Two routers: Something a little different

Posts: 7 · New Forum Member Joined: Aug 29, 2006 Posts: 7

[[Warning: A tad long.]]

Hey folks,

I have a Vonage router and another router and I am attempting to make them happily coexist. I have read other threads that have suggested a way to do this, but I think my situation is a tad bit different.

Here's what's happening:

1. I have a Watchguard/Fireguard router. This is my main office router (I'll call it the "edge" router.).

2. I have a Motorola VT2442 Vonage router.

Someone set this up in my network so that my computer was connected directly to the LAN port of the Vonage router and then the Vonage WAN connected to one of the LAN ports of the edge router.

This worked, but since the Vonage router was handing out network numbers in a different 192.168 subnet (192.168.15.x), I was unable to connect to some of my printers which are addressable only via IP and are on the 192.168.1.x subnet which is handled by the edge router.

I called Vonage and spoke to "Advanced" technical support who initially said to me that there were only a few options.

We came up with something that I thought would work.

1. Change the WAN IP on the Vonage router to 192.168.1.251 and set the default gateway to 192.168.1.1.
2. Turn off DHCP in the Vonage router.
3. Leave all cables connected as they are (Laptop to Vonage LAN port, Vonage WAN port to LAN port in edge router.)

I rebooted the router and everything broke. I could not get an IP from the edge router. I hooked up the cable connected to the WAN port on the Vonage router to another LAN port on the Vonage router and my computer was now able to get an IP from the edge router, but now Vonage is broken.

Vonage tells that provisioning and connections to Vonage will only happen through the WAN port and no where else.

And I've seen suggestions here that say I should connect the Vonage router BEFORE my Watchguard, but my Watchguard is a good router and I want it to be my edge router. Ultimately, either everything should be on the same subnet or router between the two subnets should work so that printers in a different subnet can be used.

Is there any way to make this set up work?

Posts: 4777 · Vonage Forum **MVM** Joined: Aug 30, 2005 Posts: 4777

With it set up the way you have it (Vonage LAN port to edge router LAN port) you need to run a cable from another of the Vonage LAN ports to the Vonage WAN port (!). This should get the phone working, but take a look at this thread and also take a look at the writings of Nate Hoy here. Then decide for yourself.

Posts: 7 · New Forum Member Joined: Aug 29, 2006 Posts: 7

It seems like this might work:

Quote:

- Connect the rest of the router's WAN ports to the LAN ports of the front end router.
- Assign the WAN port of the second tier routers a static address within the LAN subnet of the front end router. The default gateway is the LAN address of the front-end router.
- Then, make sure the second tier router's LAN subnets are different from the front end router's LAN subnet. This is especially important to check if you use two or three of the same router, or router manufacturer, like Linksys. For example, if the front-end router's LAN subnet is 192.168.1.0/24 (255.255.255.0), make the second tier router's LAN subnet's 192.168.2.0/24, 192.168.3.0/24, and so on, depending on how many routers you have.
- Create a static route for each of the second tier LAN subnets on the front end router. Each route would point to the respective WAN ip address of the second tier routers that are serving that subnet (from step two).
- Turn off NAT and the firewall on the second tier routers. It's not needed as the front-end router will serve all those functions.

Yes, it would require that the main computer be on a different subet, but if I read that right, setting up the static route in my edge router would allow the one computer on the different subnet to communicate fine with the printers on the different subnet? Right?

So, I would:

1. Leave the edge router alone. It hands out IP addresses in the 192.168.1.x range.
2. Plug the WAN port of the Vonage router into a LAN port on the edge router.
3. Plug the computer into the LAN port of the Vonage router.
4. Set the Vonage router's WAN address to a static IP on the edge router's subnet with the gateway being the edge router.
5. Allow the Vonage router to create its own subnet -- Let's say 192.16.15.x
6. Set a static route in the edge router to address the WAN IP belonging to the Vonage router.

Now, how would that allow packets that need to get to 192.168.1.51, for example, to get from 192.168.15.5?

Posts: 4777 · Vonage Forum **MVM** Joined: Aug 30, 2005 Posts: 4777

tcv wrote:

Yes, it would require that the main computer be on a different subet, but if I read that right, setting up the static route in my edge router would allow the one computer on the different subnet to communicate fine with the printers on the different subnet? Right?

That's how I read it.

Quote:

So, I would:

1. Leave the edge router alone. It hands out IP addresses in the 192.168.1.x range.
2. Plug the WAN port of the Vonage router into a LAN port on the edge router.
3. Plug the computer into the LAN port of the Vonage router.
4. Set the Vonage router's WAN address to a static IP on the edge router's subnet with the gateway being the edge router.
5. Allow the Vonage router to create its own subnet -- Let's say 192.16.15.x
6. Set a static route in the edge router to address the WAN IP belonging to the Vonage router.

Now, how would that allow packets that need to get to 192.168.1.51, for example, to get from 192.168.15.5?

I'll leave it to the networking experts to jump in on that. As you've seen from the bridge thread, that's not me.

Posts: 533 · Posted: Tue Aug 29, 2006 9:24 pm Post subject:

tcv wrote:

It seems like this might work:

Quote:

- Connect the rest of the router's WAN ports to the LAN ports of the front end router.
- Assign the WAN port of the second tier routers a static address within the LAN subnet of the front end router. The default gateway is the LAN address of the front-end router.
- Then, make sure the second tier router's LAN subnets are different from the front end router's LAN subnet. This is especially important to check if you use two or three of the same router, or router manufacturer, like Linksys. For example, if the front-end router's LAN subnet is 192.168.1.0/24 (255.255.255.0), make the second tier router's LAN subnet's 192.168.2.0/24, 192.168.3.0/24, and so on, depending on how many routers you have.
- Create a static route for each of the second tier LAN subnets on the front end router. Each route would point to the respective WAN ip address of the second tier routers that are serving that subnet (from step two).
- Turn off NAT and the firewall on the second tier routers. It's not needed as the front-end router will serve all those functions.

Yes, it would require that the main computer be on a different subet, but if I read that right, setting up the static route in my edge router would allow the one computer on the different subnet to communicate fine with the printers on the different subnet? Right?

So, I would:

1. Leave the edge router alone. It hands out IP addresses in the 192.168.1.x range.
2. Plug the WAN port of the Vonage router into a LAN port on the edge router.
3. Plug the computer into the LAN port of the Vonage router.
4. Set the Vonage router's WAN address to a static IP on the edge router's subnet with the gateway being the edge router.
5. Allow the Vonage router to create its own subnet -- Let's say 192.16.15.x
6. Set a static route in the edge router to address the WAN IP belonging to the Vonage router.

Now, how would that allow packets that need to get to 192.168.1.51, for example, to get from 192.168.15.5?

Yes, you have it, but don't forget to turn off NAT and any firewall on the Vonage router. If I understand your question, how can 192.168.15.5 get to 192.168.1.51? Anything in the 15 subnet will use the Vonage router as its default gateway, the Vonage router is already part of the 1 subnet (via its WAN port), so it can just arp for anything in that subnet and pass the frames on.

Posts: 7 · New Forum Member Joined: Aug 29, 2006 Posts: 7

EzCo wrote:

Yes, you have it, but don't forget to turn off NAT and any firewall on the Vonage router. If I understand your question, how can 192.168.15.5 get to 192.168.1.51? Anything in the 15 subnet will use the Vonage router as its default gateway, the Vonage router is already part of the 1 subnet (via its WAN port), so it can just arp for anything in that subnet and pass the frames on.

But I couldn't get to that IP and different subnet before. Is that because NAT was on in the Vonage router?

Posts: 533 · Posted: Wed Aug 30, 2006 8:14 am Post subject:

tcv wrote:

EzCo wrote:

Yes, you have it, but don't forget to turn off NAT and any firewall on the Vonage router. If I understand your question, how can 192.168.15.5 get to 192.168.1.51? Anything in the 15 subnet will use the Vonage router as its default gateway, the Vonage router is already part of the 1 subnet (via its WAN port), so it can just arp for anything in that subnet and pass the frames on.

But I couldn't get to that IP and different subnet before. Is that because NAT was on in the Vonage router?

15 should have always been able to establish a connection to 1 if NAT was on the Vonage router, but the other way around would have been a problem if you had NAT on without port forwarding. Just try the configuration and see how it works for you.

Posts: 7 · New Forum Member Joined: Aug 29, 2006 Posts: 7

EzCo wrote:

15 should have always been able to establish a connection to 1 if NAT was on the Vonage router, but the other way around would have been a problem if you had NAT on without port forwarding. Just try the configuration and see how it works for you.

Will do. I did leave the firewall on. Perhaps that was the problem. Smile

I will check it out and report back as soon as I can.

Cheers!

Mike...

Posts: 7 · New Forum Member Joined: Aug 29, 2006 Posts: 7

Here's the report.

Yes, as soon as I turned off the firewall, the computer on the different subnet could print to those printers in the edge router's subnet.

The only problem we ran into was that when a computer in the .1 subnet wanted to grab files from the computer in the .15 subnet, the .1 subnet system could not connect to the .15 subnet system.

I presume this is because there is no static route in the edge router to help this along?

If so, I honestly don't know how to set one up. Sad

Posts: 533 · Posted: Thu Aug 31, 2006 9:14 am Post subject:

tcv wrote:

Here's the report.

Yes, as soon as I turned off the firewall, the computer on the different subnet could print to those printers in the edge router's subnet.

The only problem we ran into was that when a computer in the .1 subnet wanted to grab files from the computer in the .15 subnet, the .1 subnet system could not connect to the .15 subnet system.

I presume this is because there is no static route in the edge router to help this along?

If so, I honestly don't know how to set one up. Sad

If printing worked, then so should everything else. How about pings? Did you make sure you disabled NAT on the Vonage router? Anyway, I just look on Watchguard's website and they give these instructions to configure static routes on their SOHO product (guessing that's what you have):

With your Web browser, go to the SOHO System Status page using the Trusted IP address of the SOHO.
For example, if using the default IP address, go to: http://192.168.111.1
From the navigation bar on the left side, select Network => Routes.
The Routes page appears.

Type = Network
Address = 192.168.15.0/24
Gateway = <WAN IP address of your Vonage router)