Connecting a 2Wire modem/router to another router

Question

I want to hook a Linksys router to my 2wire modem/router (2701HG-b) to share my Internet connection. I ran from an open port from the 2wire to the WAN port of the Linksys but it will not work.

I did this before with my cable modem to a router to my Linksys router. It worked then but not now. I read I can turn the 2 wire into a modem only but I need the 2wire wireless access also. IPCONFIG /ALL sees the 2wire with IP info as well as DHCP server/gateway.

Any ideas?

Answer 1

Do you want to use the 2wire as just a DSL modem or as your firewall/router? Its default configuration is as a firewall/router.

If you want to replace the 2wire with the linksys, using the 2wire as a passthrough-only DSL modem, you'll need to look up instructions on bridging it and have only the Linksys plugged into it. The 2wire will not be providing wireless, etc., it'll just be acting to translate from DSL to Ethernet (Bridging)

• Be sure you have your PPPoE login information - you may need to enter it on the Linksys
• Connect to the 2wire and configure it for bridging
• Disconnect from the 2wire
• Connect the WAN port of the Linksys to a LAN port on the 2wire
• Connect to the Linksys admin interface
• Configure it for a PPPoE Internet connection
• Connect other devices to the Linksys
• Put a piece of tape over the unused LAN ports of the 2wire

If you're happy with the 2wire as your firewall/router but want to use the Linksys as an additional access point (providing wireless signal in another area, perhaps), the setup is actually much simpler.

• Connect to the Linksys admin interface
• Give it an internal IP that won't conflict with the 2wire (e.g. .254 instead of .1)
• Disable DHCP on the Linksys (so you don't have 2 devices handing out DHCP addresses)
• Connect a LAN port on the Linksys to a LAN port on the 2wire
• Put a piece of tape over the WAN port of the Linksys

Answer 2

If you're looking to use a different, replacement router for fancier WiFi (a/b/g) and fancier ethernet (gigabit) than what the 2wire box provides, then you need to enable bridging as discussed in other answers.

For the 2wire 3700HGV-B (pdf) box I had, there is a semi-automatic way to do this.

1. Browse to 192.168.1.254 to get to the admin settings for the 2wire box. Go to Settings | System Info | Event Notifications and check enable detection of router behind router conditions. This setting is not on by default! Go ahead and reboot the 2wire box after checking that box and clicking save, just in case.

   

2. Connect an ethernet cable from the WAN port of your new-fancy router to a regular ethernet LAN port on the back of the 2wire box.

3. Wait for the 2wire reboot to complete. Now, while connected to the 2wire box (not to the new-fancy router!), attempt to navigate to any regular web page in your browser. You should get an interstitial page warning that the 2wire box has detected a router-behind-router condition, and asking if you want to set it up. To do so you will need the admin password, which is printed on the bottom of the 2wire box. Go ahead and let it do its thing.

4. The page will tell you to reboot your new-fancy router. Do so.

5. Everything should just work now; your new-fancy router is now in charge of everything on the network like giving out IPs via DHCP, routing traffic, firewalling, etcetera.

Behind the scenes, what it is doing is setting up a DMZ connection from the public IP directly to your new-fancy router, and disabling any internal firewalling for that route.

You can view this final configuration it set up for you on the Settings | Lan | IP Address Allocation page.

Note that you can continue to connect devices to the 2wire box LAN ports as well, such as AT&Ts video on demand box. In fact you'll have if you want to get to the 192.168.1.254 admin panel for the 2wire box.

Answer 3

Try resetting your Linksys router, you may have configured it for the cable specifically (with a fixed IP address).

Unplug any computers or other devices from the 2wire (except the router) and power cycle the 2wire. Make sure you have the 2wire ethernet going to the linksys WAN port (or just one of the ethernet ports if you want the 2wire to do all of the routing, in which case you'll need to turn dhcp and routing off in the linksys). Connect to the linsys router and configure it if necessary.

The 2wire modem could also be setup to only give out one IP, or only to a specific MAC address. Which is where the disconnecting comes in, in my statement above.

It also appears that the 2wire router you have, has a USB port, some routers do not work well (or at all) with both the USB port and ethernet ports in use.

Answer 4

I don't specifically have that model 2Wire model, but I have the 3700HG-V (used in AT&T U-Verse setups). The 2wire Homeportal units seem to detect and know when you're double-NATing (as the Homeportal has a router and Wi-FI AP built-in and your Linksys is one as well) and either warn you about the setup or flat out refuse to work.

I'm not sure if your unit has this, but setup your Linksys as Tyler instructed -- and head to the router's admin page (http://192.168.1.254 for me) and look for an option called DMZplus. This option passes your 2wire's external IP address to a MAC address of your choice (your Linksys router's WAN-side MAC address in this ase) -- so your Linksys router behaves as if it's attached directly without a router in between like your previous cable modem setup. (Technically, it's a layer 3 bridge that passes all incoming traffic to the assigned DMZplus host -- so it's not exactly like a direct modem connection, but pretty close)

This page will also let you control which of the attached devices get which IP (in your case, just the router's WAN-side should be attached to a LAN-side port on the Homeportal).

See if that helps!

EDIT : I missed the part where you said you needed the Homeportal's Wi-Fi capabilities -- in this case you could disable DHCP on your Linksys unit and not attach anything to the WAN port. This way, you can use your Linksys unit as a plain switch to attach multiple computers using the Homeportal's router capability. You can also just use the Homeportal as-is since it features four LAN-facing ports.

Answer 5

****Lan to Wan (Creating two networks)

1.Make sure the main(2wire router) router is working

2.Check the main router's default gateway.

3.Access 2nd (linksys router) router's ui.

4.Configure wireless settings (should be different from the main router's wireless settings)

5.Change the lan ip to 192.168.x.1 (depends on the main router's ip add)

6.Save settings.

7.Connect the 2 routers via ethernet to internet.****