Need help with home network (Beginner)

[AWayne]

Hello LTT Community,

 

I've decided to get into some home networking solutions in order to have more control over my network. I recently moved and am only staying for a few months. The house I am currently at is renting a cable/modem combo from their provider and I also have my own configured router. I am hoping to connect my own router to the rented one to use my own network and configured router. I followed this guide: https://forums.tomshardware.com/threads/how-to-connect-and-have-two-separate-networks-with-1-modem-and-2-routers.1472279/. But as I changed my own router's settings to a static IP of 1 higher than the default gateway of the rented router as well as disabling DHCP on the new router, I cannot re-connect to it. It gives off my wi-fi signal and I can connect to the internet fine, but when I try to re-connect to my own router, it cannot find it.

 

Rented router IP: 192.168.0.1

Personal router IP: 192.168.0.2 (is what I hope to have changed it to, but cannot connect to it) It used to be 192.168.1.1

 

I'd appreciate any help in this situation as I am hoping to get into my own router and change the DNS settings for it once again. Sorry If I haven't given enough information as all this networking is so new to me.

[Applefreak]

What you want to do is connect the external router into your routers uplink or wan port. Then connect an ethernet cable from your pc directly to your router and restart your pc to connect to your router. If it does not connect automatically, go into network adapter settings and change your ip to your router's range. So if it is 192.168.1.1, enter your network card as 192.168.1.x, where x is a number of your choice, maybe 2 if you like.

You should now be able to access your router's web interface.

[Eigenvektor]

Your router should have two IP addresses. An internal one and an "external" one. The external one (aka "WAN") is the one connected to the other router that ultimately leads to the internet.

 

The WAN IP needs to be on the same network as the existing router (e.g. 192.168.0.1 and 192.168.0.2, as you said). The internal network of your router must be a separate network (e.g. 192.168.1.x/24).

 

So the existing router is connected to the internet and uses 192.168.0.0/24 as its internal network. Leaving DHCP enabled should be totally fine, as long as there is room for at least one other static IP (that of your router).

 

Your own router has its WAN IP set to a static IP inside the other router's network (e.g. 192.168.0.2). Your router's internal network is then configured to another IP range e.g. 192.168.1.0/24. Your router should also have a second IP in this network (e.g. 192.168.1.1) that is used as the default gateway for PCs behind this router.

 

You're most likely not able to connect to your router through 192.168.0.2, because from your router's PoV that is "outside" and for security reasons its management interface can't be accessed from outside its own network. So you can only connect to that by going to 192.168.1.1. It may also disable access to the management interface over Wi-Fi by default. Try accessing it over cable. If you're still unable to connect you may have to do a factory reset.

[AWayne]

1 hour ago, Eigenvektor said:

You're most likely not able to connect to your router through 192.168.0.2, because from your router's PoV that is "outside" and for security reasons its management interface can't be accessed from outside its own network. So you can only connect to that by going to 192.168.1.1. It may also disable access to the management interface over Wi-Fi by default. Try accessing it over cable. If you're still unable to connect you may have to do a factory reset.

Thank you so much for this detailed response, I was not aware of the two IP addresses. I was not able to access my router via cable, so I am going to try a factory reset and keep DHCP on as you suggested as well.

[AWayne]

@Eigenvektor So I reset my router (Linksys WRT1200AC). I changed my internet settings to static IP of 192.168.0.2 as I did before--with default gateway of 192.168.0.1 (the rented router/modem). My local network says it is still at 192.168.1.1 and has DHCP running. I can access my personal router via a wifi connection but it does not have access to the internet. If I use a wire from my personal router to my pc, I can access the internet. My wireless IP is a 192.168.1.x and my wired IP is 192.168.0.x So that holds up. Any ideas why I cannot access the internet from my personal router over wifi? (The one that assigns IP of 192.168.1.x)

[Eigenvektor]

8 minutes ago, AWayne said:

@Eigenvektor So I reset my router (Linksys WRT1200AC). I changed my internet settings to static IP of 192.168.0.2 as I did before--with default gateway of 192.168.0.1 (the rented router/modem). My local network says it is still at 192.168.1.1 and has DHCP running. I can access my personal router via a wifi connection but it does not have access to the internet. If I use a wire from my personal router to my pc, I can access the internet. My wireless IP is a 192.168.1.x and my wired IP is 192.168.0.x So that holds up. Any ideas why I cannot access the internet from my personal router over wifi? (The one that assigns IP of 192.168.1.x)

If you connect to the router over Wi-Fi, do you get a gateway of 192.168.1.1? What about DNS, do you get at least one DNS-Server assigned?

 

On your PC

- try to ping 192.168.1.1, that should work and means you're connected to the router

- try to ping 192.168.0.1, if that works your Wi-Fi router is correctly routing you to the router/modem

- try to ping 8.8.8.8, if that works, the router/modem is correctly routing you to the internet

If all of those tests work, you're most likely just missing DNS settings from your DHCP server

[AWayne]

@Eigenvektor Yes I do get a gateway of 192.168.1.1 and no, I don't appear to be getting any DNS servers

[Eigenvektor]

Just now, AWayne said:

@Eigenvektor Yes I do get a gateway of 192.168.1.1 and no, I don't appear to be getting any DNS servers

Then you're probably missing DNS server settings. On the Wi-Fi router where you configure the DHCP, you should be able to set DNS server IPs. You can use e.g. something like 8.8.8.8, 8.8.4.4 (Google), 1.1.1.1 (CloudFlare), 9.9.9.9 (Quad9) or simply the same DNS-Server configured on the Router/Modem's DHCP server (most likely the ISPs)

[AWayne]

18 minutes ago, Eigenvektor said:

Then you're probably missing DNS server settings. On the Wi-Fi router where you configure the DHCP, you should be able to set DNS server IPs. You can use e.g. something like 8.8.8.8, 8.8.4.4 (Google), 1.1.1.1 (CloudFlare), 9.9.9.9 (Quad9) or simply the same DNS-Server configured on the Router/Modem's DHCP server (most likely the ISPs)

I believe that did it! I changed DNS 1 to 8.8.8.8 and everything seems to be working. If I change my DNS in the future, do you expect any issues to arise?

[Eigenvektor]

7 hours ago, AWayne said:

I believe that did it! I changed DNS 1 to 8.8.8.8 and everything seems to be working. If I change my DNS in the future, do you expect any issues to arise?

No, you should be able to change it without issue. Ideally also set DNS 2 to some value (e.g. 8.8.4.4), that's used in case the first server is ever unreachable for some reason (e.g. mainten