loaded down with clients. You then have a lil Netgear 4-port in between the two and cable the cisco's to the netgear. The netgear is now a bridge between teh networks (mind you, this assumes that the Cisco are configured in a single bridging group for every port which is a rarity). Bridging can be done both in hardware and in software. MS has a greate bridging solution that works in XP and Server 2003 Standard. I BELIEVE it's been removed from Enterprise but I'll test that once i get to work.

Anyways, enough yammering for me. Time to get back to work.

-the boi with the OC3 (well, it belong to OU, but i'm the primary user :-p)

  • 1 month later...
Apprentice

MankeyM0nkey

Posted
  • Author
Posted

Ok Guys, I wanna give you an update on my solution! Just for the record, and ask a few more questions.

My solution has been running now for about 4-5wks but I've noticed some little things that at starting to nag me which I cannot fix. First off, this is what's currently working.

Wireless card in CABIN server (link into house hub) 192.168.0.10

Wired nic also in CABIN server (linked to wired hub in cabin) 192.168.10.1

CABIN IP range, 192.168.10.1 - 192.168.10.20 / mask 255.255.255.0 (all static not DHCP)

HOUSE IP range 192.168.0.1 - 192.168.0.20 / mask 255.255.255.0 (some static some DHCP for laptops)

To get my connection into the HOUSE net from CABIN, used the win2k3 built in proxy/router applet. Basically public network is the wiresless card and private net card is the wired one. No basic win2k3 firewall set up.

Some issues are:

1. From the CABIN I can ping any machine on the two networks. From the HOUSE net I can ping anythng on the HOUSE net but only the server on the CABIN net (both x.x.0.10 and x.x.10.1). Why can't I ping beyond the CABIN server? My masking all wrong? IP ranges bolloxed up? Is there sommin in w2k3 I need to "allow" to make me do this? As I said, no firewall, built in or 3rd party set up when testing it.

2. After some heavy usage the conn to the HOUSE net seems to slow down over the wireless...Internet becomes slow, directory browsing seems slow, generally some lag, though when I copy a file over if still goes at 1mb a sec over the wireless conn...but again afterwards the network seems to slow, this can happen also to just the machines connected via wires in the CABIN. HOUSE net is find regardless. This is not just at peak times, this is anytime after heavy usage and network traffic. Some kind of speed trap in win2k3 somewhere? Anyone suggest anytrhing? Oh, after rebooting CABIN server, full network speed seems to be restored!

- MankeyM0nkey

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