Two Routers for Your LAN

I reconnected my Vonage line, due to a new line of work I’m getting into. With Vonage, you are required to use their router, as it provides you with the VoIP (voice over IP) connection that you need to connect your telephone to the internet. (Mine is a Linksys RTP300.) As I already owned their router, I did not need to get a new one (although I could have ordered a Motorola wireless router from them…for a fee). However, I also run some of my other computers on the network, and the Nintendo DS, using my D-Link DI-624 wireless router, and I often need to exchange files between computers on the LAN (as I often use other computers to backup data onto), or access those computers using Remote Desktop. So, without having to buy yet another router, I had to find a way to make both of them work together–they both had to connect to the internet, as well as share files and allow Remote Desktop connections between them.

When I first had Vonage, I followed their initial instructions to use two routers together, by plugging one end of the ethernet cable into one of my D-Link’s LAN ports, and the other into the Linksys’s WAN port. Right away, I was dropping phone calls: the data throughput was making the D-Link router reboot itself (more on that below). So, I swapped routers, putting the Linksys first, and hooking up the D-Link’s WAN port to an empty Linksys LAN port. Calls were fine, and my ethernet connection was also plugged into the Linksys and worked fine as well. However, I could not access the D-Link’s web configuration screen, nor could my computer (connected to the Linksys) access any of the computers on the D-Link. However, the D-Link’s wireless clients could reach the internet. That clearly wasn’t going to work.

What did work was adjusting a few settings in the D-Link:

  1. On the WAN setup screen, I changed the ISP connection from a dynamic IP address to a static IP address.
  2. For the IP address, I put in the IP address that the Linksys router assigned to the D-Link router (192.168.15.100).
  3. For subnet mask, of course, 255.255.255.0 .
  4. ISP gateway address, I use the IP address of the Linksys router itself (192.168.15.1). I left the other settings alone.

What this did was make the D-Link look to the Linksys router for its routing information. And, it worked. In that configuration, I only used the Linksys router for the phone service, and the D-Link for both the wired ethernet computer and the wireless. In this setup, you are actually running two separate LANs, one on each router.

However, I have had a long, ongoing issue with the D-Link router. This is the DI-624 rev. C wireless router that is notorious on the internet for having a reboot problem. Your computer could be sitting idle, and the router would reboot itself for no reason. For wireless connections it is not a huge deal, but when you’re hard-wired, you get a pop-up notification each time it disconnects, and if you’re in the middle of a download, or using the instant messenger, it kicks out your connection. A few months ago, I endured resets happening every three or four minutes. For the past couple of days, I noticed it has been blinking out regularly; while monitoring some downloads, I noticed that it was rebooting at 20 minute intervals. Not good. There were a multitude of attempts online to remedy the situation (disabling certain modem features, etc.), but none of them were consistent.

One workaround that seemed interesting, and successful, was to somehow make the D-Link into nothing more than an access point for the Linksys router. In effect, the IP addresses of the Linksys would extend themselves to the D-Link. And this workaround was successful in most cases, as you were not using the router’s WAN port. Would it work between these two routers?

Well, here I am online with both routers humming away nicely! The setup turned out to be fairly easy, much easier than I thought. I did have to reset the D-Link once or twice, but now I have the D-Link using IP addresses in the subnet of the Linksys router, which is what we want. All of the settings were made in the D-Link. Here’s what I did:

  1. Plug the computer into one of the D-Link’s ethernet ports.
  2. In the LAN section, change the IP address of the D-Link router to 192.168.15.2, which is one number above the Linksys….easy to remember.
  3. Make sure the subnet mask is set to 255.255.255.0 .  You can leave the Domain field empty.
  4. Reboot the router–this will change the IP address.
  5. Login to the D-Link with the new address.
  6. Under the LAN section, make sure DNS Relay is set to Enabled.
  7. Now under the DHCP section, disable the DHCP server completely. At this point, you lose your connection, as your computer no longer has a DHCP address to connect to. This is normal!
  8. Connect the computer to the Linksys router, and log in to its configuration screen, to make sure you can still reach it.
  9. Now, connect an ethernet cable between port 4 on the Linksys to port 4 on the D-Link. Will this work? In my case, it did, as the router is smart enough to “cross over” the signal. If it didn’t work, I would have needed to use a crossover cable. How can you tell? The lights for the #4 connections on both routers should light up.
  10. From wired computer on the Linksys, see that you can access the wireless router under its new address. If all went well, it should!

Now, when I look at the DHCP clients table on the Linksys, I see not only the wired computer, I can also see the wireless devices coming in from the D-Link. The D-Link is now acting simply as an Access Point for the Linksys.  I have not done any testing yet, but since the WAN side of the D-Link is no longer being used, I do not know if the firewall features will function anymore.  I’ll report back here when I have a chance to test them.

Hopefully this guide will help you piggyback one router on top of another–both methods were successful, although having a single LAN does simplify access between all of your computers.