Confused about IP Range on my 2nd router in bridge mode

[raksrules]

At my home, I have 2 routers...

1. iBall Baton iB-WRD12EN 1200M
2. ASUS Tmobile router (which is actually ASUS RT-AC68U)

The iBall is my primary router and ASUS is secondary. Both are connected with a LAN cable. I did this to extend my wifi to further corners of home.

If I want to access the iball router I connect to 192.168.1.1 (while being connected to either of wifis)and if I want to connect to the ASUS router I use 192.168.29.1 (while being connected to asus wifi only).

First question here, due to above configuration, are my both routers are In different subnet? Because for just trial, I installed jellyfin on my laptop and connected to iBall router and with my iPad connected to same router, I was able to enter jellyfin server as 192.168.1.xxx and I was able to access it.
But when I connected my iPad to ASUS router, and tried using same server, it didn't work (my laptop was still connected to iBall router).

Now is it safe for me to change the IP address in the LAN IP setup in my asus router to say 192.168.1.2 so this way doesn't matter which router any device is connected to, it will always have its IP as 192.168.1.xxx?
Will this create a conflict? And if no, will I be able to access the jellyfin server on my laptop (connected to iBall) router from say my iPad connected to ASUS router?

 

[mk76]

@vivek.krishnan

 

[vivek.krishnan]

Yes, both are in different subnets. Very easy fix however.

Set DHCP disabled

Manually set an IP for the ASUS in the 192.168.1.X series - i usually use 192.168.1.2

Connect the LAN cable to the LAN port of the ASUS router

Connect to wifi of the iBall and open the IP you have set and change WiFi to match what you need

 

[raksrules]

Yes, both are in different subnets. Very easy fix however.

Set DHCP disabled

Manually set an IP for the ASUS in the 192.168.1.X series - i usually use 192.168.1.2

Connect the LAN cable to the LAN port of the ASUS router

Connect to wifi of the iBall and open the IP you have set and change WiFi to match what you need

I think i found out something, check the pic. The ASUS router is operating in regular router mode as that is selected.

I guess I need to select the Access Point option as below (haven't saved yet and will try tomorrow)

[mention]vivek.krishnan [/mention]

Didn't get your last line. Open the primary router by connecting to 192.168.1.1 and then do what?

 

[vivek.krishnan]

Ah, I forgot ASUS comes with AP mode. That will do the trick! Been a very long time since I used ASUS

Some routers dont have the AP mode, so we manually set the IP, disable DHCP and use a router as a make shift access point.

 

[Marcus Fenix]

Connect the LAN cable to the LAN port of the ASUS router

Quick question-
Its should be iBall LAN to Asus WAN port right?

1: Connect iBall LAN port to Asus WAN port via Cat6 cable.
2: Login to iBall router (192.168.1.1), go to DHCP reservation page and find the Asus router. Then assign it to a static IP say 192.168.1.2
3: Disconnect and restart both routers to reset IP allocation
4: Login to Asus router (192.168.1.2) and set it up in AP mode and turn off DHCP allocation under LAN section on the left.

@vivek.krishnan did I miss anything?

 

[raksrules]

Quick question-
Its should be iBall LAN to Asus WAN port right?

1: Connect iBall LAN port to Asus WAN port via Cat6 cable.
2: Login to iBall router (192.168.1.1), go to DHCP reservation page and find the Asus router. Then assign it to a static IP say 192.168.1.2
3: Disconnect and restart both routers to reset IP allocation
4: Login to Asus router (192.168.1.2) and set it up in AP mode and turn off DHCP allocation under LAN section on the left.

@vivek.krishnan did I miss anything?

Yes iBall LAN to ASUS WAN is the connection currently. You are correct. Rest of the steps you told I will check.

 

[y2s]

I’d also recommend doing IP reservation on iball router for asus router. If you miss this step the dhcp server might assign the IP to another device that’s sure to cause issues.

 

[booo]

Okay, from what i understand so far, iBall router is in a subnet 192.168.1.0/24 (i.e., 1.0 ... 1.254) where as asus router is in 192.168.29.0/24 subnet.

Gateway for iBall router would be 192.168.1.1 and Gateway for Asus router would be 192.168.29.1

Now if you are connected to iBall router and trying to access any ip address in 192.168.29.0/24 subnet, iBall router doesnt know what to do. so you have to create a static route iBall to tell it that if it sees any address in 192.168.29.0/24 range, it should forward that to Asus gateway (192.168.29.1).
similarly, on Asus router you have to create static route to tell the asus router that if it sees any 192.168.1.0/24 address it should forward it to iBall gateway (192.168.1.1)

in linux we would use "ip route add via device" command. not sure how you would do that on iBall/Asus router.

on the other hand you could extend iBall's network address range from /24 to /16 and just run dhcp server only on iBall and make asus a dumb switch. changing it to /16 subnet will increase the range from 255 to 65536 addresses and keep the gateway to iBall router all times. but I am just talking in terms of vanilla linux and not router os.

 

[raksrules]

I’d also recommend doing IP reservation on iball router for asus router. If you miss this step the dhcp server might assign the IP to another device that’s sure to cause issues.

Yes seems here I have to do the address reservation in iBall router..

Thank you everyone that helped. I did exactly how I was told.

1. First manually assigned 192.168.1.2 in my iBall Router as static IP to my ASUS router.
2. Shut off my iBall router.
3. Went to ASUS router and turned on AP Mode so many router settings disappeared which I believe was because many of those settings are not applicable in AP mode.
4. ASUS asked me if it should take LAN IP automatically which is said NO and manually assigned 192.168.1.2 and turned off that router too.
5. Restarted both router and everything was working as expected.

One thing I noticed that now irrespective of what wifi I am connected, all the house wide devices that are connected show in both the routers.

Here is screenshot of my iBall router where it shows me list of devices connected. All the devices directly connected to the iBall router show whether they are connected to 2.4Ghz or 5Ghz frequency but the devices connected to ASUS show up as WIRED (like the Onida TV or my iPad) and traffic flow on the ASUS router always shows 0 KB/s. I don't mind it but just wondering.

I also verified the jellyfin server and it was perfectly accessible irrespective of the wifi I was connected to.

 

[john1911]

Asus AC68U is a very capable router. I think you should leave the routing to it (use it as the first device in your network) and use iBall as an access point.

AC68U still receives regular security updates and other optimization updates as well, another reason why you should use it as the first device in your network.

 

[raksrules]

Asus AC68U is a very capable router. I think you should leave the routing to it (use it as the first device in your network) and use iBall as an access point.

AC68U still receives regular security updates and other optimization updates as well, another reason why you should use it as the first device in your network.

I wanted to do that only. But for some reason, my local ISP could not configure that router as my primary and was giving me the iBall (for 2K rupees) as primary router so I bought the same myself from amazon for 999 rupees or so and he configured it as primary. I myself have used only AC68U while I was in US and it covered my 2 BHK apartment well but then it is US so we have cardboard walls so obviously it is expected to work better than in India where we have brick walls.

 

[john1911]

I'm sure people here can help you configure AC68U as the primary.

What type of connection are you using? I'm guessing an your ISP gives an Ethernet Cable to your house.

You can leave iBall connected and working, remove ASUS from the network, connect to ASUS separately from another device, open settings of both iBall and ASUS in different devices, see WAN settings from iBall and enter it exactly as is in WAN settings in ASUS, replace iBall with ASUS to see if it works or not. If it doesn't work, you can just connect iBall.

 

[raksrules]

I'm sure people here can help you configure AC68U as the primary.

What type of connection are you using? I'm guessing an your ISP gives an Ethernet Cable to your house.

You can leave iBall connected and working, remove ASUS from the network, connect to ASUS separately from another device, open settings of both iBall and ASUS in different devices, see WAN settings from iBall and enter it exactly as is in WAN settings in ASUS, replace iBall with ASUS to see if it works or not. If it doesn't work, you can just connect iBall.

There is MAC Address binding that needs to be done on ISP side to the router. Also I have Fiber coming in home to a small box and from that box, ethernet comes into the iBall router. Earlier it was Ethernet coming into iBall directly.

I am not very sure as now since I have the fiber box in between, is the MAC binding still happening with my iBall or not. Because if it is not, then I am guessing I can freely change the primary router from iBall to ASUS. Will need to ask ISP guy about this.

 

[Marcus Fenix]

There is MAC Address binding that needs to be done on ISP side to the router. Also I have Fiber coming in home to a small box and from that box, ethernet comes into the iBall router. Earlier it was Ethernet coming into iBall directly.

I am not very sure as now since I have the fiber box in between, is the MAC binding still happening with my iBall or not. Because if it is not, then I am guessing I can freely change the primary router from iBall to ASUS. Will need to ask ISP guy about this.

Its the same setup as any ISP fiber connection. You have to configure the public IP in the WAN settings of your router.

My ISP also has the MAC binding setup which is circumvented in Asus by cloning the MAC of any device. In your case you have to set the MAC of the iBall as the MAC of the Asus router. This setting is also found in the WAN page.

 

[john1911]

The ONU (fibre box) is in Bridge mode so you don't need to do anything to that.

iBall's MAC address is bound by the ISP.

ASUS has a MAC cloning feature where you'll need to enter iBall's MAC address and now your ISP won't be able to tell if you removed iBall and installed any other router.

 

[raksrules]

@john1911 @Marcus Fenix

You are right that ASUS does have a MAC Clone feature. I will definitely try that as soon as I find some downtime at home as internet is being used 24x7 (have a family member working night shift). Say if this does not work, can I just put the iBall back in original place and all will work? Also in my iBall router, the setting is like below screenshot, will it still work?

 

[john1911]

Say if this does not work, can I just put the iBall back in original place and all will work?

Yes, configure ASUS, switch everything off, swap iBall with ASUS, turn everything on. AC68U takes around 5 mins to boot. If it doesn't work, you can always place iBall in its original place.

Also in my iBall router, the setting is like below screenshot, will it still work?

Yes, you can configure PPPoE in WAN settings in ASUS.

 

[raksrules]

Ok let me try out soon.

But then I have one question, what benefit will I derive? Because I am not living in a mansion. It is a 1000 sq feet home and the 2 routers are anyways connected using a wire connection so even if I keep connection the way it is, things will still work fine right?

 

[Marcus Fenix]

Ok let me try out soon.

But then I have one question, what benefit will I derive? Because I am not living in a mansion. It is a 1000 sq feet home and the 2 routers are anyways connected using a wire connection so even if I keep connection the way it is, things will still work fine right?

Then no need to bother mate. Leave it be. I don't think your use case involves copying large chunks of data over wifi.