HELP with Network

Could someone help me? My church has a network that I done. All that I did was run the cables and install the router and switches. Here is the setup: there is a cable modem in one building connected to a router. I ran cable from the router to another building into a switch. This switch has 2 computers and a copier connected to it. I ran a cable from this switch to a switch in the church building. There is one computer connected to this switch. Also, from this switch, I ran a cable to a wireless router in the office. The wireless router has 3 computers and a color copier connected to it.

Here is the problem, only one computer connected to the wireless router can see the color copier. The two other computers, which use Windows XP, can't see to color copier. All computer can connect to the Internet though. Also the computer down at the church can't see the copier at the middle building. I'm thinking its some kind of permission problem. Thanks for your help.

 

You have two routers on one network...this can be problematic. If these are conventional consumer grade routers, they have built in natural address translation, firewalls, dhcp servers....different machines may be getting different ip addresses putting them on different networks.

You did not mention any model numbers anywhere in an otherwise informative post.

Start with the wireless router--is there an "access point" setting? If not, most can still be used as an access point by disabling dhcp (the computers hooked to it will get dhcp info from the main router).

Restart all machines.

Do not use the WAN port on the wireless router at all.

What is the age of these routers? Do they have auto-sensing ports? If not, you may need crossover cables between the like devices (switches and routers).

Check each machine...what are the ip settings?

 

Sounds like your dealing with a double NAT which cause nothing but problems. Use only 1 router as the head then connect the switch and 2nd router connected as a switch. This way all of the IP's will be handled with 1 router and every one will beable to see each other.

JerryF19 covered how to connect the second router as a Switch+AP. This should correct your problem. Try to use a GigE as you back bone running to the main routers from the Switches and AP/router/switch. This will make things flow a lot smoother.

 

They are all Linksys routers. I don't really know the model numbers. I'll try connecting the second router as a switch or access point tomorrow. I'll let everyone know how that works out. Thanks everyone.

 

Well, I followed the advice and I think I screwed everything up. I went into the wireless router, a Linksys WRT300, and changed the Internet Connection Type to Static IP from Auto DHCP. The other options were: PPPoE, PPTP, L2TP, and Telstra Cable. I probably chose the wrong option. Then below that was an option for DHCP Server. It was enabled, but I disabled it. Then I went a restarted all the machines and all the machines connected to the switches would access the Internet. The machines connected to this wireless router had limited or no connectivity. The problem was the IP addresses.

Since this, I reset the wireless router and everything is back to the way it was. I'm thinking of going and buying a wireless access point. Would this help. The original problem was that when we scan documents to our new color copier, we can't send them to the desktop of the 2 of the 3 computers connected to the wireless router. Also, the copier in the middle building has a fax and we want to send faxes from our desktop from the office but we can't see the copier in the middle building. Thanks

 

No need to buy more hardware. Just turn off DHCP on the LAN side of the router. Set a static IP to the WAN side so you can find it for admin, I normally pick 1 outside of the DHCP range your main router dishes out. Then just connect LAN to LAN. Connecting this way turns the Router into a Switch with a AP. All DHCP will be handled by the up stream router.

Since you do not connect to the WAN/internet port it's setting is not critical it's just for admin, the reason for static ip.

 

I'm really sorry, but I don't understand how to do this. Can you explain a little more in detail. How do I know the LAN side from the WAN side? Do I need to do anything at the router connected directly into the modem? The routers are about a football field apart in 2 separate buildings.

 

The switch ports are marked LAN and WAN, no?

 

The problem is that many of the computers think the second router is the gateway to the internet and it isn't. This is common with dual routers on a network.

On the second router, do not plug anything into the "internet" or "WAN" port.
Then in the firmware, turn off DHCP or NAT translation or routing (it could be labeled anything like this). This makes your second router an access point and nothing more. It serves no routing functions.

While you probably will no longer have issues with this setup, being a Linksys, most other brands require a reboot about once a month when run in this fashion.

 

OK, I'll give this a shot tomorrow. Thanks everyone.

 

What is the model name of the WIRED router.

More information=good.

Less information=bad.

Just because they are both linksys does not meant hey are going to have the same default network address range.

 

I found out that the other router connected to the modem is actually a DLink wireless router. I will get the model number tonight while we have out monthly fellowship dinner in that building. I didn't have time to try out what Leslieann suggested. I'll do that tomorrow. Thanks everyone.

 

Well, the other wireless router connected to the modem is a Dlink DIR-615.

 

OK, I unplugged the wire from the "Internet" port on the back of the router and plugged it into port labeled "3." I went into the router setup page and turned off DHCP and chose Static IP. I still couldn't get on the Internet. I probably should have restarted the router and entered an IP address for the Static IP part, but I don't know where to get it. Do I get it from the other router connected to the modem?

Here are the screenshots from the router set up page. These are all before I made the changes. Can someone tell me what to change or chose?
On this page, I selected "Disable DHCP Server"


Should I chose "Static IP?"
If so, where do I get the IP address, Subnet, and Gateway addresses to enter?





Can someone please help. Do I need to restart the routers and computers after I make changes to the setup pages? Thanks

 

Wait a second...this is the linksys...I thought that we had a wired and wireless.

Which router are you using as the wireless access point? That is the one we want to disable DHCP on.

 

Let's make this simple....



Identify with make and model the router in building 1 and the router in building 2

 

You need to reset all of the computers now. Some are still mapped to the old router.

 

I will draw a map and post soon. Stay tuned. Thanks

 

Here the deal, we need the computers in Building 3 to communicate with the computers in Building 2. Somehow, I need someone to walk me through the steps on changing the Linksys Wireless router in building 3 to an access point.

 

Is it possible to directly connect building 3 with building 1? Or is it possible to move the cable modem to building 2?

You *should* decide which of your buildings will be 'home-base' and have the other buildings come off that one. Your home-base will hold the cable modem and ONE and ONLY ONE router. All other connects need to be switches and access points connected directly to this router.

Ideally, you should implement ONE DHCP server, probably on the router. Also ideally, this DHCP server will be able to deliver addresses to TWO ranges. You would use one range for conventionally wired/cabled computers & printers, the other range would be for wireless devices only.

Are your wired computers and printers pretty much the same (unchanging) over the course of weeks/months? If so, investigate what is called 'DHCP Reservations'. If your router/DHCP server can perform this service, set them up to do so for all of your wired computers/printers.

Is the cabling between building a single piece of network cable (max length 100 meters!) or have you purchased several shorter cables, butt-ended them together with gender changers, and somehow weather-proofed the whole mess? Butt-ending cables together is a no-no, using indoor-rated cables outside is a no-no. You'll be introducing all kinds of electrical anomalies into the connections that run between buildings. If you must run cable between buildings, get outdoor/plenum rated cable, run it as a single, un-spliced cable between buildings. Don't ignore electrical grounding and lightning protection requirements.

Cascaded switches rarely work out, espec if the people doing the managing have a skill-gap.


'Jenifer' appears to be spamming 'her' mortgage trash.....

 

The switches may be an issue. You can string switches in this manner, however you need to make sure they either have an auto uplink, or a switch to make them uplink.

Router A should be fine and should be configured completely normal.

Make sure that router B is not using the same IP's as router A, something rather common. On router B, NAT &/or DHCP are disabled (likely in the advanced routing tab or section), and plug nothing into it's internet/Wan port.


You have too many variables at the moment.
Connect router B direct to router A during setup and testing. Once you have everything getting routing information from router A, and getting internet, put Router B back where it was originally located and see if it still works.

 

simplifying the network as I suggested will permanently eliminate a lot of the troublesome variables.

Just because a configuration is 'possible' does NOT mean it's a good idea.

This is especially true when the people who have to set it up, maintain it, and use it are not completely conversant and competent with network administration.

Keep it simple.

 

this just keeps getting better and better. We started with two building and two routers, now we have three buildings with two routers and two switches.

We know what model number the routers are, but not the revisions. We have no clue what the switches are--do they have autosensing ports or not? Are the cables joining them cross over cables or not?

We really need better information for really good answers.

Just off the bat, I can see that the routers use two different networks--let me thumb through the router manuals and I will try to tell you what to do, but I am going to have to make some assumptions.

 

None of the cables should be crossover cables, however *some* systems can handle crossover and non-crossover and will automatically switch them. There should be no reason for any crossover cabling unless whomever wired it made a mistake or was an idiot (though there are a few very random exceptions).


I think many are making this out to be much more difficult than it needs to be. I actually ran a similar setup in a large home/small office, it wasn't a big deal (modem-router- dual switches to wireless router). People do similar more often than you think.

 

That is just a completely uninformed thing to say when you have no idea what the switches are.

If they are old switches that they picked up from somewhere they would REQUIRE crossover cables. Back in the old days before autosensing ports, connecting switches always required crossover cables.

That is what I mean about not having enough information. Everyone here is making assumptions based on incomplete info.

 

OK, I got caught up in something.

First, we are working under the assumption the switches are all unmanaged switches wtith auto-sensing ports so we don't care what kind of cable you are using.

Now, let's start with the Dlink. The Dlink is going to be the boss for your network. It gets all the Internet information from your ISP, it issues ip addresses through it's dhcp server.

The Dlink, according to the manual I dug up, is on a network of 192.168.0.1 with a subnet mask of 255.255.255.0

That means that you have 252 ip addresses to issue in the 192.168.0.1 network (1 is reserved for the router (or gateway) itself and the last is the broadcast ip address.

The problem you are having is because you linsys is running on a different network of 192.168.1.1 with a subnet mask of 255.255.255.0

That subnet mask is important because it determines the network---the 255.255.255.0 is basically telling you that the first three octets (255.255.255)are the network, and the last octet is the host (the 0)

network
Dlink-192.168.0

linksys-192.168.1

See the difference?

We are not going to change anything on the DLINK. We are going to change the linksys.

On the back of the linksys, you have 5 ports; one blue (the wan port) and four yellows (the LAN ports). The LAN ports, as someone pointed out, is just a switch built into the router.

We are not using the WAN (blue) port at all. Take a piece of electrical tape and put it over that so you are not tempted to use it and so no one who comes after plugs into it.

You have already logged into the linksys at 192.168.1.1 so do that again.

On the screen caps you showed earlier, where you were plugged into the linksys, there are two parts to the basic setup. The Internet setup and the network setup.

IGNORE THE INTERNET SETUP. NOTHING GOING THERE. WE ARE NOT USING THE WAN PORT.

In the NETWORK SETUP portion we need to put your router on the DLINK network, so we are going to change the 192.168.1.1 to some other number. This is a problem because we do not know what your DHCP range on the DLINK DIR-615 is.

The DEFAULT settings for that router is 100 to 199.

That means the DLINK will hand out ip addresses ranging from 192.168.0.100 to 192.168.0.199. Hopefully, no one changed that because we need to give the linksys a static ip address on the LAN (not the WAN).

And, this is important, we want to give it an ip address outside the DLINK DHCP Server range. Reason 1, two devices on the same network with the same ip address is bad news. Reason 2, we want to be able to sign back into the router to configure wireless.

So, assuming no one messed with the settings of the DHCP server range, on the linksys, under network setup, we are going to change the default ip address of 192.168.1.1 to 192.168.0.30

Why 192.168.0.30 ? Somewhat arbitrary decision, but you also noted that you have multiple copiers around. Some copiers will take ip addresses from a dhcp server, but some will not. Most of the time, network guys like to assign static ip addresses to printers and servers. My experience is that they either start assigning them directly after the gateway (192.168.0.2...192.168.0.3...192.168.0.4, etc) or starting in a nice even block in an area not likely to be impacted (like 50,51,52) by computers getting ip addresses if someone messes with the router DHCP SETTINGS.

I am hopping whoever set up the copiers and dlink router followed this pattern

So, set the LAN ip address to 192.168.0.30 and leave the subnet mask at 255.255.255.0

Now, DISABLE THE DHCP SERVER.

Let me repeat that...DISABLE THE DHCP SERVER

One network with two INDEPENDENT DHCP servers on it can be a major headache (as opposed to two dhcp servers set up intentionally for redundancy, which usually means the two servers have different scopes).

Now, go ahead and hit SAVE (or apply, whatever it is).

Your router will reboot and your current connection WILL BE LOST.

You will not have to connect back to the linksys by typing in the new ip address of 192.168.0.30 to set up the wireless SSID and any security.

You will have to REBOOT your computer that you are using to talk with the Linksys because it may retain the old IP ADDRESS. You will also need to reboot any computer that was getting an old IP address in the 192.168.1.x range.

from now on, the wireless computers and any computer connected to the Linsys switch ports will get their ip address and DNS settings from the DLINK. Your Linsys will be acting as a switch/wireless access point.

 

These are newer switches. I can get all the model number to all the switches and post them after my meeting this morning. Thanks to everyone for their help and knowledge.

 

Then you should be good to go

 

Doesn't matter.

It has been pretty much established that everything is working, there is merely a config issue based on what I have been reading. Basically the network is split in half due to dual NAT. All that needs to be done is disable the seconds routing functions.

Maybe I'm missing something but It just seems like everyone is trying to make this more complex than it needs to be.

 

It does matter, or would have mattered, because the the wrong cable between switches--if they were older switches--would not pass traffic back and forth between them.

Also, the problem is NOT dual NAT. That does not even make sense.

NAT means network address translation, and it is generally used when referring to a router function where local or private network addresses are translated to a public address.

Even if you want to apply it here, where NAT could mean passing traffic between two private networks, if you look at his diagram you can see that the device connecting the computers is a switch, not the router. A switch cannot pass traffic between two networks. That is what routers are for.

The problem is DUAL NETWORKS with two separate dhcp servers on the same network segment.

 

simplify, simplify, simplify......

overly/unnecessarily complex things can/do/will fail in complex ways.

 

Personally, I think you have the right idea, but you missed it.

The last in the chain is a Linksys wireless ROUTER. It is functioning as a second router. It is providing gateway (NAT) and DHCP functions to the lower half of the network. Yes, network. You are focussed on the switch, ignore the switches.

The computers are finding the router with NAT and DHCP which are closest to them. Which is closer is being determined by the number of switches between the computer and the router.

The OP needs to disable all router functions in this router, so everything points to the first router in the chain, which contains the actual gateway, not merely a black hole, which the second router is providing. Even if disabling NAT is not needed, it is useless to have running and is just complicating things more.


The entire issue is the second router, stop making this more complicated than it needs to be. Stop blaming and focusing on the switches.

 

I long ago stopped focusing on the switches once I found out they were new switches. We turned the routers into Wireless Access Points now. It's done. Finished.

 

Well, I done as gerryf19 said. I followed the instructions exactly as described. I restarted the computer in my office, which is connected to the Linksys router. It will not get on the Internet. I done the RUN-CMD- to get to the black DOS screen and typed "ipconfig" and it still shows the 192.168.1.1 as the default gateway. Maybe it would be easier to purchase a access point with a built-in switch or something.

 

try ipconfig /release, then ipconfig /renew

You should not still be getting 192.168.1.1 if you are getting fresh ip info and the second dhcp is disabled.

What is the ip address on the computer?

 

This morning when I got my office, I was able to get on the Internet. However, when I type "ipconfig", this is what comes up:

IP Address: 10.1.10.185
Subnet Mask: 255.255.255.0
Default Gateway: 10.1.10.1

I still can't see any computers in the next building though. When looking at the Dlink router settings last night, the WAN gateway was 10.1.10.1 and the LAN was 192.168.0.1

 

Have you tried setting any static IP's on the systems?

 

No, I haven't. Should I?

 

10.0.10.1??? What the heck.

Someone has changed the defaults on this thing.

I am not sure if you really want to work this out, but if you do, log into the Dlink.

Get the LAN, wan and dhcp settings. We may or may not need the wan, so don't post it unless someone asks.

get ip settings from one computer in each building.

report back

 

Well, I finally figured out what was causing all the headaches. A few months ago, the church went with a Comcast Business phones system. They came in and installed a modem looking thing with what looks like a built-in switch. The Dlink wireless router was connected to this modem. The cable leading to the other building was connected to the modem, not the Dlink router. I connected it to the Dlink router and reset the modem and router.

I then went to the next building, reset the switch and both computers and checked their IP addresses. Their "Default Gateway" and both were 192.168.0.1, not the 10.0.10.1. Also, both IP addresses were 192.168.0.199 and 192.168.0.194, which let me know they were within the range of the Dlink. I big smile came to my face.

I then went to the next and last building. I reset the Linksys wireless router and one switch and also installed a new switch since I needed one more port for another computer. I wasn't using the "Internet" port on the Linksys router so, I needed an extra port and installed a Netgear GS605 switch. I checked the gateways and IP addresses on all computers and all were using the gateway of 192.168.0.1 and all the IP addresses fell within the Dlink range. Life was good.

I just want to thank everyone for the help and advice. I learned some things and I'm grateful for everyone's input. Now, I need to get all the computers able to share files, any ideas? Should I create a workgroup and put all the computers on the same workgroup?

 

Bravo!

I knew there was something funnny going on with the 10.0.10.1....While 10.0.10.x is indeed a private network, it is fairly uncommon on consumer routers. Glad you got it squared away.

As far as the sharing files--yes absolutely, all have to be in the same workgroup.

Depending on what you need to share, determines how you go about setting this up.

Does everyone need to share every file all the time? Or do you just need to share some files some of the time?

As people have noted--make it as simple as possible. If the latter, the best way is to take one machine that is always on, create a shared folder there, and everyone can move files in and out of it as needed. You might even create the one shared folder and then create sub folders for each user. Essentially, a cheap file server.

That computer needs to be on all the time, though.

Things to be aware of--

Sounds like you have a lot of computers/users. If you follow the second scenario, be aware that Windows limits simulataneous connections with standard desktop operating systems. Make the main computer a "professional machine (windows xp pro, vista business or Ultimate, Windows 7 professional or Ultimate)

Sometimes, different versions of Windows have difficulty talking. Generally speaking, newer versions are backwards compatible but older versions may have trouble talking to newer versions, so make your "file server" an older Windows XP Pro machine if possible. This is not a hard and fast rule, but sometimes older machines do have issues.

OR

make a cheap Linux file server with any old computer laying around