Need some Feedback for my Home Network

[pommedeterror007]

Hello all, firstly thank you for reading and hopefully I can describe my situation well enough for you to understand and hopefully I can get some feedback on it.

 

So my home is pre wired for CAT 5e Ethernet to several rooms aswell as coaxial. Im trying to figure out a simple and robust network to connect all my wired and wireless connected devices together. Right now ive lazily set it up so that my modem router is connected to a switch that connects all my wired devices and then the wifi router (I use this one for wifi as it is much better range and speed) is connected through the switch. SO, ive thought of 2 ways i can set it up to re configure my network and want some advise/feedback. Ive done a sketch to show them.

 

Thanks in advance for taking the time to read my cruddy post haha.

[badreg]

#1 is the correct configuration. You don't want to deal with double NAT. Your router/AP is also likely much more powerful than the ISP gateway and will receive more frequent security updates.

[Windows7ge]

9 minutes ago, badreg said:

#1 is the correct configuration. You don't want to deal with double NAT. Your router/AP is also likely much more powerful than the ISP gateway and will receive more frequent security updates.

He could also set the wireless router to bridged mode so it only acts as an AP. Make it so his wireless clients don't have to deal with double NAT either.

[ImAlsoRan]

9 minutes ago, Windows7ge said:

He could also set the wireless router to bridged mode so it only acts as an AP. Make it so his wireless clients don't have to deal with double NAT either.

This. I have a "Orbi" system, and switching it to AP mode fixed double NAT. (Modem supplied 192.168.1.xxx), but Orbi provided 10.0.0.xx.

[pommedeterror007]

50 minutes ago, badreg said:

#1 is the correct configuration. You don't want to deal with double NAT. Your router/AP is also likely much more powerful than the ISP gateway and will receive more frequent security updates.

Theyre both non ISP Hardware. The modem router unit is an arris motorola its wifi is just super weak so i bought the second router as my main. In the second configuration the secondary (blue) router would act as an AP like @Windows7ge states.  but im not sure if it would be robust or easy to setup through a switch.

[Windows7ge]

5 minutes ago, pommedeterror007 said:

Theyre both non ISP Hardware. The modem router unit is an arris motorola its wifi is just super weak so i bought the second router as my main. In the second configuration the secondary (blue) router would act as an AP like @Windows7ge states.  but im not sure if it would be robust or easy to setup through a switch.

Want to know something that might blow your mind? The four ports you often find on routers are in itself a 4 port switch. It's just built in. They're not particularly intelligent devices (based primarily off ASICs if I recall). Assuming it's a non-managed switch configuring the routers software in either hardware configuration will make little to no impact on the difficulty. It'd just be a matter of which cable run would look cleaner. Wireless router to switch or wireless router to modem. Logically the network(s) would be all the same. Would make no difference.

[AngryBeaver]

15 hours ago, badreg said:

#1 is the correct configuration. You don't want to deal with double NAT. Your router/AP is also likely much more powerful than the ISP gateway and will receive more frequent security updates.

Actually on the majority of wifi routers you can connect it via a lan port instead of wan and disable dhcp and firewall to just turn it into a switch with WIFI which also takes away the double nat issue. You just need to make sure to set the routers IP manually to something inside your subnet and then remember that IP incase you need to access it via the web console in the future.