adding a wireless router to your existing wired setup

Lately I've seen a lot of questions about making a wireless router work in conjunction with an already in place wired network. I drew a simple drawing of a typical scenario. Basically what this does is keep the already in place router functioning as the gateway for the network. Then it just uses the switch on the wireless router to connect the wireless functionality to the already in place network. There are other ways to make it work, but this is the easiest for people not familiar with networking.



The usual problem is people wanting to place the cable coming from the router into the WAN port of the wireless router, which in turn creates two networks. What happens here is, you're machines on the inside network can't talk to those on the outside network(this is a good thing, otherwise people outside your router could communicate with your machines inside at will.) The reason they cannot communicate is because they aren't on the same subnet. Like I've stated before, it is possible to make them communicate. It's just not practical and not something I'm going into in this.


Ideally it would be easier to incorporate a wireless access point into your network instead of a second router. But as we see in real life situations, it doesn't always work out that way. Sometimes people want to buy a wireless router for after they move out of the house, but want to use the wireless functionality while they still live there. Also an access point usually tends to cost more than a wireless router, even though you get less functionality from it.

Anyways, hope this helps someone at least. If any corrections need to be made please let me know.

Tim

edit: bleh, showed up blurry , just click it to make it show up more clearly

good write up.

One thing to add, you should connect to the wireless router via a cabled pc, 'before' you introduce it to your wired network and make all the necessary changes.

sticky time

As simple as it may seem... great write up.

What if you want to use a seperate subnet and two routers instead of using DHCP? What about MAC address filtering? Some people besides myself like having the Wireless router with their network, and switch or router cascading off of it to provide an alternate secure subnetwork.

I have nearly same scenario, and all my machines on my /25 subnetwork have static IP's and on the other subnet is a regular /24 subnetwork. Router one 1 is the Wi Fi router hooked into the Cable Modem with gateway IP of 192.168.1.1 Router 2 is mine configured with RIP2. Non gateway mode with IP of 192.168.1.2

If I want to go wireless on my laptop, I simply put in the static IP address in the /24 network or /25. Both will work as long as I use the right subnet with the corresponding IP's and correct default gateway which is 192.168.1.1 to get out to the internet from Router 1 (Wi Fi)

It make sense to purchase two routers if you have roomates or want much more functionality, especially for keeping seperate subnetworks. Ideally you would want own broadcast and collision domains, ethernet speaking. In terms of wireless it is always good to have a router that is much more fully equipped then your standard wireless access point.

I have my wireless router configured for MAC address filtering, with alos SSID disabled, and WEP 128bit enabled. Is this good enough to prevent intrusion to my local machines tied into my WiFi router?

Some machines are hooked onto this wireless router, but in terms of wireless since I have MAC address filtering, with only my laptops WiFi Card with its MAC address in the router.

So on a wireless note, could anyone still access machines remotely if I have MAC address filtering implemented on it?

yes Jerry, there are multiple ways to go about getting it to work, depending on your needs. But when you start getting into more complex needs/setups it's something more complex than a simple write-up posted on a message forum can provide.

I honestly think with SSID disabled, 128bit WEP, and MAC filtering your wireless network should be secure enough. But that's not to say that someone can't crack your wep key and spoof a mac. It just depends on how paranoid you are. If all your cards/access points are compatible, you could always give WPA a shot.