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I seek some professional advice. I have 2 Routers, and an 8-port switch.

What I am trying to is understand the following.

Router 1 - Main Router - Modem to Router 1 = WAN From Router 1 to Router 2

Do I attach the LAN cable to the WAN Port or one of the other four ports?

Can I attach a LAN Cable from Router 2 - one of the four ports to the 8 - port switch?

Do both Routers maintain the same static IP addresses i.e., (192.168.0.1) - (192.168.0.1) ???

Diagram of the LAN

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    I have no idea what you're trying to explain. You need to use better clarification on your network diagram, or draw it out.
    – DrZoo
    Nov 14, 2019 at 21:49
  • @Topwater Strikes for us to provide a complete and sir, we will need to know the make and model of your modem, your switch, your router's, and the distance from your modem to each of the PCS, so that we can suggest the best combination of equipment and what can be done without.
    – K7AAY
    Nov 15, 2019 at 15:41
  • One thing to consider is that when it comes to terms like "router" and "modem".. these are used as marketting terms and for example, most consumer routers, are a router with 2 ports, and a switch connected to one of the ports, and doing NAT. And when it comes to what a modem sometimes that is a router and doing NAT and with a modem built in. So make and model of devices that you are calling 'router' and 'modem' would be good, to see what they actually are!
    – barlop
    Nov 18, 2019 at 17:27

3 Answers 3

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Revised, how about this way guy, I truly appreciate the responses ! Thank you enter image description here

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  • click edit on your answer and added that
    – barlop
    Nov 18, 2019 at 17:21
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Do i attach the LAN cable to the WAN Port or to one of the other 4 ports ? 'WAN' is Wide Area Network and the wire from the wall installed by your cable or phone company goes into that port.

What you have in a home or office is a Local Area Network ('LAN').

Ideally, the switch (8-port) connects to the output of your 'modem', and each of the PCs can attach to the switch; standard Ethernet cables can be up to 100 meters (330') long. Your 'routers' are probably redundant and probably can be set aside, unless you have more than seven PCs.

Your 'modem' from the cableco or telco will assign the IP addresses, and every PC in your home LAN will be on the same local network.

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  • Remove one of your answers. You have duplicates.
    – DrZoo
    Nov 14, 2019 at 21:46
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    "standard Ethernet cables can be up to 100 meters (330') long." That seems to be very misleading. A UTP (categories 5e, 6, and 6a) cable channel can be up to 90 meters of solid-core horizontal cable, and up to 10 meters of stranded patch cords, for a total of 100 meters. Category-8 channels can be up to 24 meters of solid-core horizontal cable, and up to 6 meters of stranded patch cable, for a total of 30 meters. Fiber is all over the place. All meet ethernet standards, so are "standard" ethernet cables. See this answer for the various cable lengths.
    – Ron Maupin
    Nov 15, 2019 at 4:28
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It depends on your objectives and concerns.

If your goal is to use only what you need with minimal devices with the least power consumption for a small network then you can likely eliminate the switch and routers from the network completely.

If your goal is separation of networks (separate 'office' & 'guest' networks, for example) then you can plug both routers into the modem and they will each operate independently (by default). They will each receive an IP address from the modem via DHCP and create their own VLANs for their connected devices and assign their own subset of IP addresses (usually in the 192.168.x/24 scope). They might both even use 192.168.0/24, but since they're creating their own VLAN this means devices connected to one router won't talk to devices on the other router. Don't use the same Wi-Fi configuration for both routers, of course. Also, disable the Wi-Fi on the modem.

If your goal is maximum security and range with the most available ports on a single shared network environment, then your best option is to plug router1 into the modem and run an ethernet cable to the uplink on router2. Make sure that you configure router2 in AP mode which means it will disable DHCP and allow devices connected to it to talk to the devices on the other network points. You can plug your switch anywhere along either of these networks (except directly to the modem) to add network ports to the network.

You should also understand that network devices (modems, routers, and switches) are generally the low-hanging fruit for network compromise with extensive . If you're not going to maintain each device (strong unique passwords, regular firmware updates and security checks) then you should eliminate them to remove the additional risk from your network.

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