Network mess! Joining networks and access NAS outside LAN

My home network is a complete disaster. See diagram below. I need a bit of help fixing it up. I have moderate networking knowledge, but still go easy on me. As of current, my household has three routers and three networks (!). I would like to:

Consolidate the two networks from "Router/Modem" and "Router 2" into one network ("Router 2" would only generate the wireless signal, and Router/Modem would generate the IPs)
Continue to keep "Computer 2" on it's own network, but be able to access files on the NAS drive
Have "Computer 1" able to access files from the NAS drive

How can I achieve the three steps above? Thanks in advance!

messynet

radian

Posted 2014-11-29T02:55:52.770

Reputation: 183

Im not sure how much money you want to spend on your solution but there should be a lot of different solutions here aand they will strongly depend on the product. What you need is a advanced Router that is able to handle different zones and IP Ranges. Plesse post more informations in your current used modem and Routers. Router Type? Any configuration? – Ivan Viktorovic – 2014-11-29T03:33:45.200

What function does Router 2 (without wireless) perform (why not just replace it with a longer cable)? Router 2 (with wireless) does not contain a modem? Is there anything (other than modest cost) that would prevent you from doing this with a single modem/router with wireless? Generally, you use a network in order to connect multiple computers/devices. I'm missing why you would want each computer on its own network by itself. – fixer1234 – 2014-11-29T04:45:58.200

This might be popular question. Many people have problems with setups like this. – Kamil – 2014-11-29T04:46:48.440

@fixer1234 There's a bit of a typo in the diagram, the top left router should be "Router 1" and bottom left "Router 2" I'll correct. Anyways, I live in a shared residence, so the network is actually a quite bit more complicated (and ugly), but the purpose of router 2 is to isolate my own network from the rest of the house (to keep out pesky room mates). The NAS is a common file sharing drive that everyone has access to. It's connected to a networked media player. – radian – 2014-11-30T16:45:46.120

Answers

Besides that you have two 192.168.1. networks - there is nothing wrong with your setup.

I guess you are using 3 routers for some reason.

I would recommend change your network like this:

enter image description here

So 1 is main router for 192.168.1.0 network, 2 and 3 are for 192.168.2.0 and 192.168.3.0 networks.

So you will have no duplicate sub-networks. Also - you have to realize that routers are devices with (at least) two IP addresses - one for WAN side, one for LAN side.

After you setup IP addresses like this - you can turn off NAT on router 2 and 3 and configure routing on Router 1 so every device in your home can access any other device.

Routing is not that scary. All you have to do is:

"Tell" your "Router 1" that to access 192.168.2.0 network it has to use to 192.168.1.2 router
"Tell" your "Router 1" that to access 192.168.3.0 network it has to use to 192.168.1.3 router

You don't have to set up routing on routers 2/3, because if some device ask for address outside router 2/3 - it will send it to Router 1 anyway. Only Router 1 has to know, that

192.168.2.x or 192.168.3.x are behind

192.168.1.2 or 192.168.1.3

Notice how I matched router 2 and 3 WAN and LAN addresses - it is for better "readability".

I will not help more with that, diffrent routers have diffrent admin panels. Maybe create new question and put my network idea there and ask "How can I configure routing in this network?" And don't foget to add router makes and models.

I hope I didnt messed up anything, I'm not good at networks ;)

Kamil

Posted 2014-11-29T02:55:52.770

Reputation: 2 524

Thanks for the details! Couple questions. I've read to bridge (correct term?) router networks, I need to disable DHCP and plug the cable from the upstream router into the LAN port of the downstream router. How does this differ from disabling NAT? Also, should have mentioned, but I'd like to keep Computer 2 on it's own network so I can keep out pesky room mates (see comment I added my post above). – radian – 2014-11-30T16:51:57.277

I don't know much about bridges, sorry. – Kamil – 2014-11-30T18:13:11.340

Since there is no blocking of access to the nas, use your routers vlan feature, and allow routing between the different networks (aka vlans). You'll probably have to access files using the nas' IP address rather than its hostname.

Justin Goldberg

Posted 2014-11-29T02:55:52.770

Reputation: 434