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I have a "NETGEAR WGR614 v4" Wireless Router. It has 1 Internet Port & 4 LAN Ports.

It's Default IP is : 192.168.0.1

I can access this router and change it's IP address by opening http:192.168.0.1

I need to connect two different networks using this Router.

1. Polytechnic Network with IPs 172.16.x.x
2. Engineering Network with IPs 172.18.x.x

I need to access one network from the other through the Router..

example: Assume that there is 1 PC with the Following IP settings in the Polytechnic network

IP: 172.16.1.1
SM: 255.255.0.0

Assume that there is 1 PC with the Following IP settings in the Engineering network

IP: 172.18.1.1
SM: 255.255.0.0

I need to ping the 1st PC from the 2nd PC through this router and Vice Versa. Please help me!

Take a look at this video and skip to 2:43 for quicker view of what i am talking about:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=bfwLq3LxnjQ
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  • Which hardware version? What firmware are you running? Will this router be the two PC's default gateway router? If not, can you configure their existing gateway routers? Or can you add routes on each PC? Jan 28, 2013 at 11:39
  • Is this only going to be a 1:1 connection or do all of the PCs in the one network need to be able to connect to the other? In other words, is it a possible solution if you have to manually change settings in all affected PCs since there are only 2 or do you need to connect so many that the solution has to be managed by the router?
    – uncovery
    Jan 28, 2013 at 11:50
  • Its not a one to one solution.. all computers on one side need to access the computers on the other side.. pls see the video and skip to 2:43 for quick idea.. www.youtube.com/watch?v=bfwLq3LxnjQ
    – Pradeep
    Jan 28, 2013 at 11:53
  • 1
    Consumer routers just aren't designed for this kind of usage. They're designed to connect your LAN to the Internet, and that's it. Many do not let you add static routes, and even if they do, you won't be able to connect to the Internet if you use up the WAN port for the other network. I suggest you either buy an enterprise-class router (ie, one running Cisco IOS), or get a spare computer, install more network cards, install Linux, and configure it as a router. If you're not familiar with Linux you can install pfSense, which is configured from a web interface.
    – tlng05
    Dec 3, 2014 at 4:33

3 Answers 3

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I am writing this just to jot down my ideas, since no one seems to be interested in it at all.

It can be done with a single DD-WRT router (or OpenWRT, or Tomato, or...).

  1. The physical links: one ethernet cable from each of the two other routers, LAN port to LAN port; also, one ethernet cable from DD-WRT router's LAN port to switch for the 192.168.0.1 network;

  2. change of subnet network: life is much easier if the dhcp server on the DD-WRT uses the subnet 172.16.0.0/14, and if dhcp addresses are drawn from 172.17.0.0/24. The network mask must be changed also on the other routers, and specific routes toward the other two subnets thru the DD-WRT router must be specified with the other two routers.

  3. create three VLANs, one for each ethernet cable, as explained on the DD-WRT wiki; however, be careful that the VLAN associated to the (former) subnet 192.168.0.0/24 can be associated with the wifi, as explained again on the DD-WRT Wiki; this results in a new bridge, let's call it br1;

  4. disable DHCP, and enable dnsmasq as both the DNS and the DHCP server, as explained on a this page of the DD-WRT Wiki;

  5. force the dnmasq dhcp server to listen only on interface br1, and setup iptables rules allowing packets to flow across the two VLANs and the bridge, as explained on this DD-WRT wiki page.

This should be all. At some point in the future (= when I find some free time) I will actually implement it and fully debug it.

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You probably mean you want to connect three different networks, since the Internet will "count" as a network.

For the router to support this, it needs three interfaces, essentially, a WAN, LAN1, and a LAN2, and a firmware/OS that supports this.

I don't know of any built-in firmware on consumer grade routers providing this capability. Linux has no problem routing between 3 or more interfaces. A router flashed to DD-WRT or Open-WRT provides Linux.

You still need a LAN1 and a LAN2. So you have several options, on a flashed router:

  • The router's wireless capability can be a LAN1 or LAN2. I think most of not all DD-WRT flashed routers allow you to bridge wireless or not bridge wireless. You want it not bridged.
  • If the router supports putting each of the LAN ports in a VLAN, you can split the LAN ports up into two separately routed interfaces. I've never really messed with the VLAN options in the few routers I've flashed to DD-WRT so I don't really know what can be done here or specifically on a Netgear.
  • If the router has a USB interface (for network attached storage), you "might" be able to connect a USB-to-Ethernet adapter and have it work. I've never tried it.

If your Netgear router is not versatile enough, you may have better luck getting an old PC, throwing 3 network cards in it, and setting up basic routing/firewalling with Linux.

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Most consumer wireless routers only have a WAN and a LAN interface.

The 4 ports act as a switch, they just forward traffic to an IP, they don't have an IP of their own.

That beeing said, you will probably need different hardware unless you can set up multiple LAN interfaces, or a secondary IP on your LAN interface (this last option will not seperate traffic though).

As ultrasawblade pointed out the hardware you need is a router whith two actual LAN interfaces. Or you can check if your Netgear is supported by DD-WRT.

What you ideally should implement is a router-on-a-stick configuration, but then you require to have VLAN's in your network.

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  • don't quite see how this is different from the existing answer... what would maybe help this user is pointing out that any network can be connected as "WAN", and IIRC also this Netgear has the capability to use any old ethernet as "Internet"... Oct 2, 2014 at 9:03
  • Yeah, I meant to post that as a comment (I'm new here). You could indeed use this router to route between two networks that way.
    – aairey
    Oct 2, 2014 at 9:11
  • comments can be added to both questions and every answer in the list, but they are limited to 600 chars, and can't be nicely formatted. One reason to make it an answer would be that you want to use more characters or format stuff with code examples and such... Oct 2, 2014 at 9:18

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