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I have an almost identical issue as described here;

Static routing on a TP-Link TL-WR1043ND

However the answer doesn't work well for me as by doing as suggested my internet speed for devices connected to the secondary router drops from 80MBs to 2MBs which isn't really acceptable.

My network is as follows;

enter image description here

And the issue I'm having is that from the 192.168.0.x segment, I can ping devices directly on the 192.168.1.x segment and also connect to the internet with very good speeds.

Devices on the 192.168.1.x segment can't ping devices on the 192.168.0.x segment - can I fix this with a static route?

Also, the printer is a wireless one and broadcasts it's services to other devices on the network, however only devices on segment 192.168.1.x are able to print to it, not the ones on the other segment. Is this to do with broadcasting across subnets?

As stated in the title of the question. The wireless router at the edge of the internet is an OpenWRT TP Link WR1043ND whiles the second router is used for wired clients only and is a stock TP Link Archer C9 which can't be flashed with any open firmware.

Any help greatly appreciated.

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From this two points:

  • "...from the 192.168.0.x segment, I can ping devices directly on the 192.168.1.x segment [...] Devices on the 192.168.1.x segment can't ping devices on the 192.168.0.x segment..."

  • "...the printer [...] only devices on segment 192.168.1.x are able to print to it..."

I bet your secondary router is applying NAT-translation between WAN (192.168.1.2) and LAN (192.168.0.1/24) as this is really common (and needed) when the WAN side of the router is connected to the Internet (aka: its WAN IP address is assigned by your ISP - that it is not your case).

If I'm right, you have two ways to solve your problem:

  1. Disable NAT: without NAT, your 192.168.0.X hosts will be recognized with their real IPs. Hence, with a proprer static route configured on your OpenWRT (eg.: route add -net 192.168.0.0/24 gw 192.168.1.2), your 192.168.1.X hosts will be able to reach them;

  2. Not using the routing engine: what you really need from your ARCHER is not its routing engine, nor its firewall/security features. You only need -- if I'm right -- it's "switch". So just use it! Connect everything on the 4 LAN/GEth ports. Then, as suggested in the other answer, everything will be connected (and seen) on the 192.168.1.* network, without any intermediary step/router.

Anyway, please keep in mind that:

  • as for point 1), after a quick look to the official Archer User Guide I have NOT found the checkbox enabling/disabling NAT. Also, I found a (dangerous): "Built-in NAT and DHCP server supporting static IP address distributing" on page 3. I also found reference to NAT-Boost (that... I bet you can enable, should you keep NAT activated). Also, I found reference to "Security" settings that... sounds like "firewall" and, as such, heavily increase the chance to get trouble (from your particular point of view);

  • as for point 2), before doing so, please disable the DHCP server (ref. page 60 of the manual), otherwise you'll have problems allover on your 192.168.1.*.

In any case, let me stress the opportunity to disable any firewall/security settings (on your Archer) as... they're mostly useless, in your particular case and prone to problems (expecially if you're really sensible to performance issues).

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  • Thanks for the answer, this partially helps in that by creating the route from 192.168.1.x to 192.168.0.x I can now access services across both segments, however I still can't use the printer as I suspect it's using bonjour (Canon MG3150). Also, the second option you state doesn't work for me as it slow the internet connection from the 192.168.0.x segment to 2 meg a second, down from 80
    – sgtbeano
    Jan 5, 2015 at 17:21
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    You're right regarding "bonjour", as it's a protocol designed for LAN, hence not crossing routers. Also, please note that this DON'T prevent the usage of the printer from the 192.168.0.X side, but only its automatic discovery. In other words, you should be able to install the driver on hosts located on 192.168.0.X network, and, while installing, manually indicating the IP address of the printer (192.168.1.X). If there are no firewall on the ARCHER, everything should work.
    – Damiano Verzulli
    Jan 5, 2015 at 19:45
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    Also, I really wonder about the drop in speed (from 80Mbps to 2Mbps) when connecting the two branches of your network to two ARCHER LAN ports: Switching should be faster then routing! Can you please run a simple speed test, connecting two hosts to such switch, assigning them proper IPs (eg: 10.0.0.1/255.255.255.0 and 10.0.0.2/255.255.255.0) and running a raw speed test (with iperf, as an example) between them? Having GigaEthernet interfaces, you should achieve at least 400/500Mbps!
    – Damiano Verzulli
    Jan 5, 2015 at 19:46
  • Disabled all security on the Archer, disabled DHCP, plugged the connection that was WAN into a LAN port, along with the other devices and all seems well. Thanks for your help Damiano.
    – sgtbeano
    Jan 11, 2015 at 21:54

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